Supporting our Immigrant Neighbors

We’ve partnered with USA Today’s “A Community Thrives” challenge – a crowdsourcing campaign and a chance to receive a $100,000 grant in support of providing immigrant youth and families with wraparound services designed to meet their basic, legal, and mental health needs.

From September 21st at noon to October 16th at noon we need to raise $6,000 to be eligible to apply for the grant. Look for a special announcement in your email next week about how you can help us unlock this big opportunity!

To learn more about our work supporting our immigrant neighbors, please click here. 

Virtual Learning Begins at the SERVE Shelter

Many of the guests at our SERVE shelter work in the community. With the school year going virtual, some would not be able to care for their children during the day and sustain employment.

To ensure kids at the shelter get the support they need for their vital education, while giving parents the chance to continue working on their individual housing stabilization plan, we are providing relief through SERVE’s new Virtual Learning Spaces. In addition to taking into account the diversity of grade levels in our littlest residents, we also developed stringent protocol to maintain everyone’s health and safety.

This has truly been a community effort. Special thanks to Kaiser Permanente for their $15,000 grant and to long-time volunteers Mike and Coralee Tervo, who stepped up with a generous donation to purchase laptops to ensure that the kids at the shelter could continue their studies. Additionally, thank you to all the volunteers who came together to help us move furniture and set up the new learning spaces in the Great Hall and the Study Room.

We are excited to continue learning together this school year!

 September is Hunger Action Month

1 out of 10 residents in the DC metro region is food insecure and nearly 1/3 of them are children. Join us this Hunger Action Month to ensure that our neighbors are fed.

Here’s how you can help:

1) Shop at Safeway in Woodbridge, Dale City, and Bristow through September and every donation at checkout goes directly to our Hunger Resource Center (HRC)  to provide food for children in the Greater Prince William area.

2) Donate to the HRC through our new Target Wishlist.

3) Donate food items that we are low on directly to the HRC: low-sodium canned veggies, canned fruit, cooking oil/spray, boxed meals (like Hamburger Helper). You can drop them off during the week from 9-4pm and on Wednesdays from 9-6pm.

4) Donate funds to the HRC and your purchasing power will go further. NVFS can purchase food with the funds you donate for $0.19 per pound. $100 buys more than 500 pounds of food!

However you can help, your support is invaluable and very much appreciated!

Welcome to the Board, Dr. El Brown!

NVFS is proud to welcome its newest Board Member Dr. El Brown, Founder of KinderJam and host of the podcast "Straight Talk with Dr. El." She is also a faculty member in the Early Childhood Education Master of Arts in Teaching Program at the American University, School of Education, in Washington DC. Dr. El is also dedicated to supporting families of young children with disabilities in the military community.

We are excited to have Dr. El on our Board, and look forward to her sharing her expertise, commitment, and passion for NVFS and our work throughout Northern Virginia.

NVFS Participates in Roundtable with Senator Kaine Regarding Mothers & Newborn Success

Ondrea McIntyre-Hall, NVFS Director of Health Access & Nutrition Services, joined a roundtable with U.S. Senator Tim Kaine to discuss the House's Momnibus Act and Senate's Mothers & Newborn Success Act.

In serving NVFS moms and mothers-to-be, Ondrea voiced our support for the need to extend medical coverage up to a year postpartum and to increase federal support/funding for home visiting programs like Healthy Families and Early Head Start as a prevention strategy and protective factor.

Ondrea also encouraged rountable participants to develop reimbursement models that support non-medical case management to help women navigate social determinants that impacted their well-being.

Tell Us: How is Your Business Doing this Year?

2020 has brought unexpected realities that many of us were not prepared to handle. As uncertainty continues to dominate everyday life, companies and organizations have been forced to adapt the ways they conduct business in order to meet the needs of employees and safely continue with operations.

NVFS is gathering best practices from our region’s top businesses so we can showcase lessons learned and share innovative ideas that contribute to a thriving workplace in this challenging environment.

Please complete this survey and let us know how you've kept operations going during this ever-changing time.

Being Thoughtful About Unintentional Bias

NVFS is dedicated to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion both in our workplace as well as in the community. One of the topic areas we have focused on recently is microaggressions.

Microaggressions are statements or actions based on bias or prejudice made towards another individual which leads to unintentional harm. Most of the time when someone makes a statement or takes actions such as this, it stems from ignorance and/or obliviousness to the implications. Kiyun Kim depicts microaggressions experienced by different people in the "Racial Microagressions" project from 2013.

Watch "How microaggressions are like mosquito bites" from Fusion for further description of microaggressions.