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Fairfax County Public Schools – Back to School Special 2017

(Aug 14, 2017) Students return to Fairfax County Public Schools on Monday, August 28, 2017. In advance of this pre-Labor Day start date, host Catherine Read speaks with three members of the 12 person school board and the new Superintendent Dr. Scott Brabrand. Ryan McElveen and Pat Hynes were elected to the FCPS School Board in 2011, Dalia Palchik was elected in 2015, and Dr. Brabrand returned to Fairfax County as the new Superintendent on July 10, 2017.

In the first segment Ryan McElveen, school board member At Large, talks about his path to the school board at the age of 25 after graduate school at Columbia University. He went through the FCPS school system himself, attending George C. Marshall High School and then on to the University of Virginia. He is not an educator by profession. He brought ideas based on what he believes the school system could improve to create a better educational experience for the students. He has also been a staunch advocate for the rights of LGBTQ students and staff, and last month made his views clear on the renaming of JEB Stuart High School. Ryan is committed to transparency in process and has connected with students across the county using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. The 270K followers of @RyanLMcElveen count on Ryan to be the first point of credible notice of snow closures.

Patricia “Pat” Hynes represents the Hunter Mill magisterial district of Fairfax County where her own two children attended the public schools there. After attending the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University Law School, she switched careers to become a teacher herself and still teaches in the classroom in Arlington County today. Pat is focused on creating greater equity in our school system. Fairfax County is the 10th largest school district in the United States, and in this county of 1.1 million people, there is a great deal of cultural and economic diversity that impacts student outcomes in the classroom. Finding ways of closing some of the existing achievement and opportunity gaps is a priority for her. She is also focused on investing more in renewable and sustainable energy for our schools and reducing energy consumption and the FCPS carbon footprint.

In the third segment, Dalia Palchik talks about her career switch from global micro-finance to education, where she is the second teacher to serve on the FCPS School Board. Dalia immigrated to the United States from Argentina at the age of 6 and learned English as a second language while attending Fairfax County Public Schools. A graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology – one of the top ranked high schools in the nation – she went on to study cultural anthropology at Tufts University and to travel extensively. She is a language teacher, and an native Spanish speaker, who is focused on finding ways to serve the diverse student population in the county and their families. Dalia represents the Providence Magisterial District and within that district there many families from different countries who are working to understand their role in their children’s education. She talks about the new public bus program that allows middle school and high school students to get a free bus pass and how that could be expanded to include parents who also face transportation challenges in engaging with their children’s schools.

Dr. Scott Brabrand is returning to Fairfax County from his recent position as Superintendent of the Lynchburg (VA) City School System. He switched careers after being a classroom volunteer and discovering that education is really his great passion. He served in many capacities in Fairfax County Schools from a Social Studies teacher at Herndon High School in the mid 1990s, to principal of Fairfax High School from 2005 to 2009, and then on to Cluster Assistant Superintendent. In each role, he has made measurable improvements in student outcomes. He talks about his emphasis on having a growth mindset in education. While acknowledging that testing can’t be entirely eliminated, he is focused on moving education toward critical thinking skills and fostering a greater engagement between students and their educational experience in the classroom.

The early start date of Aug. 28, 2017, has been years in the making as the FCPS School Board has lobbied the Virginia Legislature to grant an exception to the “Kings Dominion Law” that keeps schools from opening until after Labor Day.

This year, on Tuesday, Aug. 29th, there is a special election to fill a FCPS School Board vacancy. Voters will go to their regular polling places – many of those at schools in Fairfax County – while school is in session this time. This is an important election and Fairfax County residents are encouraged to mark their calendars and plan on voting.

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land – Monica Hesse

(Aug 2017) So much of life is intangible, and places don’t feel like they’re disappearing to the people who are living there.

This review is an ode to independent bookstores, journalists who write books, rainy vacation days and to Virginia.

