Feature of the Month: Event Search

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Julia Cain

Hope that you had a good weekend! As we’re completing edits on the 2011-2012 print Catalogue, we thought that we’d highlight some cool features of the online Catalogue.

This month, check out the Category & Location search function over in Happenings: All Events.

Let’s say that you’re looking for a performing arts event right in your neighborhood. Select Culture from the left-hand drop-down, then either select your state (say, MD) or enter your zip code, and click the triangular search button. What do we have?

Well, on September 24, Class Acts Arts and Young Audiences of Maryland will present a free Artist Showcase & Family Festival with over 35 teaching artists in Germantown; and on October 1, the National Philharmonic will present Corigliano’s Red Violin Concerto/Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Strathmore.

Looking to get involved? Click on Volunteer Opportunities and search the same way. (Northern Virginia Conservation Trust needs help on September 3 for invasive plant removal in Dora Kelly Park in Alexandria … wear long pants and gloves!)

Around Town: August 19-21

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Julia Cain

Welcome to the weekend! Consider spending a day at one of our non-profits, such as …

The Reading Connection (1200 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA)

On Friday from 10:00-11:30 AM, employees of The Boeing Company’s northern VA offices and the staff and partners of The Reading Connection will be stuffing 420 backpacks for children to take back to school. Backpacks and all materials have been donated by Boeing employees.

Capitol Hil Arts Workshop (545 7th Street SE)

Join Jake and Danarae Stevens for a free tango practica on Friday from 6:30-9:00 PM at CHAW. Tango dancers of all levels have an opportunity to practice, collaborate, and learn in a collective space. Free and open to all! Continue reading →

Pictures for the Day

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Julia Cain

Today, catch a glimpse into … The Black Student Fund, which provides vital support services and financial assistance to DC area African-American students as they navigate the application process, graduate from high school, and move on to college. Many students are the very first in their families to progress to higher education.

This past spring, the Annual Senior Reception and Alumni Induction Ceremony was held at the US Navy Memorial and celebrated the graduation of BSF’s senior class members, all of whom will be attending college in just a few weeks. Their amazing matriculation list includes Yale, Stanford, Morehouse, Howard, American, and Colby. These photos show seniors wearing their BSF “stoles,” which they receive upon induction into the Alumni Association. The graduates appear with Executive Director Jeanie Collins Carr and Board Chair Joel S. Kanter.

And as a new school year begins, you can support the next BSF class on their journey towards graduation and higher education.

In The News …

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Julia Cain

Tufts U. Soothes the Financial Sting for Graduates Taking Nonprofit Jobs (Chronicle of Higher Education): “Tufts University is offering loan-repayment assistance to alumni of any of its undergraduate or graduate schools, or professional-degree programs, if they take on public-service or nonprofit careers [...] Based on their need and income, alumni can receive grants of $500 to $5,000 each year to use toward paying off student-loan balances.” Pretty cool! In addition to financial incentives, what other assistance could universities offer to enable and encourage graduates to try a non-profit career? Continue reading →

Pictures for the Day

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Julia Cain

Today, catch a glimpse into … Greenbrier Learning Center, which reaches children in grades three through five with Learning ROCKS!, an after-school program and seven-week summer camp whose major focus is language and literacy, and helps parents support their children’s education as well as their own skill development.

GLC’s Learning Links AmeriCorps program just finished its second year with some great results: 87% of children improved their reading last year and 62% even improved by two or more instructional levels. The Corps Members ultimately serve as a critical link across the three main aspects of a child’s day: at school, after school, and at home.

Late this spring, AmeriCorps members, our staff, students, and families, all teamed up to clean up the Four Mile Run trail in south Arlington — and awards were given for the strangest, longest, and most beautiful items found on the trail. Check it out!

Like Magic

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Julia Cain

When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true — such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.

– English children’s author E. Nesbit, born today in 1858

Around Town: August 12-14

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Julia Cain

We have a small-yet-mighty bunch of events this weekend at our non-profits!

Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (545 7th Street SE)

The GLBT Arts Consortium and the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW) present Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera HMS Pinafore all weekend long! Jump aboard ship at 7:00 PM on Friday and Saturday and 3:00 PM on Saturday. Tickets here.

Northeast Performing Arts Group (at the University of the District of Columbia Auditorum, 4200 Connecticut Avenue NW)

“West Side Story: East of the River!” is a DC love story with a lyrical, hip-hop swing that tells the story of how love overcomes hatred; catch this high-energy dansical at 7:30 PM on Friday and Saturday. Tickets this way.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (641 D Street NW)

In Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park, hilarious and horrifying neighbors pitch a battle over territory and legacy that reveals how far our ideas about race and gentrification have evolved — or have they? Tickets for this weekend are sold out, but click HERE to learn more about last-minute sales.

Potomac Riverkeeper (at VFW Post, 1847 N. Royal Avenue, Front Royal, VA)

The Shenandoah River Rodeo is a celebration of the Shenandoah Valley’s best resource: the river! Food & drink, live bluegrass music, and camping included, plus kids under 12 are free.

7 Questions – Kathleen Sibert (A-SPAN)

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Julia Cain

Catalogue welcomes … Kathleen Sibert, Executive Director of the Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network (A-SPAN), whose workers reach out directly to to homeless men and women — frequenting wooded areas, overpasses, parks, and abandoned buildings, encouraging them to pick up a bagged meal and to drop in at Opportunity Place, the hub of A-SPAN’s operations. Want to take part? A-SPAN’s clients need new glasses and bus fares for job interviews. Help out HERE!

1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?

The most interesting recent project that we are involved in is the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which is being brought to Arlington as 100 Homes. It is a national initiative to house the most vulnerable people living on the streets and is a powerful way to end homelessness.

2. What else are you up to?

We are constantly working to expand the services that we offer to our clients who live on the streets of Arlington. We run the Arlington’s Emergency Winter Shelter from November through March and brought nursing services there, which has significantly improved the health of our clients and dramatically reduced the number of times they are seen at the Emergency Room and in the hospital. Continue reading →

In The News …

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Julia Cain

S&P’s Credit Downgrade for the U.S: Its Significance to Nonprofits and Communities (The Nonprofit Quarterly): “… its downgrading of the credit rating of the U.S. is, nevertheless, a powerful, serious and very conscious act, albeit mostly symbolic. But symbols are powerful [... And] if you listen to the television pundits, they seem to be floundering about how important the credit downgrading is, how the markets will react, and whether the solution is raising more revenues, cutting deeper into spending, reworking entitlements, or all of the above.” The NPQ points out that the nonprofit sector has not yet weighed in on the downgrade and what it could portend, and points to several areas of the S&P report that hold particular significance to that sector; but the article also adds that those points are, for the most part, old news. Do you agree or disagree? Let them know! Continue reading →

The Quality of the Day

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Julia Cain

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. [...]

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.

– Walden by Henry David Thoreau; first published today in 1854.

Catalogue Blog