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From Ann Vaughn, President
Fall is here, and with it the excitement of a brand new grant-making season for Impact100 DC! Our goal is to have the funds by December 31 to award two $100,000 grants and three $10,000 grants. We currently have 143 members. If everyone stays with us for 2023 we need only 87 new members. This is doable!
To that end, we have put together a really exciting Fall calendar— with plenty of options for members and guests.
Running from mid October through mid November are a series (a “menu,” if you will) of small meet and greet gatherings at the homes of five board members. Click on this Sign Up Genius here or below and choose a place and date to come and bring a guest. Is Arlington most convenient for you? Sign up to attend Janelle Haskell’s gathering. Other spots include Capitol Hill, NW Washington, and Bethesda. Please note that sign-ups are limited, so you will want to RSVP soon!
On Saturday, November 5th , we have an exciting tour planned of the 11th Street Bridge Park Project with Director Scott Kratz. And on Tuesday, December 6th, the law firm of Stein Sperling has generously agreed to host a member/guest reception in their Rockville offices. A repeat of last year’s successful zoom Leadership Night is in the works, as is a Zoom event for pure fun!
Why is it so important to recruit now? Because in January we hit the ground running with Focus Area Committee sign-ups and the beginning of our grant application and review process. That's the work we prepare for all year round, and we want to enter the next grant year with our largest, most diverse membership yet.
Best,
Ann
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First Things First: Renew or Join! | |
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Our goal for our 2023 grant is big: Two $100,000 grants and three $10,000 grants. So renew or join now to help us make our biggest impact yet.
New 2023 members joining now will be able to participate fully in all Impact100 DC activities for the remainder of 2022 as well as all of 2023—including educational programs, social and networking events, and volunteer opportunities. Feel free to share this brochure to help encourage your friends, family, co-workers, and other community members to join!
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Meet & Greets for members and guests! | |
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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.
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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.
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Mark Your Calendars: Dec. 6 Member-Guest Reception | |
We know December 6 seems far off—but with the holidays and a busy member recruitment season, we want to make sure you can mark your calendars now for a special evening. Generously hosted by the law firm of Stein Sperling in their Rockville office, this reception will be a chance for prospective members to learn more about Impact100 DC. | |
Spotlight on Corporate Sponsors | |
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We are indebted to our current sponsors; without their support it would have been impossible to accomplish all that we did in this past year. Tremendous and ongoing thanks to Akin Gump, Stein Sperling, and Chevy Chase Trust.
We need your help. As our membership continues to grow, so does the scope of our administrative needs. Just as we continue to rely on your generous member-plus contributions, our stability as an organization depends upon continuing to attract corporate and individual donors.
We have a small committee of member volunteers who will do the outreach but we need your contacts!
Please email Ann Vaughn [email protected] with your ideas for people we can reach out to about the opportunity to support our work.
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Marking One Year with Our 2021 Grant Recipient, Access Youth | |
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This month we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our inaugural grant to Access Youth and everything they've accomplished!
As you will remember, the mission of Access Youth is to keep at-risk girls of color in school and out of the criminal justice system through mediation, restorative justice, and positive youth development. One of their high impact programs is the MADE program – My Attitude Determines Everything – that seeks to transform the lives of DC’s at-risk girls and gender-expansive youth of color. Our grant has allowed Access Youth to expand MADE into two new high schools, allowing 150 students to benefit from this remarkable program.
Last fall, Access Youth brought new Program Managers to Anacostia High School and HD Woodson to facilitate MADE programming. These schools join Ballou High School, the program’s pilot site, where MADE continued to grow over the course of the last year. As with the students at Ballou, the new MADE girls participated in a curriculum designed to build self esteem, explore and express emotions, and build resilience in response to the hardships in their daily lives. Senior MADE girls participated in Peer Mediation training and created success support plans for their peers experiencing attendance-related challenges.
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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!”
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Impact100 DC
PO Box 40121
Washington, DC 20016
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Contact:
www.impact100dc.org
Phone: 202-379-4773
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