My husband Tom and I like to come back to Chincoteague Island as often as we can. We eloped here in July of 2011 and we continue to come back because it is a peaceful place that speaks to us. We both grew up in small rural communities – Tom in NW Georgia and me in SW Virginia. There is something about the timelessness of this place that author Monica Hesse captures in this book about Accomack County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

I likely would not have encountered this book except I am drawn to independent bookstores like a moth to a flame. Sundial Books on the Main Street of Chincoteague Island was featuring this book on a display that faced the front door. Perhaps it’s the cover photo that is vaguely reminiscent of the cover of Hillbilly Elegy that drew me to the book. The well written synopsis on the inside of the dust jacket and knowing it was written by a journalist with The Washington Post made it a “must have” a minute after I picked it up.

The reason I don’t mind rainy days on vacation is because they are meant for reading. In fact, I love a rainy vacation day because I rarely ever have the luxury of reading a book from start to finish in a single day. And here I was, sitting in Accomack County reading a book about the arson that gripped this rural community for five and a half months in 2012 and 2013. Over eighty-five fires, multiple fires a night, that stretched the capacity of the all volunteer fire departments to cover a rural county where they identified 1,400 abandoned buildings that were all possible targets.

I couldn’t put this book down. Monica Hesse did such wonderful research on every aspect of this story. The history of Accomack County is one I did not know, despite being a native Virginian whose own ancestors go back to the 1600s – just like many families who are central to this story. Many of us know our own stories and the stories of where we come from, but learning about the other histories of Virginia is endlessly fascinating to me. Beth Macy, a journalist with The Roanoke Times made the story of the furniture industry in southern Virginia equally captivating in her book Factory Man. I hope this is a trend that continues among journalists who see the potential for a good story to become a book of real substance.

There is a true art to writing non-fiction that reads like a novel. American Fire is well written and the structure of the story is what keeps you turning the pages to find out more. It’s about so much more than the story of the arsons and the arsonists. It’s about a way of life that most of us cannot relate to. I loved the designations of Born Heres, Come Heres and Been Heres. I get that. Her specificity of this being a “close knit community” rather than a “small community” is also important to the story because the county is large but sparsely populated.

One hundred years ago, Accomack County was the richest rural county in the nation. The railroad and potato farming created wealth and jobs for the people who lived here. The advent of the automobile was the beginning of the end of that boom time. Now chicken farming is the main industry here with Perdue and Tysons being the major employers here in the county. The population is aging and young people leave to find better opportunities on the mainland. This is the economic story of towns and counties all over America who have seen the rise and decline of industries that built and sustained communities but can sustain them no longer.

I highly recommend this book. Hesse draws you into the stories of people in a singular moment in their county’s history. While the main protagonists of this book are the arsonists, the other people central to this story are authentically drawn as well. Her research is meticulous and thorough, her end notes generous to all those who made this book possible. She is a good storyteller and this story was crying out to be told.

by Catherine Read 1 Comment

Women Behind Bars Returning to the Community – Friends of Guest House

(July 31, 2017) Catherine Read delves into the unique challenges of women who are incarcerated in Virginia’s jails and prisons and what they face when returning to their local communities – including reconnecting with their children, finding support for addiction, and finding employment. Friends of Guest House based in Alexandria, VA, is a residential program that can accept 26 women at a time into their residential program. Founded in 1974, this program has helped about 3,000 women and their 4,000 children while accepting only 17 women at a time, until very recently when the program expanded to 26 residents and expanded from 3 months to 6 months.

In the first segment of the show, case worker Laura Jessick outlines some of the broad challenges these women face and how the Friends of Guest House residential program works to successfully support them through their transition. In the three segments following, Trystika, Kimberly and Alexis talk about their experiences while incarcerated and the challenges of trying to cope with life behind bars. One of the most basic challenges is managing their monthly menstrual cycles without access to adequate supplies – including underwear. We explored this topic in an earlier show with Holly Seibold of BRAWS – Bringing Resources to Aid Women’s Shelters. The lack of medical care and basic necessities for incarcerated women is an issue that the ACLU has brought forward in other states with a case in Michigan still pending.

