World Food Day

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Spur Local

Today is World Food Day where organizations of all sizes mobilize to end hunger. In that spirit, here are a few food-related items to consider:

1. An estimated 870 million people in the world are chronically hungry. About 60 percent of those are women. In the U.S., more than 16 million kids live in food-insecure households. In DC, 15.7% of households suffer from food insecurity; in Maryland, 15.6% of Prince George’s County households risk going hungry food compared to the state’s average of 13.4%. (from Feeding America)

2. Programs that work to provide kids with free lunches & breakfasts reach over 9.6 million kids each year, but an equal number of eligible students are not enrolled. Hear one story about a 12 year-old student going to school hungry and its impact from an “Education Nation” broadcast here.

3. While the SNAP and WIC programs are currently funded through the end of the month, some local food banks are gearing up for a crunch, due to delayed benefits and the lingering government shutdown. Federal assistance aside, area food banks have seen a 25% increase in demand since 2006.

In greater Washington, there are so many organizations working tirelessly to combat hunger every day. Consider getting involved — by volunteering, making a donation, starting a food drive — with one of our partners today, including: Arlington Food Assistance Center, DC Hunger Solutions, Food for Others, Manna Food Center, Miriam’s Kitchen, Our Daily Bread

Guest Post: Global Kids

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Spur Local

Today we welcome Global Kids to Goodworks! Global Kids works to ensure that urban youth have the knowledge, skills, experiences and values they need to succeed in school, participate effectively in the democratic process, and achieve leadership in their communities and on the global stage. A nationally known educational nonprofit, Global Kids combines global learning, youth development, and experiential learning strategies to work closely with underserved, at-risk youth, to improve their academics, prepare them for college and careers, and to cultivate the next generation of leaders.

Tshala Pajibo is a senior at McKinley Technology High School who plans to study literature next year in college. She joined Global Kids this summer for the Global Gateways Summer Institute and was selected to be one of the eight students who travelled to Costa Rica for a week-long service-learning trip. Tshala is a long-time resident of Columbia Heights who is active in her community and at church.

Complexities of Development: An Account by Tshala Pajibo

Here in Costa Rica we have been learning about development and some of the complexities that come with it. It really resonated with me and my experience in DC.

You see, the house that I live in- my grandma’s house – is really, really old. They have been in Columbia Heights since the Great Migration. The house, which used to be painted pink to keep it cool in the DC heat, is the family center- from family meetings to cookouts to graduation parties. Everything is held there.

It used to be in a shady neighborhood where you couldn’t go out after dark. Then it started getting better, when neighbors started looking after one another. Then the local stores started to leave. The carry-out that my brothers frequented moved because they weren’t getting business. Now there’s a strip of chain stores like Sprint, 7/11, and Target. Meanwhile, the empty houses on the block started getting fixed up, so they didn’t look weird.

That’s when my family got a letter from the DC government saying that we would have to paint our house. My grandma has always had the house painted pink to keep it cool. Now the letter said that the house was too different and was impacting the property values of other houses. It’s already hard to meet the changing prices of things, so we painted the house brown and burgundy to avoid fines.

With the increases in property tax and the cost of living, poor people are forced to move from their homes. My neighbors have changed from being families who have been here forever to people that stay for just a few years.

It’s these changes that make gentrification hard. It may not seem significant that my family had to paint over the pink paint that my grandmother loved so much, but it’s an example of how sometimes I feel like I am being made invisible in my own neighborhood. It makes me understand how some of the people in Puerto Viejo feel now that they are being move from their land for development.

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To learn more about Global Kids, please visit: http://globalkids.org/#/our-programs/washington-dc

In the News…

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Spur Local

It’s Mental Illness Awareness Week, and DC’s Mayor Gray is hosting a city-wide conversation on mental health on Saturday October 12th. The forum, entitled “Creating Community Solutions DC,” aims to engage hundreds of residents to “develop strategies to reduce the stigma associated with, and increase openness to, mental-health care,” according to the City’s website. This conversation will be the starting point for a community action plan to be developed by government officials, nonprofit and private sector leaders.
Continue reading →

Guest Post: Horton’s Kids

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Spur Local

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Horton’s Kids (a recent winner of a Washington Post Charities Award and City Paper’s 2013 Best NonProfit) to find out what they’re most excited for this year and congratulate them on their 25th Anniversary!

Horton’s Kids: Celebrating 25 Years

by Kristin Frontiera

This year is an exciting one for Horton’s Kids! We are thrilled to be celebrating our 25th anniversary, an incredible milestone for our organization and the children and families we serve.

