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.

In fact, Soergel, a University of Maryland professor, not only has been a board member from day one, he also wrote the newspaper ad that Mason answered nearly 25 years ago that offered a chance to make a difference in the life of a child.

The piece features a conversation between Mason and Soergel that illuminates the pivotal role Soergel played behind the scenes in helping The Child and Family Network Centers (CFNC), a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, develop into a nationally accredited organization that now provides nearly 200 children from low-income families with free preschool every year.

At one point during the interview, Soergel reveals a secret: “In CFNC’s second year, there was a workshop through High/Scope, an educational research foundation renowned for its preschool approach. I knew Barbara wanted to go, but CFNC didn’t have the money. I found an organization to pay for half. And Barbara doesn’t know this, but I contributed the other half.”

The article appears on page 90 of the September issue of Real Simple, which just hit newsstands.  Or you can see it online here.

Ryan Patrick Smith is manager of grants and major gifts at The Child and Family Network Centers, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

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.

Last Thursday, I attended such an event: the graduation ceremony for the latest class of the Training Futures program. This group of 48 women and men had completed a 25-week office skills training program for underemployed and unemployed workers.

Their graduation was held at the Gannett headquarters in McLean.  As students were called up to receive their diplomas, they were each complimented in a special way and challenged to move forward to continued success.

The pride in each of the graduates was palpable. Each graduate had been trained and given skills to become productive workers. They also developed ties to a nurturing community and support group that will be there for them when they need it.

This class represented more than 20 different nationalities and a variety of skill levels. We were told that the program creates an office simulation for trainees. Students are taught a full-range of current computer office programs, keyboarding, business English and math, filing, how to use a calculator, and customer service. They also are expected to dress professionally, arrive on time, complete office assignments, and interact professionally with their fellow classmates as well as their teachers.

In the process, Training Futures creates a community of support for their trainees who learn they are not alone, that others do care about them and want to see them succeed. They also work in internships and can earn up to 17 college credits from Northern Virginia Community College during their six months of training.

Obviously, this was a triumphant experience on many levels. Training Futures was able to show what they do and how effective they are (more than half of the 48 graduates have already found jobs and the others are interviewing), and thank the funders who continue to support them.

I look forward to celebrating the successes of other Grantee Partners in the years to come as The Women’s Foundation continues to both build and invest in our community.

Laura Forman is a member of the 1K Club and serves on the Open Door Capacity Fund Committee.  She is president of Laura Forman Communications LLC.

Training Futures is a program of Northern Virginia Family Services, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

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.

Essentially, each third grade class is turned into a “city” for a few hours a day.  My daughter now resides in “Cougar County” and was both thrilled and concerned to learn that she would receive a 100 Zapper (equivalent to the dollar) loan from the mayor to begin her residency in Cougar County, but would have to pay back the loan at the end of the two weeks.  She received a check book and quickly learned how to write checks, make deposits in the Green Place Bank, and balance her checkbook.

There were many decisions that needed to be made.

First, which job would she apply for? She carefully weighed her options: mayor’s assistant, banker, police officer, maintenance, newspaper editor, government, or private sector. She opted for the private sector and decided she wanted to be an entrepreneur (much to the chagrin of her dad, a lifelong bureaucrat).

Her second decision: how much to charge for her products? As an entrepreneur, she was required to submit a project proposal to be approved by the mayor. She carefully calculated her supply fees (20 Zappers per week) and rental fees (10 Zappers per week) to assist her in determining the price of her products (homemade clay animals and friendship rings—absolutely worth every Zapper if you ask her very unbiased mom).

Third decision: should she purchase the optional health insurance and optional business insurance at 10 Zappers per policy per week? 

This is where she hit her stumbling block.

The mayor informed the citizens that each day a medical disaster or a business disaster would randomly hit one citizen.  The cost if you were not insured—250 Zappers.

Lengthy discussions ensued as she weighed the decision.  What if she couldn’t sell enough of her products to pay for the supply and rental fees?  Would she have any Zappers to shop in Cougar County?  Could she repay the 100 Zapper loan?  How could she afford the insurance if her products didn’t sell?  How could she afford to pay 250 Zappers if she was uninsured and hit by a disaster?

While the scenario my daughter faces in Cougar County is merely a third grade lesson plan, unfortunately, it is a stark reality for thousands of women and their families in the Washington metropolitan area.

According to The Portrait Project, low-income, women-headed families are the most economically vulnerable population in the Washington metropolitan area–57 percent of families living in poverty in the region are women-headed households. 

They are living one paycheck, one car repair, or one medical crisis away from disaster.