The statistics are staggering for the growth of women in our jails and prisons. Their offenses are overwhelming low-level non-violent trangressions with many involving addiction, fraud, property damage, probation violations and theft. Many of those crimes are tied to issues of poverty. In 1970, 73 percent of counties across the United States reported zero women in their jails. Between 1970 and 2014, incarcerated women went from under 8,000 to nearly 110,000. Currently, nearly half of all jailed women are in small county jails which are funded and operated by local municipalities.*

Another key differentiating factor is that nearly 80 percent of women in jails are mothers.** Unlike incarcerated men, they are by and large single parents who are solely responsible for their young children. While much of the discussion around mass incarceration in this country has focused on the high numbers of men of color in our prisons, there has been little discussion about the explosive growth of women behind bars and the trauma that they endure there. Only Thailand incarcerates women at a higher rate than the United States. And the statistics don’t begin to show that many of these women are victims of trauma, with 86 percent reporting that they experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. Another staggering statistic is that while women make up only 13 percent of people held in local jails, they make up 67 percent of victims of staff-on-inmate sexual violence.

Traumatized when they arrive, traumatized while incarcerated, these women have major hurdles to overcome when they are no longer behind bars and must navigate their way back to a sustainable life on the outside without the support of treatment programs and services to help with affordable housing, workforce development, healthcare, transportation and support for their children. This is where the Friends of Guest House have a proven track record of helping women to get their lives together in a way that is sustainable. While national recidivism rates are around 70 percent, for those who complete the Friends of Guest House residential program, that rate is less than 10 percent.

Scant attention has been paid to the struggles of women behind bars, the explosive growth in their incarceration, and the many social-economic-racial factors that have led to this national crisis. One fact alone should give this nation pause: an estimated 2.6 million children have a parent behind bars. When that parent is their only parent, we are almost ensuring that the cycle of poverty and prison will continue and will grow. There are alternatives to incarceration and more can be done for the women who find themselves incarcerated. It’s incumbent on us to do more both nationally and locally.

* From the published research: Overlooked: Women in Jails in the Era of Reform

** From “Mothers in Prison” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Nov. 25, 2016

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

Fairfax Food Council with Terri Siggins and Christina Garris

(July 28, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Terri Siggins, Project Coordinator for the Fairfax Food Council, and Christina Garris, Chair of the Fairfax Food Council and the Programs Director for Britepaths, a local non-profit that is one of the member organizations.

In the first segment, Terri Siggins outlines how the Fairfax Food Council came about as a result of a comprehensive strategic planning process undertaken by the Fairfax County Health Department in 2008. That process focused on identifying health needs in the county and in 2013 the Partnership for Healthier Fairfax developed CHIP – Community Health Improvement Plan. CHIP identified healthy eating as a key component of that plan and out of that process the Fairfax Food Council was born.

In the Spring of 2015 the Fairfax Food Council initiated a Community Food Assessment focusing on three communities in the county: Mount Vernon, Bailey’s Crossroads and the Reston/Herndon area. These are considered “high needs” communities. The assessment provided the guiding principles for the Fairfax Food Council and helped to identify “pockets of need” that exist within larger communities.

The Food4Thought program that provides food to students on weekends was developed out of an identified need at the Marshall Road Elementary School in Vienna, VA. Students eligible for free and reduced school lunches often did not have access to food over the weekend. The school’s principal, social worker and PTA worked with Britepaths to collect, coordinate and distribute food to those students in a way that maintained their privacy and dignity. The Food4Thought program continues to expand to other area elementary schools with each new school year. It’s an example of the collaborative nature of meeting identified needs and adapting to specific circumstances by school.

One of the initiatives of the Fairfax Food Council is to create partnerships and collaboration among government agencies, non-profits, faith communities, businesses, schools and individual community members. Currently the council is funded by a grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth and is housed within the Fairfax County Health Department. That grant carries them through July of 2018 at which time they will continue to look for other sources of funding to help expand their programs and bring on staff members.

The Fairfax Food Council has three work groups: Food Access, Urban Agriculture and Food Literacy. The Food Literacy project has developed templates for area food pantries to use in educating those they serve about nutrition and healthy eating. The Capital Area Food Bank is a member of the council and recently changed their policies to exclude donations of junk food and candy to their pantries. One of the templates they have developed is a guide for food pantries to use with donors in helping to guide their donations toward healthier items and “most requested” needs.

