The day the Eastern Market burned changed a lot of lives on Capitol Hill. The day after the Eastern Market burned changed another one … that of 35-year-old Jonathan Darr, originally from Texas but now very much a part of Capitol Hill’s vibrant community.

On that day, Darr was the executive director of the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, that amazing facility on Seventh Street SE that hosts classes, workshops, concerts, shows and displays covering the widest possible range of art in the neighborhood.

He had been at CHAW for nearly four years, ever since his partner, TC Duong, had been in a production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “Iolanthe” there. Darr volunteered to handle the box office chores for the production and found out just how amazing a place it was.

Jeffrey Watson, then the executive director, asked him if he’d take on front desk duties, so he decided to leave his higher paying job in the National Action Center of the National Organization for Women to become part of the scene at CHAW. Front desk duties gradually escalated, and soon he found himself the executive director.

Then on that fateful day, he attended the post-fire press conference where city officials announced the unprecedented commitment to restore the market and keep its service to life on the Hill intact.

Also attending was Martha Huizenga, the incoming president of the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals. After the conference, the two chatted for a while, sharing comments about the work of both agencies and observations about the strong sense of community that is unique to the Hill, which was being demonstrated by the nearly unanimous reaction of all of their neighbors to the crisis created by the fire at Eastern Market.

In the conversation, Huizenga mentioned that that they were looking for an executive director for CHAMPS. They chatted about the qualities she thought were important for whoever held the post and about the challenges she saw for the organization.

That night, as he thought over the events of the day, and bubbling with the enthusiasm over the entire community’s response to the crisis of the Eastern Market disaster, it occurred to him that the very qualities they’d discussed were those he thought he had, and the challenges they’d surveyed were those that excited him the most.

He also thought about the business community on the Hill, what he refers to as “the local merchants, nonprofits and organizations that make up the thriving micro-economy of Capitol Hill.” Now he says, “One thing that excites me the most is the depth of support for local businesses among the entire population. Everyone up here wants the local concerns to succeed and survive. The reaction to the Eastern Market crisis proves that.”

It seemed like a match.

Darr hadn’t been thinking of leaving CHAW, but as he thought through the situation at CHAW and the possibility of moving over to CHAMPS, he realized that the shift might be good for all concerned.

“It was the right time to leave CHAW – right for me and right for CHAW. Change is refreshing for both the person and the organization. I’d done a lot of things I was very proud of at CHAW, but many of my ‘new’ ideas were now becoming the ‘old views of the establishment’ – and I was becoming the establishment!”

The next day he called Huizenga and asked to explore the possibility of his becoming CHAMPS’ new executive director. That was the first week of May. By the last week of June, he officially became executive director of the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals.

CHAMPS’ new executive director grew up in Arlington, Texas – the town between Dallas and Fort Worth where the Dallas Cowboys have their headquarters. His mom, dad, sister and brother are all still there. He left to pursue a liberal arts degree with a concentration on gender studies and literature at New College of Florida in Sarasota.

“I became aware that my world in Texas was the absolute opposite of diversity,” he says, explaining both his choice of schools and his decision after graduation to move first to his home state’s capital, where he worked for an Austin-based AIDS service organization, and later to the nation’s capital, where he worked in the National Organization for Women’s National Action Center.

Darr has a number of initiatives that he hopes will benefit the membership of CHAMPS and the Hill at large:

• He wants to see CHAMPS be a force to bring people together, to foster networking and partnering in the expectation that joint efforts will strengthen the entire “micro-economy of the Hill.”
• He thinks CHAMPS should be involved in advocacy, “especially as the District government proceeds on issues such as the Small Business Commercial Property Tax and development of the Southeast Riverfront.”
• He would like to gather together people from the nonprofit member organizations so that they get to know each other and are able to spot the areas of common concern where they can help each other accomplish joint goals.

Overall, he wants to foster “the core value of community” throughout not only the activities of CHAMPS but throughout those cooperative activities CHAMPS participates in with other organizations and through member activities.

The challenges of leading first an arts organization like CHAW and then a business organization like CHAMPS have more in common than you might think, he says, adding, “It turns out that I have been fascinated by the business side of both endeavors. The common ingredient, however, is growth – both organizations have been and continue to be in the throws of great growth.

“This is both a challenge and an opportunity. It is something that makes getting up each morning exciting and working through the day a pleasure. Besides, I run into the same people on the streets, in the shops and at the meetings, and the people of the Hill are so interesting and so interested in local issues!”

For more information about CHAMPS, call 202-547-7788 or visit www.champsdc.org.