Enjoy the long weekend, Greater Washington! Some great events are right around the corner …

CIVILIZATION (all you can eat) at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (641 D Street NW)

Six hungry city-dwellers scramble for sustenance in this provocative vaudeville of American enterprise and ingenuity, featuring an award-winning DC cast. Performance on Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 7 PM; nab your tickets here.

“Pre-Mardi Gras” Celebration at Downtown Cluster’s Geriatric Day Care Center (at Xi Omega Center, 4411 14th Street NW)

Line dancing, hand dancing, music by DJ- Mr. “C,” plus a light meal on Friday at 7PM. Proceeds to help provide therapeutic care and supportive services to at-risk older persons so that they remain in the community. Call (202) 347-7527 to purchase your tickets.

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Objections to Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (WAMU: Diane Rehm Show): “The widely praised Violence Against Women Act faces a tough reauthorization battle. Though introduced in a bipartisan way, it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote with all the Democrats voting to move it to the full Senate and all the Republicans voting against.” Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, explains that the bill “as passed out of the Senate committee, recognizes the LGBT community [and] immigrant women who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse;” but the bill does not include a “mandate for holding batterers accountable” or a reparations provision. 17 CFP nonprofits, including the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, focus particularly on girls and women and women; learn more right here.

President Obama’s Budget Request for the NEA: The Fine Print (Americans for the Arts blog): “We learned early that morning that President Obama is proposing an increase of $8 million (from $146M to $154M) for the NEA, which was a very positive start. In the past two years, NEA funding has dropped almost $22M and has yet to recover from the enormous cuts from its high of $176M in 1992. In particular, the budget of the Our Town program, which rewarded over half of its grants to communities of less than 200,000 in 2011, would increase from $5 million to $10 million. Two months ago, the NEA also announced Operation Homecoming, a partnership with the Department of Defense that will host “a new series of writing workshops for returning troops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.”

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Still making your evening plans? Look through out Cultural nonprofits for some great, local offerings of music, theater, dance, and art.

First, rehearse your song by rote
To each word a warbling note:
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.

– Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

– Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Have a good weekend, friends! Here are some great destinations just around the corner …

Jazz Conversations with Jazz Vocalist Rene Marie with DC Jazz Fest (at THEARC Theater, 1901 Mississippi Avenue SE)

For music students and music lovers, this 60-minute session on Friday at 10:30 AM will explore the amazing contribution of jazz vocalists to American history and culture. Recommended for middle and high school students; register right here.

The Snowy Day at Adventure Theatre (Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo)

The simple tale of a boy waking up to discover that snow has fallen during the night is brought to life in this magical world premiere. Most performances this weekend are sold out, but tickets are still available online for Friday at 7:00 PM and Saturday at 11:00 AM.

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Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
– Charles Dickens, born today in 1812

If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it’s pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting.
– Laura Ingalls Wilder, born today in 1867

I don’t believe in fear of divine vengeance, and I do believe in justice and equality.
– Sinclair Lewis, born today in 1885

Welcome to February, Greater Washington! Here are some great destinations for the weekend …

Arlingtonians Meeting Emergency Needs (N 16th Street and Sycamore Street off Roosevelt Street, Falls Church)

Join a 3-month training program to prepare for the Parkway Classic Ten Miler and 5K on April 22, 2012 — new and experienced runners are all welcome! This Saturday at 9:00 AM marks the first of the training runs. Learn more on the AMEN page.

L’Arche Greater Washington, DC (Call (202) 232-4539 for event location)
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Last week, we linked to this Chronicle of Philanthropy piece, which reported that the nonprofit sector “added jobs at an average annual rate of more than 2 percent from 2000 to 2010, while for-profit jobs were cut by 0.6 percent each year on average.” Drawn from a study by the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, these findings invite the question: if nonprofit organizations are indeed the third largest private employer in the country, should more job training programs prepare employees to work at them? More broadly, why do nature and arts and human services nonprofits not play a larger role in the national employment discussion?

In “Putting Americans to Work,” published on the Huffington Post yesterday, Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser tackles a similar topic:

But at a time when unemployment is the key political issue and when virtually everyone in politics is struggling to find ways to reduce the ranks of the unemployed, why doesn’t some smart politician realize that the arts are one way to help solve this problem?

Who better to train young people to think creatively, to exercise their own unique ways of thinking than we in the arts? The success of arts organizations and artists depends on the ability of people to be creative and make something new.
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From “Why Children’s Theater Matters” by Danielle Wood of Education.com:

Want to boost literacy? Teach your child to imagine the unimaginable? Cultivate curiosity? Get thee to the theater, and bring your kids.

The children’s theater movement is led by Europe, but the US is not far behind. And we’re not just talking about the bustling theater town of New York. The third largest children’s theater in the world is tucked away in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Other mid-sized cities from Dallas, to Tempe, to Nashville, are also cooking up kids? fare in full-time children venues. [...]
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Good morning! DC-area nonprofit events coming up …

The Snowy Day at Adventure Theatre (Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Boulevard, Glen Echo)

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first American picture book to feature an African-American child as the main character. The simple tale of a boy waking up to discover that snow has fallen is brought to life in the magical world premiere. All performance are sold out … so Adventure has added more!

Nash Run Trash Cleanup at Anacostia Watershed Society (intersection of Anacostia Avenue NE and Douglas Street NE)

On Saturday from noon to 3:00 PM, take a stand against pollution that clogs our waterways, poisons our wildlife and distracts from the natural beauty of the Anacostia. More info right here. (The event at Bladensburg Waterfront Park is already full!)
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But the forming a new System of Government, for so numerous a people, of very different views, and habits, spread upon such a vast extent of Territory, containing such a great variety of soils, and under such extremes of climate, was a task, which nothing less than the dreadful apprehension of losing our national existence, could have compelled the people to under-take. We can be known to the world, only under the appellation of the United States.

– statesman John Hancock, born today in 1737

It is not enough to know your craft; you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.

– painter Edouard Manet, born today in 1832