Christina Garris talks about the pivot toward grocery gift cards that Britepaths made several years ago and the benefit to families who are also in their financial literacy classes to learn budgeting. The Our Daily Veggies vouchers developed in collaboration with area farmer’s markets are also part of a larger program of Healthy Eating Workshops that focus on healthier meal preparation. With a grant from the USDA, the Fairfax Food Council has launched a SNAP Matching Program that allows SNAP recipients to buy $10 worth of produce at a participating farmer’s market for only $5. Here in Northern Virginia food access is a greater problem than food deserts which makes fresh foods more difficult to obtain or more expensive if purchased through convenience stores.

In addition to the collaborative partnerships the Fairfax Food Council is pulling together, they invite individual members of the community to participate in any or all of their working groups. Monthly meetings are held at the Kelly Square Health Department Offices and the schedule is posted online. A focus on the social determinants of health outcomes is entering the lexicon of how we talk about healthy communities and the wellness of individuals within those communities. The Fairfax Food Council will continue to innovate, educate and create the tools necessary to help ensure healthy communities here in Fairfax County. You can also follow them on Facebook.

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

Lisa Johnson-Firth of Immigrants First PLLC talks about Know Your Rights

(July 20 2017) Catherine Reads speaks with local attorney Lisa Johnson-Firth of Immigrants First, PLLC about the shift in policy regarding enforcement of immigration laws and which immigrants are the focus of this shift under the Trump Administration.

Lisa Johnson-Firth does presentations for many groups in the area entitled “Know Your Rights.” In the first segment she discusses what it means to be “out of status” and the appropriate measures to take when being pulled over by police. While Virginia is a “name only state” and we are not required to give anything other than our names, Lisa talks about the practical issues of cooperation with law enforcement while being aware of giving information that can and will be used against us in a court of law. The point of her Know Your Rights presentations is to make certain that people in our community know their legal rights and also the practical considerations of how much to say and when.

Catherine and Lisa also talk about the various groups of people in this country who are “out of status” which includes those who have overstayed their student or tourist visas from countries around the world. Europeans and non-Hispanic people do not appear to be the target of this crackdown on immigration which brings into question the profiling of anyone who might be an “out of status” person in this country based solely on their appearance. This seems to be driven by a fear of gang members and criminals pouring across our southern borders instead of the many women and children who are fleeing violence in their own countries as refugees.

In the second segment, Lisa discusses those who seek to claim asylum here and the process for that and how it varies from one country to another. There continues to be a stream of unaccompanied minors coming across our boarders from Central America and managing that flow is taxing our resources at the border and is putting these children in danger. This risk is driven by desperation and until the violence subsides in those countries, the flow of illegal immigration is not going to slow down.

The final part of this show asks some fundamental questions about dealing with illegal immigration going forward and what can be done to craft better public policies around this issue. We must also be honest about the benefits of immigration to our communities in this country as well as to the immigrants themselves. For more information visit Immigrants First, PLLC.

by Catherine Read 1 Comment

The Centreville Immigration Forum – Lisa Johnson-Firth and Terry Angelotti

(July 12 2017) Catherine Reads speaks with local attorney Lisa Johnson-Firth of Immigrants First, PLLC, and Terri Angelotti, of the Centreville Immigration Forum. The multi-national make-up of the Northern Virginia region has made new immigration initiatives a source of anxiety for families in this region. Schools are working to manage the anxiety of the children in their classrooms and the judicial system is struggling to manage the sudden caseload increase.

Lisa Johnson-Firth has a legal practice that serves those in the immigrant community. Lisa Johnson Firth She talks about the nature of the “removal process” where some local residents are taken four hours away to a facility in Farmville, VA, to await a hearing. Sometimes a person taken into custody may not be able to contact their family immediately to let them know what has happened. The local Immigration Court located in Arlington, VA, is struggling to manage the burgeoning caseload, with some cases schedule as far out as the year 2023.

