Every day is children’s day
Wednesday, April 29 — It’s Cathy from Rough Draft with my weekly newsletter on Dunwoody. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve set a record this spring toggling my heat/air conditioning button. It’s Tuesday and winter as I write this. Who knows about tomorrow?
Here are a few newsy items before we begin.
🍔 The Final Burger Benefit takes place on May 3 at NFA Burger, featuring renowned chefs to raise money for Giving Kitchen. Tickets, offering a unique “chef-driven” menu in addition to NFA Burger’s famous smash burgers, can be purchased through Eventbrite.
🗳 Early voting begins this week across Georgia for the May 19 primary election. See where to cast your ballot in advance and check your voting status before you head to the polls.
🤰🏽Now that Lemonade Days is in the rear-view mirror, we can all get geared up for the Dunwoody Art Festival on the most important holiday weekend of the year, Mother’s Day, to be held on Dunwoody Village Parkway.
And now, onto this week’s recap.
Cathy
🐾 The Midtown Mutt Gala returns this Sun., May 3 from 2-5 p.m. for an afternoon of fashionable pups, music, vendors, and a doggy red carpet complete with Pawpurazzi! Costume contest entries are closed, but this event is free for spectators. Learn more here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
The Dunwoody Strong campaign
💊 It started with the 2024 fentanyl overdose death of Dunwoody High School student Mia Dieguez during school hours. It sparked the actions of a student and a group of parents who are rolling out an unconventional campaign to ensure that Dieguez’s death was not in vain.
Mady Cohen, now a senior at DHS, said she felt the community was “looking to the high school” on how to prevent a similar tragedy. Cohen started Mady’s Narcan Project to provide Naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, to every classroom and common area on campus.
A group of parents felt the same sense of helplessness after Dieguez’s death in May 2024, followed by another nearly fatal drug overdose in August of the same year. In 2025, they formed Dunwoody Strong, a parent volunteer organization focused on empowering the community with “the knowledge and tools to prevent substance misuse, promote mental and emotional health, and foster a supportive environment.”
📽️ I spent nearly two months talking to parents, administrators, students, and police officials to gather the information for this story. Read about Dunwoody Strong’s efforts here and watch a summary video here.
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City Council grapples with vape regulations
🚬 During a public hearing on April 27, Dunwoody City Council members had a wide-ranging discussion on the merits of an ordinance regulating vape shops within the city.
The measure would define the areas wherein vape shops would be permitted and put parameters around what would constitute a vape shop, either with 25% or more of its total products sold being vape-related, or 25% of its interior space used for vape-related sales.
Several council members questioned the legality of the ordinance and whether or not it would “have teeth” as written (my phrase, not theirs – I have apparently run out of words today).
⁉️ Read more about the meeting here.
Ziffer visits DHA amid school-closure discussions
🍏 Andrew Ziffer, the District 1 representative on the DeKalb County School District, told attendees at the Dunwoody Homeowners Association that the message he is hearing from his constituents is that they want clarity about school-closing decisions.
DeKalb’s Student Assignment Project (SAP), launched in 2025, has, as its goal, to maximize resources, ensuring long-term academic sustainability for students, families, and DCSD staff with the closure or consolidation of dozens of schools over the next six to eight years.
In District 1, the tentative plan calls for the conversion of highly rated Vanderlyn Elementary to an annex for Dunwoody High School, the closure of Kingsley Elementary and Ashford Park Elementary schools, and the expansion of Chesnut Elementary. Parents in the Dunwoody, Chamblee, Brookhaven, and Doraville areas have decried the changes, saying that high-achieving schools should factor in the closure decisions.
“I am the lucky owner of one of the most vocal communities,” Ziffer said of his post. “I enjoy it because we actually know what’s going on, and there are a lot of communities where we are trying to pull, and we get nothing from, and we don’t know how to manage that.”
🐾 The Midtown Mutt Gala returns this Sun., May 3 from 2-5 p.m. for an afternoon of fashionable pups, music, vendors, and a doggy red carpet complete with Pawpurazzi! Costume contest entries are closed, but this event is free for spectators. Learn more here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
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A welcome ‘Return’
↩️ Dunwoody’s Spruill Gallery announces “Returns,” a group exhibition opening May 7 featuring muralist Charity Hamidullah, alongside emerging Atlanta artists Sayma Hossain and Masela Nkolo.
“Returns” is a Spruill Gallery tradition launched in 2025 that invites artists from the gallery’s public art program to bring their work indoors.
Hamidullah’s mural, “Big Hug,” was featured on the gallery’s historic Smoke House from October 2023 to October 2024 as part of Spruill’s AMPLIFY public art initiative.
