A real splash/Marlei Wyatt-Bey, 5, gingerly enjoys the splash pad Wednesday at Battery Park Pool on Dupont Circle in North Side. The youngster was visiting the pool with her camp group on a day when temperatures reached the 80s in Richmond.

Cityscape: Slices of life and scenes in Richmond: Richmond residents gather outside the refurbished Annie Marie Giles Community Resource & Training Center in Shockoe Valley for the grand reopening celebration last Saturday. Born as a school and used for several years as a homeless shelter, the building is now to host programs that benefit residents in the East View community and the Whitcomb and Mosby public housing communities located on the hills above Shockoe Valley.

Cityscape: Slices of life and scenes in Richmond: Richmond residents gather outside the refurbished Annie Marie Giles Community Resource & Training Center in Shockoe Valley for the grand reopening celebration last Saturday. Born as a school and used for several years as a homeless shelter, the building is now to host programs that benefit residents in the East View community and the Whitcomb and Mosby public housing communities located on the hills above Shockoe Valley. The celebration included a job fair inside a community room where homeless people once slept.

Cityscape: Slices of life and scenes in Richmond:Above left, Richmond residents gather outside the refurbished Annie Marie Giles Community Resource & Training Center in Shockoe Valley for the grand reopening celebration last Saturday. Born as a school and used for several years as a homeless shelter, the building is now to host programs that benefit residents in the East View community and the Whitcomb and Mosby public housing communities located on the hills above Shockoe Valley. Florence Smith, the eldest daughter of the late Mrs. Giles, gives City Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson a hug for her work to provide a center of which Mrs. Giles would be proud. Ms. Robertson led the charge to get the city to purchase the building, to name the center for the late Mrs. Giles, an influential Whitcomb Court resident who was an organizer and activist for residents, and to use the center for operations that would provide job training and other services.

Big serve in Highland Park/The late tennis star, humanitarian and Richmond native Arthur Ashe Jr. is depicted serving in this new mural. Location: Boaz & Ruth headquarters, 3030 Meadowbridge Road, on the building’s northwest side facing Giles Avenue. Kyle Holbrook, a Pittsburgh-based artist and filmmaker, created the mural July 28 as part of his work to install the images of African-American greats on buildings across the country. He and the artists he recruits are completing the project through a nonprofit, Moving the Lives of Kids Community Mural Project, or MLK Murals, that he founded in 2002. His purpose: To beautify, educate and empower through art. Richmond is among the 56 cities in the United States and overseas that now have one or more MLK Murals.

A purple bloom in the West End

Getting ready for school/The Broad Rock Sports Complex on Old Warwick Road in South Side became a festival of sorts last Saturday as the venue for RPS Summer Fest. The event, sponsored by Richmond Public Schools, featured games, entertainment, food and information on how to enroll students in school this fall along with other community resources. Barber Alonzo Bosher trims the braids of Tyler Sims, 5, as he gets ready for class in September. This was the second Summer Fest hosted by the school system. The first was held July 24 at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

Getting ready for school/The Broad Rock Sports Complex on Old Warwick Road in South Side became a festival of sorts last Saturday as the venue for RPS Summer Fest. The event, sponsored by Richmond Public Schools, featured games, entertainment, food and information on how to enroll students in school this fall along with other community resources. Barber Alonzo Bosher trims the braids of Tyler Sims, 5, as he gets ready for class in September. This was the second Summer Fest hosted by the school system. The first was held July 24 at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

Honoring a Buffalo Soldier/Descendants of Moses Bradford Jr. of Henrico County, a Buffalo Soldier who served in the 25th Infantry during the Spanish-American War, place a wreath on his grave during a twilight memorial service at the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery near Bandy Field in Henrico County on July 28. The family members, from left, Diane Winston Jones, Linda Truman Nash and Spencer Truman, participated in the local commemoration on National Buffalo Soldiers Day, which honors the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the U.S. military. The commemoration included a three-volley salute by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9808 in Mechanicsville, and a flag presentation, below, by Najiek Harris, 15, left, and Christian Hicks, 13, of Scout Troop 432 in Church Hill. Pvt. Bradford, who fought during the Battle of El Caney in Cuba on July 1, 1898, suffered a heat stroke while in Cuba and was returned home as a casualty of war. He was honorably discharged from the military in 1899, and went on to live to the age of 55, succumbing in 1925. His government-issued gravestone is one of only two left in the historic African-American cemetery that is located on an acre of land purchased by the Ham Council in 1873 and now is listed with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Honoring a Buffalo Soldier/Descendants of Moses Bradford Jr. of Henrico County, a Buffalo Soldier who served in the 25th Infantry during the Spanish-American War, place a wreath on his grave during a twilight memorial service at the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery near Bandy Field in Henrico County on July 28. The family members, from left, Diane Winston Jones, Linda Truman Nash and Spencer Truman, participated in the local commemoration on National Buffalo Soldiers Day, which honors the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the U.S. military. The commemoration included a three-volley salute by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9808 in Mechanicsville, and a flag presentation, below, by Najiek Harris, 15, left, and Christian Hicks, 13, of Scout Troop 432 in Church Hill. Pvt. Bradford, who fought during the Battle of El Caney in Cuba on July 1, 1898, suffered a heat stroke while in Cuba and was returned home as a casualty of war. He was honorably discharged from the military in 1899, and went on to live to the age of 55, succumbing in 1925. His government-issued gravestone is one of only two left in the historic African-American cemetery that is located on an acre of land purchased by the Ham Council in 1873 and now is listed with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Honoring a Buffalo Soldier/Descendants of Moses Bradford Jr. of Henrico County, a Buffalo Soldier who served in the 25th Infantry during the Spanish-American War, place a wreath on his grave during a twilight memorial service at the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery near Bandy Field in Henrico County on July 28. The family members, from left, Diane Winston Jones, Linda Truman Nash and Spencer Truman, participated in the local commemoration on National Buffalo Soldiers Day, which honors the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the U.S. military. The commemoration included a three-volley salute by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9808 in Mechanicsville, and a flag presentation, below, by Najiek Harris, 15, left, and Christian Hicks, 13, of Scout Troop 432 in Church Hill. Pvt. Bradford, who fought during the Battle of El Caney in Cuba on July 1, 1898, suffered a heat stroke while in Cuba and was returned home as a casualty of war. He was honorably discharged from the military in 1899, and went on to live to the age of 55, succumbing in 1925. His government-issued gravestone is one of only two left in the historic African-American cemetery that is located on an acre of land purchased by the Ham Council in 1873 and now is listed with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Honoring a Buffalo Soldier/Descendants of Moses Bradford Jr. of Henrico County, a Buffalo Soldier who served in the 25th Infantry during the Spanish-American War, place a wreath on his grave during a twilight memorial service at the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery near Bandy Field in Henrico County on July 28. The family members, from left, Diane Winston Jones, Linda Truman Nash and Spencer Truman, participated in the local commemoration on National Buffalo Soldiers Day, which honors the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the U.S. military. The commemoration included a three-volley salute by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9808 in Mechanicsville, and a flag presentation, below, by Najiek Harris, 15, left, and Christian Hicks, 13, of Scout Troop 432 in Church Hill. Pvt. Bradford, who fought during the Battle of El Caney in Cuba on July 1, 1898, suffered a heat stroke while in Cuba and was returned home as a casualty of war. He was honorably discharged from the military in 1899, and went on to live to the age of 55, succumbing in 1925. His government-issued gravestone is one of only two left in the historic African-American cemetery that is located on an acre of land purchased by the Ham Council in 1873 and now is listed with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.