When asked about how this is affecting children in the immigrant community, Lisa talks about her training with Head Start teachers and the fact that teachers are often on the front lines of dealing with these situations with little training and few resources. In some instances, children left behind when their last parent has been removed from this country are placed into the foster care system.

Terry Angelotti CIF In the second segment, Terry Angelotti, Executive Director of the Centreville Labor Resource Center, talks about the genesis of the Centreville Immigration Forum in 2007 and the opening of the CLRC in 2011. The center has been operating in donated space for over 5 years and they do not use a penny of tax payer funds. The operating costs of the center are covered by privately raised funds and the need to fundraise is constant. The CLRC offers classes to improve the trade skills and the English proficiency of those at the center and prepare them to take more highly skilled jobs. They continue to offer a stable source of laborers to local contractors and homeowners and to make certain their workers are not victims of wage theft.

As part of the community response to this increased pressure on the immigrant community, the Western Fairfax Immigration Strategy Group was formed earlier this year. This is a coalition of community groups, non-profits, and faith communities that serve immigrants and want to better coordinate their efforts. The first 5 meetings saw 28 groups represented with about 55 participants coming from the Centreville-Chantilly-Fairfax area as well as from Reston and Prince William County. Speakers for these meetings have included representatives from the Fairfax County Police and Sheriff’s offices, local parent liaisons, a Detention Watch Network Organizer and others involved in serving immigrant populations.The group has also served as a bulletin board for notices of Know Your Rights.

There are many opportunities to be involved. Volunteers and donations are always welcome at the Centreville Labor Resource Center, and organizations with an interest in helping with broader issues affecting our local immigrant communities should contact the Western Fairfax Immigration Strategy Group through Terry Angelotti. www.CentrevilleImmigrationForum.

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

GrandInvolve – Retired Seniors Volunteering in the Classroom

(July 10 2017) Catherine Read talks about the non-profit GrandInvolve with staff and a volunteer from Crestwood Elementary School in Springfield, VA. This program brings retired seniors into the classrooms of Title I schools in Fairfax County, VA. GrandInvolve recently received the 2017 Governor’s Community Organization Award for its work fighting ageism and furthering understanding of cultures.

In the first segment, Guidance Counselor Sara Crummett shares the experience of being the first school to launch this volunteering program at Crestwood Elementary School, located in central Springfield, VA. She coordinates and matches the volunteers with the classroom teachers to find a good “fit” that meets the expectations of both. Crestwood will be starting their fourth year of this program in the Fall of 2017 and continue to look for volunteers for their classrooms, which have a high population of students who qualify for free and reduced lunches and are also from homes where a language other than English is spoken.

Eve Hall, a teacher at Crestwood, explains how she initially started with GrandInvolve as a third grade teacher and how she established working relationships with the three volunteers assigned to her. She is now a Head Start teacher and all of her volunteers followed her into this preschool program. Eve gives examples of the ways in which the volunteers assist her with regular daily activities and also their willingness to help with special events like pumpkin carving and evening events like book fairs. One of her volunteers even started a knitting club at the school which has been a great success.

Suba Satay, a retired U.S. Air Force officer, shares his experience being a classroom volunteer in first and second grade at Crestwood. He was matched with a teacher where he was able to specify reading and writing as an area he wanted to focus on with the children. Going into the 2017-18 school year, he’s adding a second volunteer day so he can do the same type of mentoring for third and fourth graders. Mr. Suba, as the children know him, has found this volunteering to be one of the most rewarding things he has ever done. He has also developed a great respect for all that classrooms teachers are asked to do.

In the final segment, Cindy Nothom, a GrandInvolve Action Team Volunteer at Parklawn Elementary School, shares the efforts the organization is making to recruit more volunteers for the upcoming school year. Cindy was one of the original members of GrandInvolve team which was founded by Dorothy Keenan in 2014 to place needed volunteers into Title I schools. At Parklawn last year there were more classroom teachers requesting volunteers than they had volunteers to place. This year they are reaching out to a number of organizations such as Venture into Volunteering and Volunteer Fairfax to look for new volunteers. Additionally, they have more than 15 GrandInvolve speakers who are available to speak at meetings for service clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis, Garden Clubs and Women’s Clubs to explain the volunteer opportunities. You can find additional information about GrandInvolve at www.GrandInvolve.org and on their Facebook page.