We kicked off the celebratory year over the weekend, with a dedication of the Horton’s Kids Community Resource Center to our founder, Karin Walser. This look back at the organization’s early days was a reunion of some of our earliest volunteers and the children who first joined Karin on weekend field trips! As the organization grew to include tutoring, meals, and basic needs items like shoes, coats, and glasses, Horton’s Kids served more and more children. Last year, for example, Horton’s Kids reached 676 children through tutoring, older youth programming, summer camp, and the many support services delivered at the Community Resource Center. (We blogged about the March 2012 renovation of the Community Resource Center on the Catalogue blog here!)

In addition to the many services offered in the Community Resource Center, Horton’s Kids continues to bring the children out of their isolated neighborhood into the heart of this amazing city! We are just a couple weeks into our 13th year of tutoring on Capitol Hill, and Horton’s Kids has already enrolled 120 children! With support through The Washington Post Charities, a fund of the McCormick Foundation, Horton’s Kids continues to deliver three evenings of one-on-one tutoring for children in grades K through 6.

Horton’s Kids is targeting our younger readers this year, as children need to be reading on or above grade level by third grade, or they’ll always be behind. We use a research-based intervention model, developed at the University of Virginia, that moves readers along a sequence, so they can really focus on what they need to learn, rather than what their grade level dictates. Children spend the 90-minute tutoring sessions working on reading and math skills through fun and interactive games with their dedicated volunteer tutors.

To learn more about volunteering at Horton’s Kids, visit www.hortonskids.org/volunteer. In addition to tutoring, volunteers can work with older youth on homework help, join the children on weekend field trips, and more!

SHUTDOWN: Good News and Bad (Guest Post)

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Spur Local

by Scott Schenkelberg, Miriam’s Kitchen

The Federal government shutdown has been the talk of the town all week. And here at Miriam’s Kitchen we all want to know: how will this impact our guests?

Believe it or not, there actually is some good news: the D.C. Government found a way to stay open, and we’re incredibly grateful that they did. Through the use of the District’s “rainy day fund,” the City is expected to be funded through the next two weeks.

That means that shelters and housing will be unaffected during that period, and libraries and other government facilities where our guests often go during the days will remain open. Additionally, local outpatient health, mental health and substance abuse services that are funded by the government should remain open as well.

Federally, HUD and HHS homelessness assistance programs are considered essential, and are operating with funds from fiscal year 2012 and 2013.

That doesn’t mean it is all good news.

Certain benefits that our guests rely upon are expected to be affected. Specifically, new applications for Social Security benefits, Medicaid, food stamps and even Veterans’ pensions and disability payments might see longer than usual processing times.

And our guests are feeling the pinch in other, unexpected ways. One guest told us that his Street Sense sales had plummeted this week because Federal employees aren’t out and about during the day.

Here at MK, it is business as usual. We are open Monday through Friday, as we are year-round, providing the same high quality meals and case management services for which we are known. If you are a Federal employee who has been furloughed and is in need, please know that we are here –whether that need is for a hot meal, or to fill your time with some volunteer hours.

In the meantime, we’re standing with our guests and the rest of the nation, hoping that Congress can finally please work things out.

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HOW HAVE YOU BEEN AFFECTED BY THE SHUTDOWN?? LET US KNOW! Email Jenn, at jhatch@cfp-dc.org

Share Your Story Now

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Spur Local

Today marks Day 3 of the federal government shut down. We’ve all seen a laundry list of closings, large and small — from the Panda Cam to a set of Head Start programs. But in all the chaos, there is an opportunity: news outlets of all sizes are hunting for stories of local residents and organizations already seeing the effects of the shutdown, creating an opportunity for nonprofits meeting critical community needs to draw attention to the necessity of their work. Here are a few tips and resources for awareness and even donation drives from Nancy Schwartz’s gettingattention.org blog and the Nonprofit Quarterly :

If your organization is seeing an increase in demand for your services due to the shut down, make sure your supporters know! Take a page from Feeding America‘s communications strategy, where they’ve highlighted the fragility of our hunger relief programs in all their external communications. Or use this critical moment to rally your networks, as some food banks have, through a call to action for donations and volunteers to help with a surge in clients.

If your organization has a federal grant in jeopardy, make sure your supporters know what is at stake. Take that story of the needs that won’t get met, and incorporate them into your current giving drives or communications plans.

