🚗 A Car Club Has Given $100,000 to 70 Montgomery County Charities

🎗️ Five New Names Join Canopy as the Cancer Center Turns Ten

🏛️ Conroe Hands Its Top Job to the Man Who Was Already Doing It

🤸 Gymboree Is Back, Opened by Two Parents Who Noticed It Was Gone

🥵 Mostly Sunny · 101°F / 77°F

Humidity up to 94%. Wind topping out around 8 mph. Rain chance: zero.

Start outside early or wait until dark, and check on the neighbors who will not ask.

Source: Vaisala Xweather

Sunday morning at six, while most of Market Street is still dark, the parking lot starts filling up with cars people have spent years working on. The Woodlands Car Club and a crowd of area auto enthusiasts do this on the first Sunday of every month, and they keep at it until ten.

The gathering has a job beyond the sheet metal. Since 2009, this one event has collected and donated more than $100,000 to over 70 local charities.

The money moves in the least glamorous way imaginable. Organizers take coins, loose change, cash, or a card, and it all goes into Market Street's Change for Charities program, which supports four or more Montgomery County nonprofits every year. The donations are presented after each quarter closes, handed over alongside the money Market Street collects from its own parking meters.

The organizers describe the purpose plainly: show off special vehicles, be a good partner to Market Street and the neighborhood around it, put information about local nonprofits in front of people who might not otherwise see it, and give money away. Their stated mission is using their cars to give back to their community.

The next one is this Sunday, six to ten in the morning, in the lot at Market Street on Six Pines.

Why it matters: a hobby that could easily have stayed a hobby has quietly turned into one of the longest-running giving habits in Montgomery County.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online · Market Street

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Canopy Cancer Survivorship Center is marking ten years by adding five people to its Advisory Council: Dr. Andrew Jackson of Texas Oncology, Kristy A. Walker of ExxonMobil, Leslie Blix of The Only Facial and Sam Houston State University, Missy Herndon of Interfaith of The Woodlands and Interfaith Community Clinic, and Nick Colvin of i.e. Smart Systems.

Two of them arrive carrying something personal. Herndon co-founded HOPE: The Will Herndon Research Fund after her son was diagnosed with Juvenile Batten Disease, and her advocacy helped push a treatment into FDA-approved clinical trials. Blix has watched cancer move through her own family: her mother survived melanoma, her father died after a fight with prostate cancer, and her aunt is fighting melanoma now.

Linda Nelson, who directs Canopy and serves as Director of Business Development and Marketing at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center, said the council members were chosen because their commitment to the community lines up with what Canopy is trying to do.

Canopy opened in 2016 and now runs more than 45 programs and services, including counseling, nutrition, exercise, support groups, integrative therapies, and survivorship education. All of it is free, and none of it depends on where a patient receives treatment.

Why it matters: five people with real reasons to care just took on responsibility for a place that has spent a decade being free to anyone who walks in.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online | Hello Woodlands

Conroe City Council voted unanimously on July 23 to make David Willard the city administrator, moving him out of the interim role he had been filling since June. He becomes a city employee on August 10 at an annual salary of $325,000.

Human Resources Director Andre Houser said the city checked its usual benchmark cities plus other Texas cities above 50,000 people. Among benchmark cities with more than 75,000 residents, the average city manager salary came in at $322,750.

Willard takes the job without an employment contract or a severance agreement, as an at-will employee. His package includes phone and vehicle allowances, contributions to the Texas Municipal Retirement System, and standard sick leave and vacation. He is skipping the city health plan, with Conroe reimbursing an existing supplemental policy instead.

He has been a city manager in Longview and Borger, an assistant city manager in Odessa, and a Hutchinson County judge. Mayor Duke Coon thanked him for stepping forward at a point when the city needed clear leadership. The seat opened when City Administrator Gary Scott and Deputy City Administrator Nancy Mikeska both retired on May 13.

Why it matters: Conroe's top administrative job is settled, and the man in it took it without a contract or a severance clause on either side.

Source/Credits: Community Impact

Tosin Fatusin and Amber Harris found Gymboree Play and Music the way most parents do, at somebody else's birthday party, at the Post Oak location. Later they realized there was no longer one serving The Woodlands area, and instead of driving to Houston they applied to run their own.

Their location at 26435 Kuykendahl Road, Suite 150, is open now, with the official grand opening set for August 21.

Fatusin said the goal was never just a children's enrichment center. They wanted somewhere kids find out what they are capable of through play, while the adults standing around the edges find some encouragement and company of their own. They picked a busy spot on purpose, so it could become a normal part of the week rather than a special trip.

Classes run from birth through age six and cover play, music, art, sports, and school skills. There are sensory classes for infants, crawling and motor classes from six to fourteen months, and social and communication classes from sixteen to twenty-four months. Open gym, birthday parties, and camps between one and six hours are also on the schedule, and a monthly membership covers unlimited open gym.

Why it matters: two people noticed a gap in their own week and filled it, which is how most of the good stuff around here starts.

Source/Credits: Community Impact

🏛️ The first four homes at Marble Creek are finished: Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County completed four houses on its new 81-acre Magnolia site in under a month, three of them built by LGI Homes in five days, with the first two dedicated to Elizabeth, a teacher in Magnolia ISD's ABLE program, and Nettaya, both local mothers. Read more in Woodlands Online

🤝 A free fishing tournament for kids turns 35: The Woodlands Kiwanis Club opens its Kids Fish Festival at Creekwood Park on September 5, free for ages 2 to 16, with bait provided and volunteers on hand, though you bring your own rod. Read more in Woodlands Online

🍽️ Five courses and a Duckhorn progression on Lake Conroe: Margaritaville Lake Resort's Uncorked Fridays series pairs wagyu, lobster, and truffle ravioli with five Duckhorn wines on August 21 at $165 per person. Read more in Woodlands Online

🗓️ Meet an Opera Singer | The Woodlands Children's Museum | 11:00 a.m. | $10 for adults and children 1 and older | More info

🗓️ Casual Carats Jewelry Trunk Show | Robichau's Jewelry | 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. | More info

🗓️ Pencil and Apple Bath Bomb Workshop | Magnolia Ritual Apothecary | 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. | $10 | More info

🗓️ Christmas in July Swag Class | Picket Fences Home Decor | More info

🗓️ Rock the Row featuring Nervous Rex | Hughes Landing | 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. | More info

🗓️ The Pussycat Dolls PCD FOREVER Tour with Lil' Kim and Mýa | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion | More info

🗓️ The Eagle Community Blood Drive | Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital | More info

🗓️ Parent's Night Out | Woodlands Sportsplex | 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. | $25 per child | More info

🗓️ Lost in Hollywood, a System of a Down tribute | Sawyer Park Icehouse | Free | More info

🗓️ Photoshop 101 Class | Precision Camera | More info

🗓️ Cars and Coffee for a Cause | Market Street, 9595 Six Pines Drive | 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. | More info

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When the Village of Grogan's Mill opened as the very first village in 1974, fewer than 40 families lived in Settler's Corner. Everybody in town could have fit in one good-sized church hall.

"He's double-backboned." Translation: brave. One spine was not going to be enough for that fellow.

Whoever taught the very first teacher did not have a teacher.

What do you call a sleeping dinosaur? A dino-snore.