25 in '25: Ally Fisher connects Richmond with its inner child through Adult Recess

For many adults, recess is a buried relic from simpler times. However, Ally Fisher unearths it every Thursday evening.

Fisher had the idea for Adult Recess while playing basketball with friends in Battery Park. Some players were more experienced than others, so they instead approached the game using different, sillier rules. For example, some players couldn’t dribble, and some also had to make animal noises when they shot the ball. Fisher and her friends had so much fun, they decided to return the next week. 

What started out between a few Richmonders has transformed into a meetup.com group with over 200 members. Battery Park is the group’s go-to spot for traditional recess activities — such as four square. But if the weather is too dreary, attendees may head elsewhere, like Fisher’s house for board games or another indoor activity.

“I think that there is a lack of play generally among adults, and I think that people feel like they need a place to kind of take a load off,” said Fisher. “This has been that kind of place.”

Fisher said sometimes 30 people show up, sometimes three, but no matter what, Adult Recess is there.

“I think a lot of the time, when people enter shared spaces, there’s this feeling of needing to be a certain type of way,” Fisher said. “Show up as you are, be goofy, and if you’ve had a hard week, let us know.”

Deciding what the group will do is a collaborative process. One week, an Adult Recess regular requested Fisher host a musical improv night. That Thursday, people danced and improvised to the sound of saxophones, guitars and vocalizing.

“It was hilarious,” Fisher said. “It was one of the funniest things I’ve done, and I would have never thought of it.”

Community-minded from the start

Fisher first moved to Richmond after graduating from James Madison University in 2019 and found her niche in non-profit work. Currently, she helps promote and write grants for the Highland Support Project and Pollinators for Change. Both organizations are community-focused and work towards sustained, positive change in their respective environments, and she finds motivation in those messages.

But that passion for others had its start long before her professional career. Fisher has been “a 90-year-old” her whole life who yearned for deep conversations about the world, and because of that she often felt isolated from her peers.

“I know what it feels like to not have a place and to be left out, so I try to be really, really radically inclusive and radically curious,” she said.

She became involved in community-focused work at 13 years old. At the time, she lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and became a founding member of her school’s Interact club — an offshoot of the international service organization, Rotary, for middle and high schoolers.

Over time, she approached service as less of “serving others” and more “being in community.” For Fisher, what matters in life is building relationships and living with love, and Richmond has given her an environment which shares her passion for others. 

A Richmonder to the core

While living in the River City, she’s seen people share meals with their sick neighbors and approach the world with attitudes of non-judgment. In Fisher’s words, “Richmond is the best place on planet Earth.”

“I find Richmond to be a community where people believe what they do matters, and that they can make change here, and I think that that is really significant,” Fisher said.

“It has allowed me to grow in ways that have been really important to me and build community.”

Adult Recess isn’t the only thing on Fisher’s Thursday schedule. When the clock strikes noon, Richmonders from multiple neighborhoods gather at Fisher’s Northern Barton Heights home around a wooden table from Facebook Marketplace.

While eating watermelon and tossing rinds into a compost bowl, the group swaps stories of grandchildren, philosophy and beatboxing. Her roommate and close friend, Andrew Duffy, started the open lunch, and she invited many of its regulars. 

It’s a bring-your-own-lunch situation, and it began because both Duffy and Fisher believe “no one should eat alone.”

Attendees’ first memories of Fisher often involve her spontaneously striking up a conversation — a tendency she credits to her extroverted personality.

While finishing up their meal, one attendee mused, “Is there anyone in Richmond who doesn’t know Ally?”