Forest Hills Connection Founders
Forest Hills Connection launched in 2012. These are the friends and neighbors who gathered around dining room tables to brainstorm and build a site that connects our community and tells our stories. There would be no Connection without them. Some are also contributors to our weekday posts and monthly newsletters.
 Marlene Berlin, the Connection’s editor-in-chief, has been a resident of Forest Hills and community activist since 1989. Her advocacy has centered around pedestrian and traffic safety initiatives, including the sidewalk gaps survey for Iona Senior Services. |
 Tracy Johnke is the Connection’s web manager and an editor. Tracy moved to DC in 1996 to work for a national radio network, and has lived in the community since 2000. She, her husband and her son live in a Connecticut Avenue high-rise. |
 Marjorie Rachlin, who lived in Forest Hills for more than 50 years, was an active member of this community. Marjorie wrote extensively for Forest Hills Connection about the urban wildlife with which we share our neighborhood. She died in 2021. |
 Margery Elfin, resident historian and scholar, lived in the neighborhood from 1984 until she died in 2025. A retired professor of political science at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, she pursued her interest in the history of Washington, DC and co-authored the neighborhood history published in 2006. She also penned essays for Forest Hills Connection in the voice of her beloved dog, Emmy. |
 Denise Warner, past president of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Alliance/Citizens Association, is another longtime Forest Hills resident as well as a third generation real estate practitioner. Denise has lived in Washington, DC since 1981 and her professional affiliations include the U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve Board Fine Arts Program and Very Special Arts. |
 Bill Breer was treasurer of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Alliance/Citizens Association (the Connection began as a project of the alliance). a A retired senior foreign service officer and US-Japan relations specialists, Bill’s interests closer to home include furthering the relationship between the Forest Hills community and the University of the District of Columbia. |
 Erica Leighty Blanton, marketing and advertising adviser, spent many years moving up and down Connecticut Avenue before settling in the neighborhood. She is currently the executive director of the Palisades Village. |
 Elaine Melmed was a resident of Forest Hills for more than four decades. In 1982, she founded the Fund for Education and Human Services, a nonprofit organization that works with DC public and charter schools to provide professional development services for all personnel. Elaine’s article on a hot-button topic of the time, school boundary changes, was the first piece published on Forest Hills Connection. She died in 2023. |
| Dzenita Mehic Saracevic, originally from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, came to the U.S. for graduate school in 1994 and stayed. She has been a resident of Forest Hills since 2008. Dzenita was enlisted by the Forest Hills Neighborhood Alliance to start up the Forest Hills listserv. Through this she became better connected and more familiar with the neighborhood and its resources. |