It’s the holiday season, and that means holiday parties, happy hours, and celebrations of all kinds!

As festive and fun as these events can be, this time of year is one of the highest-risk times for drunk driving incidents. We care about all of our customers and followers and want to be sure that you’re informed on how to get a safe ride home!

SoberRide is a free taxi ride program that is provided by the Washington Regional Alcohol Program. It provides a safe way home for impaired drivers during some of the times of the year with the highest risks of drunk driving incidents. All taxi rides are free up to $30, and passengers are responsible for the difference if the fare is over $30.

This service is offered to callers with phone numbers that have a Virginia, Maryland, or Washington, DC, area code.

Also, you must be calling for a pickup in the following areas:

• Washington, DC
  • Anywhere in the city
• Maryland
  • Montgomery County
  • Prince George’s County
• Virginia
  • Arlington
  • Fairfax
  • Prince William County
  • Eastern Loudoun County

The Washington Regional Alcohol Program was founded in 1982, and they have been working ever since to prevent drunk driving and underage drinking in our Washington DMV area! Their SoberRide program has been going since 1993, and they have provided more than 50,000 FREE cab rides home since then!

To request a cab, call (703) 540-4838!

For more information about WRAP and its SoberRide program, visit https://dc.about.com/od/transportation/a/SoberRide.htm!

The holiday season is one of the most magical times of the year. Families decorate their homes and spend time with loved ones. For some of our nation’s bravest and greatest warriors, their holidays are spent in military hospitals recovering from their injuries and illnesses.

To break up the monotony of daily hospital life and endless doctor’s appointments, the USO at Walter Reed hosts a holiday gift-giving event where companies from all over the area come in with gifts for the warriors in treatment.

F.H. Furr partnered with Serve Our Willing Warriors (SOWW) to participate in this year’s event and our Cares team was happy to join forces with them to go to the event! We loaded up a moving truck with over 120 blankets, 30 coffee sets, 60 SOWW ornaments, 100 hand-packaged packs of candy, homemade cookies, brownies, and other desserts, and we even took over 60 gift cards.

Warriors from all over were incredibly thankful for the gifts they received from SOWW as well as all of the other organizations that participated in the day’s event. They were loaded up with goodies before they left and even for just a few hours, they felt like life was back to normal again.

The Grinch was there to greet all the children as they came in, and on the other side of the room in an elaborate setup including a sleigh, was Santa Claus! The pure joy in the faces of the children was perfection.

It was an incredible honor to participate in such an amazing event and F.H. Furr was humbled to be a part of it. Any time there’s an opportunity for us to give back to those who have given so much to protect our country and way of life, F.H. Furr does our best to take part in it.

Learn more about SOWW and their mission.

Each year, F.H. Furr leads the charge in the community to help Volunteer Prince William collect clean, gently used, or new, warm coats to deliver to needy children.

Here are a couple of ways that you can get involved:

• You can get a $46 HVAC Multi-Point Maintenance Inspection! F.H. Furr will perform a maintenance inspection at a discounted price, AND for each inspection booked, we’ll donate $10 to Volunteer Prince William for the purchase of a new coat for a child in need! Find out more here!

• Donate a coat! These dropoff locations are accepting new or gently used coats from now until December 15:

  • Volunteer Prince William

    •  9248 Center Street, Manassas, VA 20110

  • Prince William Library Branches

    • Chinn Park, Bull Run, Central, Potomac, Montclair, Haymarket-Gainesville

  • United Bank Locations

    • 10830 Balls Ford Road, Manassas, VA 20109
    • 9872 Liberia Avenue, Manassas, VA 20110
    • 2030 Old Bridge Road, Lake Ridge, VA 22192
    • 17054 Jeff David Highway, Dumfries, VA 22026

  • Attic Treasures & Sew Easy Sewing

    • 203 Washington Street, Occoquan, VA 22125

F.H. Furr and Volunteer Prince William will be sure that all coats donated will make it into the hands of children who need them! Let’s keep our most precious gifts warm this season!

Friday Night Lights are one of the most exciting things that high school students look forward to. Whether it’s because they’re a football player, cheerleader, marching band or just going to watch the game – it’s something most high school students get excited about during the Fall.

Friday, October 28th was JUST that for the McLean Highlanders as they celebrated Homecoming! After a week of fun leading up to the game, the entire school was ready! They had themes each day! Monday Martian Spirit Day, Tiki Tuesday, Scholars v. Ballers Wednesday, Throwback Thursday and Class Color Friday! Their pep rally revved everyone up so they were ready to go for the game!

Friday night at Basil Harless Memorial Stadium, the Highlanders were up against the Fairfax Rebels and while they were down at halftime, the school’s State Champion Marching Band, Color Guard and dance team put on quite the show! All four grades had representation in the Homecoming Court including the Princes & Princesses, right up to the Senior King and Queen! Thankfully, the Highlanders came out of halftime with their game faces on and rallied to come back and beat the Rebels with a final score of 28-20!

Our Cares team debuted our brand new spirit sunglasses and they were a hit! We also took our new Plumbing Plinko game and everyone that played had a great time!

Here are a few pictures from the great night celebrating McLean’s Homecoming:

Did you know that F.H. Furr donates 10% of its profits to charities, local organizations, and schools? Our League Sponsorship of Ashburn Youth Football League is an example of JUST that!

