Our History...
AlbemarleFamily is dedicated to being "The Ultimate Resource Making Parenting Easier & Growing Up Fun" for families in Charlottesville-Albemarle publishing a weekly web site, weekly e-Newsletter, and monthly print publications. Our popular interactive web site was developed in 1997 by Creative Director, Robin Johnson and Technical Director, Peter Bethke of Spring Hollow Publishing and debuted in 1998. We publish weekly at www.AlbemarleFamily.com an extensive Calendar of Kids Events and Activities in the area, a comprehensive Guide to Family Services, a free Community Classifieds, and much more. The site now enjoys a terrific popularity with over 80,000 visitors and nearly a million hits each month and still growing! The 2000 census reported 28,000 parents in Charlottesville-Albemarle with children under 18.
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| Robin and Jen at the Press |
Along with the addition of partner, Jennifer Bryerton, as Managing Editor in 2000, we debuted our companion print publications, AlbemarleFamily Magazine and the AlbemarleFamily Directory. The AF Magazine is published monthly with engaging feature articles written especially for local families, highlights of our online Family Services Guide, local news and more! It has grown from a slim quarterly to a full color glossy magazine of more than 80 pages! The annual AlbemarleFamily Directory began circulation in winter of 2000 and features our unique AF Parenting Organizer and a comprehensive guide to local businesses and organizations that primarily serve businesses and families. Both publications reflect our trademark designs along with practical information for parents that has made the publications very popular with local families.
Our dedication to products that reach out to families to "Make Parenting Easier & Growing Up Fun! extends well into our commitment to community work. To reflect this, we developed the AlbemarleFamily Care Exhibits, which are hand-on art projects that engage local kids in sharing with others. In the year 2000, we raised over $4000 in cash and like donations for books and rocking chairs for UVAs Newborn Intensive Care Unit with the AlbemarleFamily Care Exhibit called The New Hope Millennium Project. We were also at Youve Got A Friend Day, to work with the children there to make our next Care Exhibit, a huge Thank You Mural that is being displayed around the state. Our biggest AlbemarleFamily Care Exhibit yet, a tactile Harry Potter Inspired Hippogriff Sculpture, was built at Foxfield Family Day and given to The Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton. Our special exhibits are also displayed in our unique online Kids Museum, and as evident by the letters and compliments weve received, have truly enriched the lives of local children.
While continuing our web and print publications as well as our community work, we also added the AF weekly e-Newsletter to our family of publications in 2001 and created a new Parent to Parent Department online. In following years, we've added many more sophisticated and interactive online features for both parents, kids, and professionals to our website, and continuing to help the United Way bring National Family Volunteer Day to Charlottesville, creating more AlbemarleFamily Care Exhibits, and of course publishing more exciting issues of the AF Living magazine and the Directory.
For more information click here to read our Press Release Library or call 434-984-4713.
