Wanda McGuinness and her husband, Louis, have lived in McLean since 1962 and have seen the community grow from a small, rural town to a rapidly growing city.
As perpetual scholars, especially since retiring, they enjoy taking the opportunity to learn more, so when the chance came to find out more about their community, they took it and were surprised by how much they didn't know.
"I had no idea there were so many resources available to us," Wanda McGuinness said, following the small graduation ceremony at the end of the McLean Neighborhood College at the Dolley Madison branch of the Fairfax County Public Library Friday morning.
"At first, I didn't know a lot of what's available," she said of the seemingly endless resources available in the county, many of which were highlighted and discussed during the four-week Neighborhood College program.
The college, attended by about 25 people during the Friday morning classes, was conducted by the Fairfax County Department of Systems Management for Human Services and was designed to help residents become more informed and, in turn, better citizens.
"We learned a lot about local government that we just didn't know," said Renata Dean, who attended with her husband, Richard Dean. "I had no idea how complicated our goverment is and how many people it takes to make things happen. There are so many departments and functions," she said.
"Everything is very complex," said Richard Dean. "The average person has a difficult time accessing information and putting it together. In this class, they put together a lot of information in the same format so it was easy to understand."
During each weekly session, the class would hear from a representative from various county offices, from Volunteer Fairfax to the Office of the Aging to the Dranesville District Supervisor, Joan DuBois. Students also had to prepare a three-minute presentation about a facet of the community or a service provided there that they had little knowledge of beforehand as a homework assignment.
Even members of government offices found out a thing or two.
Henri Stein-McCartney, a staff member at the county's Planning Commission Office, is a resident of Centreville and attended the college as a kind of spy to see how the program was organized, in the hopes that the Planning Commission could create a similar program.
"Land use is a hot topic right now and my boss thought it might be a good idea to see how the Neighborhood College was set up before we started our own outreach initiative," Stein-McCartney said.
Prior to the class, "I didn't know anything at all about McLean," she said. "This program is great for folks who live in the community to let them know what they have access to in their own area. I've seen the citizenry become so diverse that people need to go out and try to seek the information they need and that might make them feel confused about the county."
Programs like the Neighborhood College "give everyone an opportunity to learn about resources they wouldn't otherwise know about," she said.
Since 2001, the Neighborhood College program has been held at various places throughout Fairfax County, said Robin W. Patton, Regional Community Developer for Region III/North County with the Department of Systems Management for Human Services, which sponsors and organizes the program.
"We're trying to hold these programs in all parts of the county because informed citizens lead to stronger communities," she said. "Our overall goal is to build community leadership. We want to help people learn more about their local goverment and become more involved and prepared to take some initiative."
With classes restricted to about 25 students, the small groups are better able to discuss the topics presented and get new ideas from each other, Patton said.
The next Neighborhood College will be geared toward teenagers and will be held in Vienna this fall, she said. More information on the program is available by calling the Department of Systems Management for Human Services at 703-787-4962