For their 2016-17 season, we have signed on to be a League Sponsor and support the kids who participate in their programs including flag and tackle football, and even their cheerleaders!

We recently went to a couple of games on Saturday, October 15th, and the kids were having so much fun! Their mission is “Winning is important… But developing character, sportsmanship, and teamwork for all our youth is our primary mission.” They were doing a great job of this, and the kids were having a great time!

Here are a few pictures to check out!

Here are a few interesting facts about the Ashburn Youth Football League:

• The league was started in 2000 and is proudly in its 16th season!
• They are supported by a large family of athletes and parents.
• Currently they are raising funds for an AYFL family that recently lost their mother to cancer. The day we went to watch some games, they were having a bake sale to collect donations for the family!
• In addition to football, they have a cheerleading league and even a Summer cheer camp!
• Their seasons are all year long including a flag football season!

On Thursday, October 13th, Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS) recently had their annual “Empty Bowls” event to raise money for their SERVE food bank — and it was quite the success! The Manassas Church of the Brethren was packed for the event!

VFS hosted the event to educate the community about hunger in our area. Currently, each year, 8,000 people receive emergency food, nutrition, education and budgeting assistance from the Hunger Resource Center here in Manassas, VA. On top of that, 32,000 people in the Greater Prince William area are at-risk for hunger.

Each adult ticket was purchased at a cost of $20 and that money covered the cost for SERVE to buy more than 100 pounds of food! All food served at the event was donated by local restaurants. Volunteers were on hand to pass out the dishes for the night including soup and bread.

Bowls were all handmade and donated by members of our community. Each person that came to the event took one (or more) of the bowls home at the end of the event!

You can learn more about Northern Virginia Family Service, HERE!

If you asked the members of our Cares team what their favorite events are to work, they would tell you that’s an easy decision. Any event involving kids. This past Saturday was one of those favorite events.

We had the pleasure of going to TOPSoccer in Vint Hill on Saturday, Oct. 8. The organization is a community-based training and team placement program for young athletes with disabilities, organized by youth soccer association volunteers.

Their program is designed to bring the opportunity of learning and playing soccer to any child who has a mental or physical disability. The goal is to enable the thousands of young athletes with disabilities to become valued and successful members of the U.S. Youth Soccer family.

This particular group comprises 50 athletes from Prince William and Fauquier counties. The program leaders are really happy to have a large group like this because, usually, such programs only have around eight to 10 participants. Needless to say, they’re very proud of their numbers.

Each Saturday, the kids come in and there are two programs: one for kids who can complete drills and the second for kids who can’t do a full hour of drills. There’s a program for every level of player, no matter their disability. When you enter the arena, you can tell who everyone is. Players wear light blue shirts, volunteers wear yellow, and certified volunteers wear navy and white polos. 

TOPSoccer needs just as many volunteers as they have kids because each player gets a volunteer assigned to them for the day. Volunteers are based on different levels of skill, as they need to be certified to work with players who have more severe levels of disability.

It was our pleasure to make a donation to the Piedmont chapter of TOPSoccer. The kids loved their backpacks stuffed with F.H. Furr goodies.

Sunny, Sunday morning? Check.

Free admission? Check.

Food, music, and vendors? CHECK!

The 49th Annual Clifton Day was on Sunday, October 9th, 2016, and what a great day it was!

Our F.H. Furr Cares team was on hand, and we were the official sponsor of the Kid’s Zone! There were games, music, food, face painting, and even the Unicycle Lady!

The festival was an all-day event that was free to the public, and visitors could even ride the VRE train to the event! Numerous vendors were set up with great food, as well as antiques and crafts. Local businesses were represented all over the grounds!

There was even a Civil War reenactment, and if you haven’t been to one, do yourself a favor and GO!

Here are a couple more photos from our time at the Clifton Day event!

When it’s almost time for Fall that means chilly mornings and sunny afternoons, which for many people means a perfect day for golf! That’s just what our F.H. Furr Cares team got to enjoy on Tuesday, September 20th as the Title Sponsor of the David’s Hope Golf Tournament!

Our day started at the Piedmont Club in Haymarket withDuck Donuts for breakfast as the golfers came in to register! Our Cares team was on hand to greet everyone as they came in! Our prize wheel was out and the Preferred Partner Plans were flying, along with our frisbees! (Not sure what our Preferred Partner Plan is? Check it out here!)

Around 9AM, the golfers were all set up and ready to go! Some had scores well above their normal, some didn’t care what their game looked like – they were there to have fun! And that’s exactly what they did!

Once they were done with the course, the golfers all came in for lunch and it was quite the spread! BBQ chicken, steak, potato salad, coleslaw… Queue mouth watering NOW! Then it was on to the awards ceremony including prizes and raffles. One of the biggest ticket items they had was a four pack of Diamond Club Washington Nationals tickets, donated by F.H. Furr!

David’s Hope is a non-profit organization that partners with a local Kenyan organization to build long-term, self-sustainable solutions for the educational, medicinal and spiritual needs of Eburru, Kenya.  The charity raised quite a bit for their upcoming trip to Kenya!

It was a wonderful day on the course for everyone!