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

Turning Point Suffragists Memorial – Occoquan, VA – Inside Scoop

(July 3 2017) Catherine Read interviews Patricia Wirth, Executive Director of The Turning Point Suffragists Memorial Association. The goal of the organization is education of the public regarding the Suffragists Movement. The proposed memorial to be built in Occoquan Regional Park in Fairfax County Virginia, would serve as a monument to the 72 year struggle by over 5 million women in America to pass the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. It’s design also includes an education center to provide the historical context missing in the history lessons taught in classrooms around the country.

For instance, the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, did not give ALL women the right to vote. There are still issues with voter suppression to this day.

The first Women’s Rights Convention convened at Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19, 1848, is often cited as the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in this country. The convention organizers, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Two hundred women attended this event and it would be the beginning of seven decades of struggle with millions of women working to get the right to vote for all women – current and future. An interesting account of this arc of history can be found in Adam Grant’s book “Originals” contained in the chapter “The Narcissism of Small Differences.”

Throughout this interview, Patricia Wirth shows slides of the women whose names are virtually unknown to most Americans despite their importance to this history of our country. Carrie Chapman Catt was the leader of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the founder in 1920 of the League of Women Voters, an organization that is thriving in 2017. Alice Paul was the co-founder of the National Women’s Party and she authored the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1923. The ERA Amendment was passed in 1972 (five years before her death in 1977) but it has NEVER been ratified. In recent years it has come up annually for a ratification vote in the Virginia General Assembly where it is passed by the Senate and killed in the Republican controlled House.

The ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote hinged on the votes of the Tennessee legislature in August of 1920. It came down to the vote of one single legislator, a young man named Harry Burn, who received a letter from his mother asking him to support Mrs. Catt and vote yes. Few people were ever taught this bit of history in school, and this is one of the missions of The Turning Point Suffragists Memorial, to educate. Through education and leadership development programs, we can build a monument not only to the people who sacrificed so much for women’s suffrage, but also as a reminder of what it takes to create substantive social change. As Rebbecca Solnit points out in her book Hope in the Dark, we must build monuments to the journey of how great change takes place.

The location of the memorial in Occoquan Regional Park in Virginia has historical significance. In 1917, the “Silent Sentinels” who had been peacefully protesting outside the White House for years, were rounded up by order of President Woodrow Wilson and imprisoned in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. They were held without charge and brutalized there – beatings, force feedings and in deplorable conditions. It was the headlines of the international media that finally forced the administration to release the women. A documentary titled “Iron Jawed Angels” detailing the infamous “Night of Terror” that took place on Nov. 15, 1917, is available online.

The role of African American Suffragists will also be an integral part of this memorial to the suffrage movement. The earliest suffragists came from the abolitionist movement well before the 1848 convention in Seneca Falls. The Women’s Suffrage Parade held in Washington, DC, in March of 1913 included 22 founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. It was the only African American women’s organization to participate and they remain a stalwart supporter of building this memorial 114 years later.

The Turning Point Suffragists Memorial will be part of a proposed “Constitutional Trail” connecting historical sites in the region that impacted the creation of the U.S. Constitution, including it’s 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. The trail will include the Archives in Washington, DC – home of the original Constitution; Mount Vernon – home of George Washington, president of the Constitutional Convention and the first President under the new Constitution; Gunston Hall – home of George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights and Montpelier – home of James Madison, Father of the Constitution.

A major capital fundraising effort is underway to raise the funds necessary to construct this $2 million dollar memorial with a deadline of February 2019. The goal is to allow 18 months to construct the memorial complex in time for the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August of 2020. There is an urgent need to find major donors to underwrite the cost as this will be a privately funded memorial built on donated county park land.

