Lila's First Day at VCU

Monday 17 August 2026 · Richmond, Virginia · two schedules, ninety minutes together

Check before you rely on it

Airbnb address is unconfirmed. The brief says 3126 Floyd Ave; Sarah gave 1326 Floyd Ave. Both are real addresses in the Fan, about 1.5 mi apart. 1326 is used throughout as the later statement — confirm against the booking.

The VCUCard gates the shirt. Shirt pickup requires the card; the card office is walk-ins only 8:30–4:30; the shirt window is 10–12 and does not reopen. That ordering is the only reason the day starts at 8:30. Fallback: the dress code says any black VCU shirt.

RSVP in RamsConnect for the commuter meet-up — the one thing here that wants doing in advance.

Lila — her own schedule

8:30–9:30a

Get her VCUCard

📍 701 W Broad St, Box 843069, Richmond, VA 23220
Walk-ins only, Mon–Fri 8:30a–4:30p

The 10:00 shirt pickup says *be sure to have your VCUCard*, and the card office is walk-ins only, Mon–Fri 8:30a–4:30p.

Facilities Administration Building, 701 W Broad St · 804-827-2273 (CARD)

Submit the photo online first and this is quick. Do the whole thing in person and it is not — which is why 8:30 rather than 9:45.

Honest note: this is an early start for her. The card office is open all week, so the ONLY reason it has to be today is the shirt window, which is Monday 10–12 and never again. If she would rather sleep, the fallback is buying any black VCU shirt at the bookstore — the dress code says *any* black VCU shirt, not specifically the orientation one.

10:00a–12:00p

Pick up the black convocation shirt

📍 907 Floyd Ave, Richmond, VA 23284
Shirt pickup Mon 8/17 only, 10:00a–12:00p

University Student Commons, 907 Floyd Ave. Monday 10:00a–12:00p, and that is the whole window — it does not reopen.

BRING THE VCUCARD. Stated requirement, hence the 8:30 errand.

Only needed if she missed the shirt at summer orientation or attended a virtual session. If she already has it, skip both this and the card run and sleep in.

Then straight to lunch — the cafe is a ten-minute walk from here.

2:00–2:30p

Transfer & Commuter Student Meet-Up

📍 W Franklin St between Belvidere and Shafer, Richmond, VA 23220
A street — any time

STEM Building, 817 W. Franklin St. For students living off campus — which is her.

RSVP: https://ramsconnect.vcu.edu/Transfer/rsvp_boot?id=1946455 — VCU says strongly encouraged, and it is the only thing on this whole day that wants doing in advance.

The group walks over to the Siegel Center together at 2:30, so she does not have to work out where she is going or arrive alone. Black shirt on.

Mom and Stella hand her over here at 1:50.

3:00p

New Student Convocation

📍 1200 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220
Mon 8/17: pre-convocation meet-ups gather 2:00p; ceremony 3:00p

Siegel Center, 1200 W. Broad St. VCU's own line: *the fun will begin at 3 p.m. Plan to arrive early.* She arrives with the 2:30 group, so this is handled.

Black-out theme — the orientation shirt or any black VCU shirt.

4:30p

FloydFest — Monroe Park block party

📍 Monroe Park, W Franklin St & N Laurel St, Richmond, VA 23220
FloydFest from 4:30p

The block party the spirit walk delivers her to.

RSVP: https://ramsconnect.vcu.edu/WoW/rsvp_boot?id=1946050

Monroe Park is two blocks from her front door, so there is no working out how to get home from it.

End of the night

Home — 1326 Floyd Ave

1326 Floyd Ave, Richmond, VA 23220.

Two blocks from Monroe Park, so whatever time FloydFest lets out, the walk home is about five minutes.

⚠️ CHECK THIS NUMBER. The brief and the-stay both say 3126 Floyd Ave; Sarah gave 1326 on 2026-08-17. Both are real addresses in the Fan and about 1.5 miles apart, so this cannot be settled by looking it up — 1326 is used here because it is the later and more deliberate of the two. Confirm against the booking before anyone relies on it at midnight.