A recent report from the Urban Institute stated, “Savings and assets can cushion families against sudden income loss, increase economic independence, and bolster long-term economic gains.”  And yet, 24 percent of low-income families do not hold bank accounts, 35 percent do not own cars, 90 percent have no retirement account, and 60 percent do not own homes, leaving them with nothing to fall back on when hard times hit.

We’ve all seen the recent headlines, “Rising Prices Hit Home for Food Stamp Recipients,” “Jobless Claims Jump 25 Percent from ’07 in N. Va,” “Economic Troubles Multiply Requests for Help in DC Area.”

Gas and food are at record prices. Foreclosures are increasing. Unemployment rates have reached new highs. By all accounts, hard times are here.

So then, what does it mean to be one step away from a financial crisis?

To get a better sense of what it takes to truly survive economically in the Washington metropolitan area, I consulted the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency (FESS) Standard, a tool created by one of our Grantee Partners, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW).  The standard “estimates the level of income necessary for a given family type—whether working now or making the transition to work—to be independent of welfare and/or other public and private subsidies.”

You might be surprised to learn that according to WOW, the 2005 self-sufficiency standard for a single mother with an infant and a preschooler living in D.C. was $53,634. That’s what it would take to cover the family’s basic needs (housing, child care, transportation, food, health care, miscellaneous expenses, and taxes). 

Compare that to the federal poverty guidelines, which calculate the poverty level for a family of three at $16,090. If that same mother works full-time making minimum wage in Washington, DC, she would earn just $19,322.

If you earn 36 percent of what is necessary to provide for your family’s basic needs, what exactly constitutes “hard times”?  Aren’t you already there?

As my daughter struggled to make her decisions about Cities, I asked her think about this reality.

What would it be like to come home from school to discover she had to move out of the only home she’s ever known and not be sure where she’s going?  What would it be like to live on $1 per meal per day?  What if she had no health insurance and the three trips to the pediatrician that we’ve made in the last two weeks for her bronchitis threw our family into debt?

She had no answers to my questions.

And so when my daughter came home last night, I was anxiously awaiting her final decision. Did she purchase the insurance or did she decide it was simply too expensive?

In the end, she opted to purchase both the health and business insurance.  But, concerned that she wouldn’t be able to pay back her Zappers loan, she stayed up late to make additional clay animals to sell the next morning.

Yes, it’s a simple third grade lesson plan, but imagine if it were real.

Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation

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. 

A year ago, our staffers and others participating in the challenge found it extremely, well, challenging.  (For more of our staff blogs on the challenge, click here.)

Almost a full year later, though, the challenge of living on food stamps has become even more difficult, as Chris Jenkins outlines in yesterday’s Washington Post article, "Rising Prices Hit Home for Food Stamp Recipients."

It’s no surprise that the woman interviewed in the article is a working single mother–a divorced mother of two.  She had her salary cut in half when she was laid off as a receptionist and had to take a job as home health aid.  She says in the Post, "Our life has changed…My kids notice the changes, there’s no doubt about it.  There are things I can’t buy anymore, little things like desserts, or if I say we have to be careful how much we eat. It’s not just them; we all feel it. We all notice."

Earlier this month, CNN documented a similar story about another local woman who skimps on her own food to feed her young daughter.

The rising costs are a national issue, but in the Washington metropolitan region, families are feeling it even more than in most places around the country.  The article explains that food prices in this region are eight percent higher than the national average.  For example, a pound of ground beef averaged $3.33 for a Washington area shopper, compared with $2.64 nationally. That’s a difference of 26 percent. A dozen eggs were 10 percent higher, while a 10-pound bag of potatoes cost 40 percent more.

As costs rise and food stamp allocations fail to keep up, more families face the consequences of food insecurity–poor nutrition, a decreasing ability to focus at school, work and other activities, and overall poorer health–not to mention the added mental stress of worrying and calculating to try to get the family food budget to stretch as far as possible. 

And who is affected? 

According to Capital Area Food Bank, half of all households in Washington, D.C. receiving food stamps report at least one working adult in the household.  In 2005, 50 percent of all participants in the food stamp program were children, and 65 percent of them lived in single-parent households.  Thirty-four percent of households with children were headed by a single parent, the overwhelming majority of whom were women.  Forty-six percent of participants were white, 31 percent were African-American and 13 percent were Hispanic.  The average gross monthly income per food stamp household is $648. 

However the stats break down though, the reality remains the same, that food insecurity is becoming an increasing issue in our region and nation as prices climb and families find wages dropping or face job loss. 

