Tufts U. Soothes the Financial Sting for Graduates Taking Nonprofit Jobs (Chronicle of Higher Education): “Tufts University is [now] 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? Read all »

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!

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.

CFP 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. Read all »

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! Read all »

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. Read all »

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. Read all »

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. Read all »