Sarah & Stella

10:30a

Check out of Quirk

The BACK of the 9:30–10:30 window, not the front. Nothing starts before 10:30 — that is the day's fixed point and everything else bends around it.

Which means the morning holds exactly one errand before lunch, and the gifts have the prior claim on it.

Lunch, the photos and the goodbye are filed on Lila's track. They are the same three events, not a separate plan — they sit there so her day reads whole.

10:40–11:20a

Carytown — the gifts for Lila, and Mongrel

📍 2924 W Cary St, Richmond, VA 23221
Mon–Sat 10:00a–7:00p; Sun 11:00a–6:00p

THE ONE MORNING ERRAND. Lila joins only for lunch, so anything meant for her has to exist by 11:30 — there is no later stop with her in it. Forty minutes, two shops, one block apart:

  • Mongrel (10:00a) — the keychain. Cards, pins, stickers, plush, small objects; cute without being crafty, which is the register that has worked.
  • Merrymaker (10:00a) — the planner. Carytown's paper shop since 1979.

World of Mirth and Shelf Life are the same two blocks. They are not happening in forty minutes and should not be attempted — Mongrel is the don't-leave-without stop and the gifts are the errand.

A lanyard is the least certain of the three. Ask at Mongrel; if it is not there the VCU bookstore on Broad has them and Lila walks past it, so it is not worth a detour or a worry.

2:10–2:50p

Supply — Sarah's stop, on the way out

📍 320 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220
Mon–Fri 2:00–7:00p; Sat 12:00–5:00p

Opens at 2:00p, so this is the first minute it is possible, and the afternoon is free now that Lila is only doing lunch. Sarah's stop — a street-art and mural shop, spray paint floor to ceiling, not a class-supply errand.

Five minutes from the I-95 on-ramp, so it is the last thing before the drive rather than a detour.

2:50–3:05p

Photos at the Greetings mural

📍 311 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220
Open wall, any time

MOVED TO THE AFTERNOON. It cannot survive a 10:30 start — the one morning slot belongs to the gifts — and the afternoon has room now that Lila is only doing lunch.

Same block as Supply, so it costs nothing but the fifteen minutes, and you leave from here straight onto I-95.

The trade: it is a west-facing wall, so mid-afternoon is direct sun rather than the open shade of late morning. It is a large flat mural and will still read; it is just not the light you would pick.

3:10p

Drive home to Holly Springs

Two shapes. Straight home is about 3h00 — I-95 S, then I-85 S below Petersburg — putting you in Holly Springs around 6:10.

Via Short Pump it is about 8:00, and that is the better version: west on I-64 for twenty minutes, shop, then VA-288 south rejoins I-95 at Chester so you never re-cross the city. Half an hour of extra driving buys a mall you do not already shop at every week.

3:35–4:50p

Short Pump — back-to-school on the way out

📍 11800 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23233
Mon–Sat 11:00a–8:00p; Sun 11:00a–6:00p

The back-to-school shopping the brief asks for, in the one place on this route with the right roster — Sephora, lululemon, Free People, Apple. Opens 11:00, closes 8:00, so mid-afternoon is unhurried.

Geography looks wrong and is not: west on I-64, then VA-288 south drops you onto I-95 at Chester below Richmond, so it is a loop rather than a there-and-back. About half an hour of driving over a straight run.

Home around 8:00 with it, 6:10 without. It replaces Southpoint rather than adding to it.

~5:45–8:00p

Southpoint — only if you skip Short Pump

📍 6910 Fayetteville Rd, Durham, NC 27713
Mon–Thu 11:00a–8:00p

DEMOTED. Sarah's read, 2026-08-17: Southpoint is home-base shopping already, so putting it on the route buys nothing — you can go on a Saturday. It earns its place only as the fallback if the Short Pump detour gets abandoned in the car.

Mall closes 8:00p Monday; thirty minutes from the house.

