Metropolitan Richmond Day is one of those annual events that you either look forward to or you conclude: Been there, done that. Part of the mixed response lies in its purpose—to build trust and bridges in the community by sharing stories about potentially explosive topics such as race relations, socioeconomic factors, and education problems in our region.

If you’re interested in learning more about what makes a caring community tick, then attend this year’s Richmond History Makers event. The annual celebration on Oct. 20 will mark the fifth time Richmond has come together—under the big tent outside the Valentine Richmond History Center downtown TOM
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—to recognize grassroots leaders responsible for making our community a better place to live.

One of the riskiest actions any organization can take is to change a winning formula. You better have a good reason. With full appreciation of the risk, Leadership Metro Richmond threw an unprecedented challenge at its 2009 Quest class: Pick important issues in the community. Form teams to examine them. Propose solutions or programs to launch actions. Commit to seeing them last.

Efforts to give Richmond’s suburbs a bigger say in the operation of regional toll roads and parking lots are dead for the year.

Last year, 49,011 households in Virginia were in danger of losing their homes, up 201 percent from a year earlier, according to a report released today by RealtyTrac. In all, 1.5 percent of all households in the state received at least one foreclosure filing, less than the national rate of 1.8 percent, the online researcher of foreclosures reported.

Volunteers developing a Cultural Action Plan for the Greater Richmond Region invite the public to speak at four meetings next week. “We want the public to come forward and ask questions or offer thoughts on what we’re doing,“ said John Bryan, president of the Arts Council. “We want to provide a platform for everyone.“ The community meetings will be:

The Richmond region has one of the lowest unemployment rates among the country’s largest metro areas, but the rate jumped 56 percent in November compared with the same month in 2007.