I have a few story ideas to pitch to the Washington Post, which has devoted scarce front-page inches in the last week to articles about how the recession is affecting the dating lives of men in their 20s and 30s who are active in the local bar scene and extreme text messaging among teenagers.

A new study, "Predicting Poverty in the Commonwealth,” released by The Commonwealth Institute and Voices for Virginia’s Children forecasts that children will be hardest hit by the current economic recession and rising unemployment rates.

In their September issue, Real Simple magazine highlights the story of Barbara Mason’s 25 year journey helping thousands of children living in poverty and the one board member, Dagobert Soergel, who has been with her from the start.

One of the many things I appreciate about The Women’s Foundation is how deliberately it works to bring people together–both donors and Grantee Partners–to build community. For example, as a member of the 1K Club, I’m occasionally invited to special events that showcase Grantee Partners and their outstanding work.

With only two weeks left in the school year, yesterday my daughter’s third grade class in Fairfax County began week one of their Cities program.  Now, you might be wondering what the Cities program is. 

I asked myself that same question when my daughter began excitedly telling me about it.  The more I learned, the more intrigued I became.

Last year, a number of staff here at The Women’s Foundation participated in the Food Stamp Challenge–living for a week on the food budget allocated to individuals on food stamps–generally about $1 per meal per person. 

In a cool semi-related follow-on to yesterday’s story about how more low-income women aren’t gaining access to our region’s financial boom because they’re not job ready, we see an example of how a fire department in our area is taking pro-active strides to make its work environment female friendly.

For some inspiration for your Friday, I can’t help but sharing a blog post I recently found on Friend of Guest House’s blog about advice that women would give to the young girls of today if they had the chance.

I’ve been working with Washington Area Women’s Foundation for a number of years in my role as director of development and volunteer services at one of their Grantee Partner organizations, Alternative House. 

Access to quality early childhood education is finding articulate advocates in unusual places, including voices from the Federal Reserve Bank. The economic argument for investing in quality early childhood education has been soundly made by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis researcher Art Rolnick in the working paper, A Proposal for Achieving High Returns on Early Childhood Development.