Even if your organization is not yet directly affected, you may be able to capitalize on its prominence in the news by incorporating the effects of the shutdown into your organizational story about why your work is so critical. As the gettingattention.org blog points out, any communication is probably better than the news “blackouts” from the federal agencies.

Other resources for nonprofits can be found at the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Spotlight: Reading Partners

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Spur Local

Today we welcome Lisa Lazarus, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic for Reading Partners to Good Works, to congratulate them on their 2013 award from the Washington Post Charities! Lisa has focused on education as a charter and traditional public school teacher, a central office administrator, and a policy practitioner. Prior to joining Reading Partners, Lisa held several leadership roles in the District of Columbia Public Schools, including Chief of Staff for the Deputy Chief of Teaching and Learning, Interim Co-Director of the Office of Secondary School Transformation, and Manager of Strategic Policy and Implementation in the Office of Out-of-School Time. Lisa graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, earned her Master in Elementary Education from Lesley University and the Shady Hill School Teacher Training Course, and earned her Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

1.What motivated you to begin working with Reading Partners? What need does it fulfill and how are you (and your organization) working towards meeting it?

Reading Partners is inspiring because it provides a concrete and user-friendly way for our communities to support local schools and to address a critical problem in our city: the staggering achievement gap between students from affluent homes versus low-income ones. Reading Partners’ particular focus is on literacy and on ensuring that students from low-income communities who struggle with reading receive the individualized attention they need to succeed in school and beyond. Our model is all about recruiting and training community members to serve as a Reading Partner to a young student who will benefit from reading tutoring. My desire to join the Reading Partners team stemmed from my passion to support educational equity. I believe fully and completely that all young people deserve to develop the academic skills they need to choose their own life path, and I believe community service is an under-utilized resource in that work.

2.What exciting change or innovation is on your mind?

Front and center on my mind are all the student-focused enhancements to our curriculum this year. Reading Partners is devoting significant time, effort, and personnel to aligning our research-based curriculum to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This is exciting because it means our instructional materials are right on the pulse of all the latest thinking and best practices in elementary education. In addition to the CCSS project, Reading Partners is rolling out a new level of curriculum this year. The Emerging Reader level of our curriculum will focus on skill development for our students in grades K-3. Over the past few years, we have recognized the need to expand our instructional offerings in basic print concepts and phonological awareness so that our youngest readers get the exact skill reinforcement they need. I am excited to work for an organization that is willing to innovate, adapt, and create new materials in order to ensure tutors and students have exactly what they need.

3. Who inspires you (in the philanthropy world or otherwise)? Do you have a hero?

Gandhi’s reminder to “Be the change you wish to see in the world” is in my office, for that phrase reminds me to live with purpose, lead by example, and make the impact I believe our world needs. While these words guide and ground me, they also necessarily lead me to be inspired by our everyday heroes – our dedicated Reading Partners who give an hour or more of their time each week to tutor and mentor a student in our nation’s capital. Every week these men and women devote their time and energy, taking a tangible interest in a child’s life and thereby ensuring that our students have the concrete literacy skills the need to be successful. I am inspired by:

Sonia, a high school student who is helping to organize her friends so they too become Reading Partners.
Martin, a college student who takes time from his full course load to work with three students twice a week. Martin has put in additional time to learn his students’ specific needs in order to make students’ time in Reading Partners as impactful as possible. This year he is a team lead who is bringing more of his peers to the reading center each week.
Yogi, a working professional who is volunteering with Reading Partners for his fourth year. Yogi makes time to come into Reading Partners every week, and he rearranges his meetings to be there for his student. Noah, Yogi’s last student, said that Yogi was not just “the best teacher I ever had” but also “the best friend I ever had”.
Alexa, who spent over 40 hours with her student, Malachi, over the course of last year. With Alexa’s encouragement and focus, Malachi ended the year above grade level! Alexa is joining us as a Reading Partner again this year.

Each of these people, and our hundreds of other volunteers, are “being the change” they and we wish to see in the world. Our tutors demonstrate their commitment through their time in a Reading Partners reading center each week. I am incredibly inspired by and grateful for their dedication and generosity.

4.What is the single greatest challenge that your organization faces (besides finances) and how are you dealing with this challenge?