3:10p

Sarah & Stella leave late Monday afternoon; Lila stays

Sarah and Stella leave from the Arts District at 3:10, after Supply and the mural — see drive-to-holly-springs for the two route shapes. Lila stays; her day runs on to FloydFest and she walks home to Floyd Ave.

The actual goodbye happens at 1:50 on W Franklin, not at the car.

Together

The overlap — and the only part of today either schedule can negotiate.

Sunday (8/16) Evening

Sunday evening. Sarah and Stella check into Quirk and go to Sticky Rice for a late dinner; Lila settles into the Floyd Ave Airbnb and stays in. Recorded after the fact — this already happened.

11:30a–1:00p

Lunch with Lila — Harrison Street Café

📍 402 N Harrison St, Richmond, VA 23220
Monday 9:00a–2:00p

The 11:30 meetup, and the whole visit: Lila is only joining for lunch. All vegetarian, so nobody is reading around a menu for once, and it is a block off campus — the plausible answer to 'somewhere that becomes hers'.

GIVE HER THE KEYCHAIN AND PLANNER HERE. There is no later stop with her in it.

Confirmed open: Sarah checked the cafe's own site 2026-08-17. Kitchen closes early afternoon and she needs to be on campus at 2:00, so this runs to about 1:00 and not past 1:15.

1:00–1:50p

Photos on West Franklin — walking her over

📍 W Franklin St between Belvidere and Shafer, Richmond, VA 23220
A street — any time

Her 2:00 is at the STEM Building, 817 W Franklin — which sits in the middle of the mansion row. So the pictures and the drop-off are the same walk, and neither costs a detour.

Half a mile from the cafe, shaded the whole way, with fifty minutes to cover it. Ginter House at 901 and Founders Hall at Shafer are the two best stops; steps and doorways beat a blank wall.

This is the goodbye. Everything after it is Sarah and Stella.

1:50–2:00p

Drop her at the STEM Building — 817 W Franklin

📍 W Franklin St between Belvidere and Shafer, Richmond, VA 23220
A street — any time

Her 2:00 meet-up is at 817 W Franklin, at the end of the photo walk. Hand her over with ten minutes to spare.

CHECK SHE HAS RSVP'd in RamsConnect — strongly encouraged, and easy to have missed. Black VCU shirt on. From here she walks to the Siegel Center with the group at 2:30 for the 3:00 ceremony.

Convocation, in full

HER 2:00 IS REAL AND IT HAS AN RSVP.

Transfer and Commuter Student Meet-Up — 2:00–2:30p, STEM Building, 817 W. Franklin St. For students living off campus, which is Lila. The group walks over to the ceremony together. RSVP in RamsConnect — VCU calls it strongly encouraged, and it is the one thing on this list that has to happen before today rather than during it.

Then: New Student Convocation, 3:00p, Siegel Center, 1200 W Broad St. VCU's own line is "plan to arrive early". On-campus residents meet their RA instead of the commuter meet-up; that is not her.

DRESS CODE: black. The shirt she got at summer orientation, or any black VCU shirt. If she does not have it, pickup is 10:00a–12:00p at the Student Commons — the morning errand already in the brief.

AFTER: Ram Spirit Walk, then FloydFest, the Monroe Park block party. Her afternoon runs long, which is why Sarah and Stella are not waiting on her.

The stay

Quirk Hotel — 201 W Broad St. Sarah and Stella. Check-in 8/16 4:00p, checkout between 9:30 and 10:30 on 8/17.

Lila's Airbnb — 1326 Floyd Ave, Richmond VA 23220.

⚠️ ADDRESS CONFLICT, UNRESOLVED. This entry's title and the brief both say 3126 Floyd Ave. Sarah gave 1326 Floyd Ave on 2026-08-17 when asking for it to be written down so Lila would not forget it. Both are real addresses in the Fan, about 1.5 miles apart, so a lookup cannot decide it. 1326 is carried through the entries as the later and more deliberate statement. Confirm against the booking.

No confirmation number is on file for either stay.