Join Board Members at their homes and apartment buildings to learn more about Impact100 DC.

Our President Ann Vaughn and Grants Committee Chair Sharon Dennis will also be at each event to answer questions. But more than anything, these are informal gatherings to get to know each other and welcome potential new members to the fold! 

So if you know someone who would be interested in learning more, sign yourselves up for one of these fall gatherings.

Special Fall Tour: 11th Street Bridge Park

photo credit: The Washington Post/ OMA + OLIN

The 11th Street Bridge Park project ties together so many of our values as an organization: a focus on the environment, health, arts, and community. 

The 11th Street Bridge Park will be built on the original pillars of the old road bridge crossing the Anacostia River between Wards 6 and 8, connecting Anacostia to Capitol Hill. The multi-year effort to design the park has been a model of community involvement and includes an equitable development plan focusing on housing, employment, small business development and cultural equity.

Read this Washington Post article and this New York Times article to learn more and engage with this important project. 

Then, sign up for a special tour for Impact100 DC members and their guests on Saturday, November 5 at 10:30 am.

Mark Your Calendars: Dec. 6 Member-Guest Reception

Spotlight on Corporate Sponsors

Marking One Year with Our 2021 Grant Recipient, Access Youth

Yet even as they grew, Access Youth realized that they would need to double down on the needs of their existing MADE students as they encountered the difficult transition back to school after a year and a half without in-person instruction. (In other words, a year plus without the customary schedules, guidance, community, or accountability expected inside DCPS classrooms.) As Access Youth reported, the 2021-22 school year was rife with unprecedented challenges: Schools lacked clear policies and procedures for addressing pandemic-related absences; teacher and staff morale was at an all-time low; and the pandemic created even more stress and trauma for students already struggling in school. Thus, over the past year, MADE staff worked intensively with the girls who were already in the program to meet their needs. 

As anticipated, the MADE program is empowering participants to take leadership roles within the program itself and the broader community. For example, two MADE girls from last spring’s senior class were offered full scholarships to American University this fall. 

While DCPS’s Covid-19 protocols made anticipated cross-school mentorship opportunities and connections all but impossible during the school year, Access Youth succeeded in bringing girls together from all three areas high schools for its annual summer retreat this year. Charity Jones, Senior Director of Programming, shared with us that bringing girls together for the first time from across the community was “tough,” but the retreat proved to be “an awesome experience for all.” Using the theme of "I LOVE ME, Flaws and All," Access Youth challenged the girls to see the best in themselves. “We are changing narratives and flipping negatives into positives,” Charity said. “We had transparent discussions and we shed those negative stigmas through tears and laughs! Most importantly, we affirmed and reassured the girls that there is strength in the ATTITUDE they have been told is their weakness and in that lies their strengths!”