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
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.
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
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
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.
Before long, freshman orientation will begin at colleges and universities across the country. Dorms will fill up and students will move away from home, many for the first time in their lives. Some joke that the hardest part of college is getting in, but staying in often proves far more challenging. As the Washington Post Education Review points out:
The members of the incoming Class of 2015 have been lectured on the value of a college degree for most of their lives. But getting that degree has never been more expensive, especially at a time when some families are dealing with unemployment, cut wages and other financial hardships. Record numbers of freshmen are arriving on campus already stressed out, and campus resources are stretched thinner by demand. Continue reading
Welcome to August! Enjoy the first weekend of the last month of summer with …
Reach for College! (Community College of DC, 801 North Capitol Street NW)
The College Readiness Institute, which delves into the challenges and opportunities of preparing students for a post secondary education, concludes on Friday. Interested in attending next year? Learn more right here.
Capitol Hil Arts Workshop (545 7th Street SE)
CHAW is hopping all weekend! Try out a Free Tango Practica on Friday from 6:30-9:00 PM and catch the opening of artist Laura Vernon-Russell’s exhibition of silver gelatin prints on Saturday from 5:00-7:00 PM. Plus, every night at 7:00 PM and on Saturday at 3:00 PM, GLBT Arts Consortium and CHAW present Gilbert & Sullivan’s delightful HMS Pinafore. Continue reading
Welcome … Tim Payne, Executive Director of For Love of Children. For hundreds of children and teens, FLOC offers carefully paced, one-on-one tutoring that bring them to grade-level proficiency in reading and math and after-school workshops teach teamwork, leadership, and community service. Learn more!
1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?
Our biggest news is that for the sixth consecutive year, 100% of FLOC seniors have graduated from high school on time and have enrolled in postsecondary institutions for the fall. We celebrated this news with many great projects and partnerships. Among the most exciting is a donation from TerpSys, an amazing corporate donor and partner. TerpSys, led by CEO Ed Woods, gifted a laptop to every graduating senior in FLOC’s 2011 class. Owning their own computers would have been impossible for these students, but TerpSys’s generous donation made it a reality for each of them. We hosted an inspiring event at our headquarters where Ed and his team presented the laptops to students.
I am also extremely proud that FLOC awarded scholarships to all of our 2011 graduates through our own Fred Taylor Scholarship Fund. We celebrated this news at the annual Fred Taylor Scholarship Dinner, which featured an extremely moving media project that used film and photography to tell the story of each graduating scholar. Our scholars helped create this project through a grant awarded to us by Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts. It was a fantastic evening where students, families, volunteers, staff and supporters came together to celebrate another successful year at FLOC. Check out the video here.
It is truly amazing to watch our students graduate from high school prepared academically, financially, and technologically for postsecondary success. Continue reading
Charitable Deduction Not Touched in Debt-Ceiling Deal (The Chronicle of Philanthropy): “The tentative deficit deal between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner does not make any changes in the tax deduction that donors receive for making charitable gifts [...] No matter what happens with the charitable deduction, the spending cuts outlined in the debt accord could be far more significant for groups that rely on federal money the agreement doesn’t spell out exactly what programs would be cut.” In sum, changes in tax deduction are not on the table now, but they certainly could return before 2012. And while the debt-ceiling deal seems all but confirmed at last, the details of the cuts are not.
Local: Scores fall for some DC schools amid test security questions (Washington Post): “Test scores can rise and fall from year to year for various reasons, including teacher and student turnover. What is unclear is whether heightened test security this year played a role in changing results … [Yesterday's] release from the state superintendent’s office provided a detailed look at scores for each school.” According to the press release, 193 schools were assessed by the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (CAS): “24 schools are in good standing (a decrease of 27) 163 are schools in need of improvement.”
Op-Ed: This Is Your Brain on Summer (NY Times): “As a result, no matter how effective other school reforms are, our traditional 180-day school calendar creates an incredibly inefficient system of learning. We cannot afford to spend nearly 10 months of every year devoting enormous amounts of intellect, energy and money to promoting student learning and achievement, and then walk away from that investment every summer.” We linked to a similar article in the Post last week, but the message does bear repeating. For some related questions, are sumer academic required? Or are the structure and engagement of a school-like environment the real key? Learn more about summer learning from the Wallace Foundation.
One writes out of one thing only — one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
(Autobiographical Notes, 1952)
Words like “freedom,” “justice,” “democracy” are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.
(“The Crusade of Indignation,” 1956)
– American novelist & essayist James Baldwin; born today in 1924