Our greatest challenge is building a volunteer movement that will result in thousands of volunteers who donate at least an hour a week to ensure that every student who needs personalized attention to learn to read receives it. We are working to build a cadre of people who identify as “Reading Partners” and who are proud to say, “I am a Reading Partner.” When this phrase becomes a household name; when churches, synagogues, youth groups, sororities and fraternities, kickball teams, book clubs, and parents decide to join the movement as Reading Partners; when together our community is addressing literacy proficiency skills by devoting an hour each week to supporting our teachers and schools by providing a young reader with one-on-one, individualized tutoring, then we will be able to ensure that all students – regardless of zip code or skin color or socioeconomic status – have access to the resources they need not only to learn to read, but also – and importantly – to read to learn.

5. What advice do you have for other people in your position?

Ask questions. Set ambitious yet attainable goals, and implement an accountability system to achieve them. Listen – to your colleagues, your volunteers, your board, your school-based stakeholders, your funders, your students’ parents and guardians, and most importantly, your clients – the students themselves. Listen also to your family and friends when they remind you, sometimes gently and other times necessarily more forcefully, to make time for yourself. Take care of yourself so you can continue to do the work you love. Take care of your body; lift weights, hike, run, swim, do yoga, bike, dance. Take care of your mind; read something that is not work-related, go to lectures, learn new things. Take care of your spirit in whatever ways are meaningful to you. Make the time to highlight and cultivate your colleagues’ talents. Learn from other executive directors who are doing incredible work in this area. Thank people. Call your grandmother. Eat nourishing food. Drink plenty of water. Laugh. Feel grateful to have a job about which you are so passionate. Revel in that even as you figure out a way to create a boundary between work and life outside of work. Have fun. And, always do what is best for our children.

6. Congratulations on receiving an award from the Washington Post charities!? What project is this grant supporting? What does this award mean to you or allow you to do?

Generous support from the Washington Post Charities helps to equip us with the resources we need to recruit hundreds of community volunteers to provide weekly, personalized reading tutoring to at least 600 students in 12 schools in 2013-14. Student enrollment in our local program has grown by 20-25% each year since our launch in 2010-11. In order to build and sustain the human capital and organizational capacity required to guarantee a high-quality learning experience for our students, we rely on local investors. The Washington Post Charities is an amazing partner to us, as they deeply understand the long-term importance of helping students to finish elementary school as confident, proficient readers. With our award from the Charities, we look forward to having the right people do the the right work to ensure that we can replicate last year’s outcomes, for 90% of target students in our program narrowed their achievement gap to their peers.

Guest Post: Hunger in America

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Spur Local

by Billy Shore, Share Our Strength

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would cut nearly $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). The measure will kick off of SNAP at least 4 million Americans at risk of hunger and cause more than 200,000 kids to lose access to free school meals.

This legislation comes at a time when SNAP households are already preparing to see a November 1 cut in benefits that means approximately 20 fewer meals per month for a family of four. SNAP is the most powerful and effective tool we have for combating childhood hunger and has been proven to reduce poverty. Nearly 50% of SNAP participants are children, and cutting this program has major ramifications for the economy as well as the health and well-being of our kids, seniors, and working poor.

Making sure our fellow citizens have enough to eat isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do. When children get the healthy food they need, they learn more at school and ward off long-term developmental and health problems. SNAP helps low-wage workers stay employed and feed their families even when working full-time at minimum wage leaves them in poverty. In short, we can’t have a strong economy with weak children and families.

You can learn more about the long-term economic ramifications of cutting SNAP by watching the video here: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/now/53052546#53052546

Share our Strength will continue to fight for the critical SNAP funding that helps families meet their children’s nutritional needs at home, and to connect families to key federal nutrition programs like summer meals and school breakfast where children learn and play. Cutting $40million from SNAP should simply not be an option.

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Note: A few of the Catalogue nonprofits that help feed the poor and working poor include: ALIVE!, Arlington Food Assistance Center,? Food for Others, Manna Food Center, Miriam’s Kitchen and Our Daily Bread.

Spotlight: Mentors, Inc.

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Spur Local

Today we welcome Deirdre Bagley, Executive Director of Mentors, Inc. to Good Works, to congratulate them on their 2013 award from the Washington Post Charities, a fund of the McCormick Foundation! Deirdre has been at Mentors, Inc. for about five years, with a volunteer history in youth leadership and literacy programming, and a professional history with a variety of nonprofit associations from higher education to environmental advocacy. Deirdre is at home with teen mentoring, combining her nonprofit leadership experience and personal mission interest.

1. What motivated you to begin working with Mentors, Inc? What need does it fulfill and how are you (and your organization) working towards meeting it?