For more information on how you can help raise the visibility of this fundraising campaign visit http://www.suffragistmemorial.org

by Catherine Read Leave a Comment

Collect for Kids – School Supply Drive in Northern Virginia

(June 27 2017) Catherine Read talks with several members of the Collect for Kids initiative, which is a collaborative effort of 15+ organizations that collect and distribute school supplies to students eligible for free and reduced lunches. In Fairfax County, over 50,000 students meet those eligibility requirements. The Collect for Kids organizations include some for-profit companies like Walmart and Apple Federal Credit Union, non-profits such as FACETS and NVFS, and agencies such as Fairfax County’s Office of Public-Private Partnerships (OP3) working together in a decentralized effort to collect and distribute these supplies efficiently.

In the first segment Susan Ungerer, a retired teacher, talks about how she started the all volunteer non-profit Kids R First which is now part of this larger Collect for Kids collaboration. It began in her garage and quickly outgrew the space. Sherry Noud, a school social worker with the Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Business and Community Partnerships, talks about the system of referrals that identifies the students who need school supplies. The Office of Social Work Services is instrumental in identifying students who need these supports. She also points out that school supplies are needed throughout the year and it’s not a need that is fully met in the first few weeks of the school year. Sherry also talks about the organizations that collect the backpacks for those school supplies and they include Cornerstones, Western Fairfax Christian Ministries and Britepaths.

In the second segment, Jay Garant, Program Director for the Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Business and Community Partnerships, talks about the growth of the program from 2011 when they served 16,000 FCPS students to 2016 when they distributed supplies to over 37,000 students. Joanne Walton, Seasonal Programs Manager for Britepaths outlines the efforts they make to maximize buying power through bulk purchases of school supplies. One dollar donated through www.CollectforKids.org or one of their partner organizations results in $3 worth of school supplies because of quantity purchasing. Jay Garant estimates that $6 to $10 donated will outfit a student with a backpack of necessary school supplies to start the school year.

The Collect for Kids School Supply Drive kicks off July 1st. In August, the supplies will be sorted and distributed prior to the first day of school on August 28th. The supply drive will continue after the start of the school year outside retailers such as Walmart as the program continues to acquire the school supplies that will be needed by these students later in the school year. If your business, faith community or service organization would like to set up a school supplies drive, visit www.CollectforKids.org for more information on how to get involved.

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The Brain Foundation – Laura’s Houses – with founder Trudy Harsh

(May 23, 2017) Catherine Read talks with Trudy Harsh, founder of The Brain Foundation and Laura’s Houses. She formed this non-profit in 2003 to provide supported housing for those in our area living with brain diseases such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders. Laura’s House are named for Trudy’s daughter Laura who had a brain tumor removed when she was 8 years old and struggled with mental health issues up to the time of her death in 2006.

Trudy is a Realtor in Northern Virginia with over 40 years of experience. She is quick to acknowledge that she is not involved in direct services for mental illness, but she does know real estate. Her mission is to provide safe and affordable housing for those who are capable of living more independently in a small group setting. She keeps this population in Fairfax County from becoming homeless by providing housing based on their ability to pay.

The first house she purchased was in Fairfax City and it was made possible by an infusion of $50,000 from another Realtor who believed in her mission. There are now 9 Laura’s Houses. She purchases 4 bedroom homes so there are four residents in each home. They are in integrated within the larger community in a way allows them to be part of a neighborhood. Trudy expects that they will be self sufficient in 10 to 15 years.

The Brain Foundation has partnered with Pathways and the Community Services Board (where Trudy served for two terms) to find potential residents who are likely to thrive in this environment. Not every placement works out and Trudy monitors the residents in each home and makes adjustments as necessary.

The long term consideration for this founder is about succession planning, maintaining and adding supporters, and recruiting new board members to keep the work of The Brain Foundation viable over the next decades beyond her stewardship. This organization has been successful in showing that supported housing can make the difference in the lives of those living with brain disease. They need an infusion of new interest, younger supporters, and of course . . . money.

On June 3, 2017, The Brain Foundation will host it’s annual fundraiser and this year’s keynote speaker is Virginia Senator Creigh Deeds. It will be held at Maggiano’s at Tyson’s Galleria and the public is invited. If you can’t attend, consider making a donation to this very worthy organization.