Last year, staff member Sherell Fuller took an international lens to her experience on the food stamp challenge. 

An interesting lens when one considers that there are an estimated one in three people in the world living below the poverty line–defined as living on less than $1 a day. 

In the United States currently, one in 11 Americans receives food stamps of about $1 per meal.

In either scenario, that’s a lot to ask of $1. 

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.

The Arlington County Fire Department just opened the first firehouse in our region that is "gender neutral," creating individual sleeping and showering spaces.  Cool.

Just for a bit more context, the Arlington fire department was the first in the nation to hire a woman as a professional fire fighter.  Today, nearly 10 percent of its firefighters are women.

Makes you wonder if they’re in cahoots at all with Prince George’s County’s female fire department employees, with their "hour of power" and talk of vision to victory. 

For it seems that Arlington certainly isn’t lacking in any vision around developing female friendly environments in departments that aren’t traditionally considered career tracks for women.

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.

The women writing are speaking from some serious life experience, and a fair amount of hard knocks, which makes their words of wisdom all the more compelling and touching.  Just a few excerpts:

First, I would talk to them about putting themselves first and that they should not worry about other people. I would like to talk to them about boyfriends and explain that they do not need a boyfriend or partner in their lives to fulfill their needs. Also, going through a through a rebellious/"party" time to have fun is not necessary and does not make you COOL. None of it is worth it…I’d like to explain how important it is to look out for themself, that if anyone asks or tells you to do something they need to think of the consequences before you do it. Life is not worth using the "stinkin thinkin" mode (stupid thinking)."  –age 21

I would want to tell them how important it is to get a good education, that sex and relationships can wait. –age 34

I would like to talk about other addictions that are not drug related, such as money addiction. People do not realize that spending money on clothes and other material items can be just as addictive as drugs. They need to understand that needing and wanting a material item is not always the best choice. Personally, I understand the feeling of wanting something at that moment, but until you work for that item, you never really appreciate it for its full value. I would say that Money Addictions are very real and that there are many people with the same problems and they are not alone. To get Therapy and to find out how to re-train you mind into not getting the money for a expensive item, until you have worked for it. –age 36

The women at Friends of Guest House are working every day, with the support of the guest house staff and each other, to change their lives.  For more on the advice they have for young women and their individual journeys, visit their blog.

Friends of Guest House is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  Get connected.

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. 

As I prepare to leave this position and take on a new one with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I couldn’t help but reflect on what the partnership with The Women’s Foundation has meant for the development of Alternative House as an organization, and for my professional development as well, over the years. 

I have really enjoyed working with The Women’s Foundation.  I have benefited from some very valuable Grantee Partner workshops, got to attend the Leadership Luncheon last year (which was very powerful), and wrote and received an Open Door Capacity Fund grant. 

The Women’s Foundation is a wonderful resource for nonprofits like us.  I am grateful for all that they have done. 

One of the workshops I attended was on communications, specifically communicating with the media.  One of the presenters was a former reporter who now runs a communications consulting company.  She helped us see into the mind of the reporter and the tactics they use to get the information they need on deadline, and gave us tips for responding to reporters so we can ensure our facts are right and we maintain our credibility.

A few weeks ago, a staff member at The Women’s Foundation reviewed our corporate statement.  The suggestions were invaluable.  We have since redone the statement, presented it to our board last week and received good feedback from them. 

The help from The Women’s Foundation really made a tremendous difference for us!

Karen Horowitz was formerly the director of development and volunteer services at Alternative House, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  Currently, she is the development officer for the Virginia chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

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.

In addition, on September 24, 2007, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, talked about the importance of investing in early childhood education in his remarks on education and economic competitiveness in a speech to business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He noted that, “ the payoff from high-quality pre-school and home visitation programs is likely very high, especially for children born into poor or otherwise disadvantaged families.”

On March 5, 2008, Jeffrey M. Lacker, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, spoke to Fairfax Futures’ business and foundation partners about the importance of investing in early childhood education.  Lacker noted, “Human capital is critically important to economic growth at the state or metropolitan level. Therefore, the more skilled the workforce, the more rapidly the economy grows.” Lacker went on to say, “The close relationship between skills and growth, combined with compelling evidence that early childhood education leads to better educated, more highly-skilled adults, is what makes the case for early childhood education so strong for me.”

Washington Area Women’s Foundation President Phyllis Caldwell participated in the event.  The Women’s Foundation is a strong supporter of Fairfax Futures’ efforts to engage the business community as advocates on this issue.