I reached a point in my professional career where I felt driven to combine my professional leadership with my personal interest in working with youth, and find an organization that was well respected for their work. That led me to Mentors, Inc., which helps Washington, D.C. high school teens graduate from high school to combat the abysmal drop-out rates locally. We pair teens with a mentor to help expand their universe — internally and externally — to see and pursue what’s possible for their lives.

2. What exciting change or innovation is on your mind?

Partnerships that really work and truly enhance all partners’ capacity! We’ve begun working with the United Way and City Year at the Kelly Miller Middle School on an 8^th to 9^th grade transition project to improve 8^th graders’ success with their new high school experience, to prevent them from joining the ranks of teens who drop out in 9^th grade. City Year was already in the school with strong student, administration, and family relationships; the United Way was bringing corporate partners in as volunteer mentors, and we manage mentoring intake, matching, and support. We’re looking forward to following how these young teens do when they make the transition. Because all partners are doing what they do best and not duplicating others’ work, the project has great potential for replication.

3. Who inspires you (in the philanthropy world or otherwise)? Do you have a hero?

I don’t have heroes, but there are people who live their lives in ways I admire. Our teenagers inspire me. They persist and dream on, in spite of living in high poverty areas, attending under-performing schools, and having no family history of college-going. I admire young philanthropists who are donors and want to be connected to the causes they donate to, but don’t care to see their name displayed on a marble wall. I admire people who break out of traditional molds to do something new and positive in big and small ways. I admire children — they read the world and ask questions or provide solutions without the filter of experience, and say insightful things that adults have long lost sight of.

4. What is the single greatest challenge that your organization faces (besides finances) and how are you dealing with this challenge?

Growing our organization. Garnering enough volunteer support to meet the number of teens who want mentors; and non-mentor volunteer leadership to actively move our recruitment, giving, and programming forward.

5. What advice do you have for other people in your position?

Surround yourself with smart, positive, enthusiastic people! They help moving the world a lot less difficult and a lot more fun.

6. What’s next/coming up for you?

Next, is building our internal circle of supporters, including mentors, non-mentor volunteers, board members, and alumni (mentors and students) to help even more teens get match with mentors, graduate, persist in college, and become the people they were born to be.

7. Congratulations on receiving an award from the Washington Post Charities! What does this award mean to you?

Mentors, Inc. is a one-program operation, focused solely on matching teens with mentors to help them graduate and aspire to higher education. At least 90% of our high school seniors graduate (100% for the last two years), and at least 85% go on to college. Compared to 60% and 5-28% locally, this is amazing, particularly since we have no minimum requirement to participate in our program — only student motivation. The Washington Post Charities grant is already helping us serve more students, and advancing our 8^th to 9^th grade transition project which helps reduce the drop-out rate in D.C. We’re so pleased they chose our mission, and organization, to support!

In the News…

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Spur Local

Home Care Workers Get Minimum Wage: As Active Aging Week begins, the Department of Labor announced that the over 2 million home care workers in the US will earn minimum wage and overtime benefits starting January 1st, 2015. Home health aides — 90 percent of whom are women and 42 percent of whom are black or Latino –currently earn an average of $9.70 per hour. A Huffington Post article notes that the home health sector is one of the fastest growing occupations in the country, predicted to grow 70 percent from 2010-2020 as Baby Boomers age.

Kids Give! A report by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and the United Nations Foundation found that 90 percent of kids give to charity, sparking a discussion on how to get youth involved in giving . One of the report’s authors noted that “children whose parents talk to them about giving are 20 percent more likely to give than those whose parents don’t” and encouraged families and charities to find ways to engage kids in the giving and volunteering process. Read the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s article here or check out the study here.

Census Bureau Annual Report Released: The yearly report on poverty and income found that 21.8 percent of American children under the age of 18 lived in poverty in 2012 — and a Washington Post article notes that “the younger they are, the worse off they are.The percentage of children under the age of 5 living in poverty is 25.1 — and almost 1 in 10 live in extreme poverty.” Children of color are affected most with 37.9 percent of black children and 33.8 percent of Hispanic children living in poverty. Additionally, the statistics shows that 9.1 percent of Americans living in poverty are 65+.

The report also found that in today’s dollars, the median American household in 2012 makes less than in 1989. This is in stark contrast to the Forbes Top 400 list of the richest Americans, whose wealth has grown 15 percent since 2012 to a combined total of $2 trillion. Census data shows that households making over $191,000 are earning nearly what they had before the recession, yet the lower 80 percent are, on average, making significantly less than before the downturn, as noted in a NPQ article.