… This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
And I bless you: More life.
The Great Work Begin.
Angels in America: Perestroika by American playwright Tony Kushner,
born today in 1956
Have a great weekend, friends! And consider visiting a local nonprofit, such as …
Dance Place (3500 12th Street NE)
A 12-week public art celebration offering free cultural events and promoting creative expression, Artland Temporium events include exhibits, dance, concerts, poetry readings, and games and free to the public. Check out the full schedule for this weekend right here.
District of Columbia Arts Center (2438 18th Street NW)
Super busy this weekend: The Extermination Machine at 7:30 PM today through Sunday, Nightmerica (presented by Theatre du Jour) on Friday at 10:00 PM and Saturday & Sunday at 5:00 PM, and a Loose Ends Artist Talk on Sunday afternoon. The full schedule is right on the website.
By Marie LeBlanc, Community Partnerships Coordinator
Each month, WAMU features one or more local nonprofits in a segment called “Community Minute.” This month, two Catalogue for Philanthropy charities are featured on the radio and online: City Kids Wilderness Project and Man Can Stop Rape. While we always enjoy reading about our nonprofits in the Catalogue, hearing directly from staff members on the radio brings their stories to life in a new way.
City Kids Wilderness Project offers experiential learning programs for inner-city youth, utilizing the outdoors and a natural environment as a classroom for academic, recreational and life skills. Development Associate Mike Macrina shares the story of a City Kids alumnus who is now a freshman at West Virginia University, and will be working in Alaska with the National Outdoor Leadership School this summer — and attempting the first all-African American summit of the highest peak in North America.
Do Schools Challenge Our Students: What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the United States (Center for American Progress): “Consider, for instance, that 37 percent of fourth-graders say that their math work is too easy. More than a third of high-school seniors report that they hardly ever write about what they read in class [... and] 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they aren’t being taught engineering and technology.” Moreover, “students from disadvantaged background are less likely to have access to more rigorous learning opportunities.” Read the full report right here and check out this interactive state-by-state map of student engagement.
Fairfax considers first charter school (Washington Post: Virginia Schools Insider): “More than 100 parents, teachers and activists turned out Tuesday night for an informational meeting about the Fairfax Leadership Academy, which would be the first charter school in Northern Virginia if it?s approved by the county school board in October [...] Proponents of the Fairfax Leadership Academy say that the charter school model, which allows for more flexibility and experimentation than a traditional public school, will give the county a new way to attack that stubborn gap.” We talked about the approval of the first Montgomery County charter school last July; what do you think about a new charter in Fairfax?
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. (February 1983)
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes. (July 1934)
– Serbian-American physicist Nikola Tesla, born today in 1856
From last week’s “Leading women offer lessons for work in philanthropy” in The Atlantic:
Katie Couric, special correspondent for ABC News and cancer advocate: “To really pour yourself into something, you have to be moved by it.”
Laurie Tisch, president of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund: “The lesson I learned is about patience and about agreed upon measures of success … You’ve got to be flexible with grantees. They also have to be honest with you.”
Ann Friedman, board chair of the SEED Foundation: “I would make a plea, if you are on a board and you have a passion and you want to fund something … please also give unrestricted donations to that non-profit. It’s how they turn the lightbulbs on.”
What do you have to add, both for nonprofits and for those that support them?
Check out the range of events coming up this weekend (and week) at …
Dance Place (3500 12th Street NE)
A 12-week public art celebration offering free cultural events and promoting creative expression, Artland Temporium events include exhibits, dance, concerts, poetry readings, and games and free to the public. Check out the full schedule for this weekend right here.
Anacostia Watershed Society (Northeast Branch Riverdale Road, Riverdale, MD)
At 10:00 this Saturday, water, weed, and mulch brand new trees that soon will grow to do great things for the River! RSVP info and directions right this way.
By Marie LeBlanc, Community Partnerships Coordinator
This spring, the and Volunteer Frontier published the Volunteer Engagement Stars Report, which examined the ways in which nine nonprofits make the most of their volunteer resources. The Catalogue for Philanthropy provided the primary source for selecting nonprofits for the report, and we were excited to learn more about the ways in which this group of nonprofits “utilizes volunteers in dynamic ways and returns dramatic results.”
The agencies featured in Volunteer Engagement Stars represent a fair cross section of nonprofits, serving unique client bases under diverse budgets (from $500,000 to over $24 million). The techniques they used to engage volunteers also vary — from Arlington Free Clinic, who benefits from the pro bono services of trained medical professionals, to Little Lights Urban Ministries, whose volunteers provide tutoring and other youth programming.
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
– Albert Einstein (1938)
Have a good Fourth of July, friends! We’ll be back up on Thursday.
WILDE: “… But the artist is the secret criminal in our midst. He is the agent of progress against authority [...]
I made art a philosophy that can look the twentieth century in the eye. I had genius, brilliancy, daring, I took charge of my own myth. I dipped my staff into the comb of wild honey. I tasted forbidden sweetness and drank the stolen waters. I lived at the turning point of the world where everything was waking up new.”
– The Invention of Love (1997) by British dramatist Tom Stoppard,
born today in 1937.