Vera Steiner Blore is executive director of Fairfax Futures, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

When you think about female-ex-offenders, what is the first thought that comes to your mind? When you think about prison, how do you feel?

I ask you to take an open-minded look at these women in a new blog, Friends of Guest House – Different Perspectives from Different Women.

Friends of Guest House is a residential program that helps women who are being released from jail or prison.  If women are not provided this chance, then what’s the alternative?  

Working with them every day, I see the challenges that they face and am constantly in awe of their strength.  I developed this blog to give each woman who comes through Friends of Guest House an opportunity to educate the public on who they are and share their stories.  I want them to have a voice.  Every woman who comes through the Guest House is extraordinary and unique. 

These women are survivors with real stories who are working every day to make changes and become productive members of society.  This blog allows them to be expressive and take part in something productive and thought-provoking as they undertake that journey. 

For most of these women, this is the first time in their life someone has given them the opportunity for expression and the possibility of helping someone else. 

So this blog will explore many questions that revolve around the stigmas associated with female ex-offenders, the fallacies of incarceration and the struggles that women face through re-entry within any community.

I want to challenge readers to be open-minded and not judgmental of where these women have been.  I want them to be curious to know how these women end up where they are, and socially aware and supportive of where they want to be.

Women have unique life experiences. They occupy different familial and social roles.  As a result, they enter prison in more dire emotional, physical and economic circumstances than men do.

Most often, women are reactive to their situations and are convicted of "poverty crimes," such as drug possession, intent to distribute and check fraud.  It is rare for a non-violent female offender to be a threat to any community.

The Guest House is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, and assists women when they are released from jail or prison.  The Guest House provides temporary housing for women who are in the need of basic human services to facilitate their new start in life and adjustments to the community at large.

The program at Guest House is designed to empower the women by providing the tools necessary to achieve self-sufficiency, including housing, food, individual and group counseling, as well as assistance with employment, medical, legal and social services. Guest House offers its services to women who sincerely desire assistance when released from confinement and to women who seek an alternative to incarceration.

You can hear the voices of these women here.  And I’ll be back here periodically to provide summaries and updates on the progress of the women and the work of Friends of Guest House. 

Over the past few months, the Guest House has implemented a new Community Outreach Program. The focus is to reach more women and children in the community who need assistance. The Guest House wants to be a different type of organization, one that creates social awareness and change.  Due to limited funds, social service organizations have a selective criterion regarding the population they serve.  We do not want to have to turn a woman away who is in need of basic assistance, even if it is just for a day.

Friends of Guest House was featured in the 2007-08 Catalogue for Philanthropy as "One of the best small charities in the Greater Washington region."  Charities were selected for "excellence, innovation, and cost-effectiveness–and for what they can teach us about the extraordinary ways that philanthropy works."

Erika Freund works at Friends of Guest House, splitting her time between Community Outreach and Case Management.

The Women’s Foundation supports Friends of Guest House and other nonprofits that are changing the lives of women and girls.  Want to be a part of paving new pathways for women throughout our region?  There’s a place for everyone at The Women’s Foundation.  Find yours today.

Bummed that the writer’s strike meant no Golden Globes this year?  Miss the glitz and glamor of the red carpet?

Well, we may not have glitz and glamor, but we do have an awards process for you!  And this time, you’re invited to be part of the academy…the academy of social change!

It’s our way of rolling out the red carpet to you!

Visit us from February 1-15th and vote for the 2007 Leadership Awardee that you think stands to make the greatest long-term impact on the lives of women and girls in our region. 

It’s the "People’s Choice of Philanthropy" and it’s all about social change–long-term, true change in social structures, institutions and processes that permanently address the root causes that foster inequity.

We’ve got eight outsanding organizations that are all doing effective, life-changing work for women and girls in the area of health and safety for you to learn about, choose from and then vote on. 

The 2007 Leadership Awards Committee has already done the leg work for you, researching and interviewing organizations, going on site visits and engaging in serious deliberations to get to this pool of eight outstanding awardees.

Now it’s your turn to weigh in on an even tougher decision–which among them stands the best chance of contributing positively to the women and girls in our community.

Get a head-start here, and then come back in February to cast your vote!  As we’ve learned before, saying no to get to the yes vote isn’t always as easy as one might think, so do your research, get ready, and vote!

The organization that receives the most votes will win an award of $5,000 in addition to their $10,000 Leadership Award–all a result of you using your voice for social change!

And if you would like an email reminder to come back and vote, or if you’d like more information about how to be a part of the 2008 Leadership Awards Committee, just drop me a line at lkays@wawf.org.

For more information, view the press release.