Thank You for Making the Holiday Drives a Success!

Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of corporate sponsors, individual donors, civic groups, and volunteers our holiday drives were a success! Operation Turkey distributed more than 20,000 pounds of food to local families and the Gifting for Families Toy Drive gave nearly 2,000 toys and gift cards to brighten the season of local families. It is truly inspiring to see our community rally around these holiday drives and working together to ensure that our neighbors can enjoy some of the highlights of the season.

A big thanks, also, to longtime NVFS supporter, Lockheed Martin, who went above and beyond this year. They hosted an onsite holiday drive, orchestrated Amazon Wish List purchases, and donated $35,000 in support of the operations of our Operation Turkey and Gifting for Families Holiday Drives. Thank you, Lockheed Martin, and thank you to all the holiday drive supporters! Your generosity, support, and care has helped bring joy to our neighbors.

Help Your Neighbor Thrive in 2023

As we near year end, it's a good time to look back, and look forward to prepare for the year to come. We invite you to finish up your 2022 by helping our community prepare for 2023. Share your gratitude with a gift to our Family Hope Fund to pay forward your care, support, and wellbeing to our neighbors who need it most.

Plan Ahead to Navigate Holiday (and Any Day!) Stress

As we move beyond the "normal" of the past two years, many of us are now returning to the joys (and challenges) of in-person gatherings. To help keep the holidays as enjoyable as possible, it’s important to proactively check-in with yourself and your family and formulate a plan of how to navigate the season.

1. Reflection on Your Expectations: Take (or make) a quiet moment to think about what your wants, needs, expectations, and priorities are. This will help you identify what really matters, what doesn't, and what compromises you are willing to make to maintain some balance.

2. Acknowledge Your Feelings: As you reflect it's normal to feel some anticipatory stress. Instead of brushing it aside to "keep it together for the kids" delve deeper into those feelings. Procrastinating with one's own needs and self-care can compound stressful situations and models unhealthy emotion regulation for our family and kids.

3. Check in with Your Kids: If you’re feeling stressed, or overwhelmed, there’s a chance your kids are too. Ask how’re they’re doing, guiding them with their emotional vocabulary, and reassure them that you’re there with your love and support.

4. Create a Holiday Plan: Armed with the knowledge from your reflection it's time to write out some healthy ways you can respond to any overwhelming moments you may encounter. Ideas can be as simple as excusing yourself for a few minutes to take some deep breaths to an afternoon vegging in bed. Remember that jotting down your plans will help you remember your ideas and also give you something to pull out and refer to when you need it most.

5. Share Your Plan: If you feel safe to do so, share your plan with your support structure. Not only will you empower them to help you, you'll also be sharing a great tool, and modeling a healthy, proactive behavior that they can incorporate into their lives too!

Learn more here.

NVFS Recognized by Fairfax County Board of Supervisors

Recently, NVFS, our fellow nonprofits, and all of our supporters were recognized by the Fairfax County Government Board of Supervisors for the role we played in responding to the COVID 19 pandemic: “Whereas, the tireless support of the county’s community partners, and their thousands of volunteers and financial supporters was integral to the county’s successful pandemic response.” The individuals and families in our community faced many hardships and Fairfax County recognized us all for “...stepping up and offering (our) expertise and resources...” which was “...integral to the successful pandemic response...”

We are honored to share this recognition with 20 other nonprofits in Fairfax County because we know that community cooperation is vital to responding to the needs of our neighbors and we’re proud to be part of Northern Virginia’s support structure.

Always Forward Premiere Celebrates Northern Virginia Immigrants and Refugees

We are excited to share with you Always Forward, a short film produced by Rising Act Films. The movie showcases the story of Ninah, a Congolese refugee, and her young daughter, as they navigated new life in the U.S., ultimately gaining the support and confidence needed at NVFS’ Training Futures program. Ninah, as portrayed by NVFS' very own Training Futures graduate, Christelle Awa, truly captured some of the universal experiences and emotions of the immigrant and refugee experience.

Attendees at the premiere enjoyed the film and an inspiring panel of NVFS clients and staff moderated by longtime supporter Margery Leveen Sher. Learn more about the film, the programs that supported Ninah and many of our immigrant and refugee clients, and Sher's book Indomitable! Immigrants’ Stories of Perseverance and Resilience, at nvfs.org/always-forward.

Thank You to Tacombi Community Kitchen

Tacombi Community Kitchen provided delicious and healthy meals to our Arlington Mill Early Head Start Center families and staff, three times in November and December. Many of the adults and children that attend the center face food insecurity. Not only were the meals a huge, tasty, hit but this helped the families stretch their food budgets. A big thank you to Tacombi Community Kitchen for their commitment to helping families and our amazing partnership. This act of kindness brough smiles to many faces at the Arlington Mill center.