Impact Stories

The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia has awarded more than $500,000 in scholarships to 142 students pursuing higher education. The Community Foundation’s scholarship funds are leaving positive legacies across the region and beyond. More than 50 volunteers reviewed more than 400 scholarship applications for these funds this year. In total, the Community Foundation manages 13 scholarships and administers the funds for 21 others that support Northern Virginia students. These awards range from $1,500 to greater than $6,000.

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The William J. Foreman Memorial scholarship was launched in 2007 by Louise and Mark Foreman, to honor the memory of their son Will Foreman, who was tragically killed in an automobile accident on February 24, 2006. Will had a generous heart, a loving spirit, and was drawn to helping those less fortunate than himself. He had faced personal adversity during his high school years, but successfully overcame it to graduate and begin college studies in computer science. In those seventeen years, the scholarship has awarded $100,000 to 57 students who, like Will, have overcome adversity. The Community Foundation spoke with Louise Foreman, who offered some thoughts on this remarkable and incredible achievement.

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“It’s such a poignant moment when a student tells me ‘Oh, I’ve never seen a worm before,’” says Tammy Schwab, the Manager, Education & Outreach, Resource Management Division at the Fairfax County Park Authority. “Being a better steward of the environment takes that kind of spark, where a child or even one of their parents notices the bugs and the birds for the first time.” The Fairfax County Park Authority hopes to bring more of those moments across Northern Virginia, as they will use the 2023 Environment Fund Grant awarded to the Fairfax County Park Foundation to fund a Mobile Nature Center, which will be able to provide programs like this to neighborhoods across Fairfax County.

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Charitable giving can be nebulous and intimidating, but the millions of small donations made by regular people each day towards causes they care about prove that many give in spite of whatever fears or reservations they may have. In the past few years, people have become fairly familiar with things like a gofundme or a Facebook fundraiser, where people very quickly come together to support a cause or individual in need. But family giving doesn’t always have to look like this. I recently spoke to Marcy Mager and Mimi and Truman Deliee, who launched a family fund in 2022.

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In the fall of 2021, Mimi and Truman Deliee were 16 and 12 years old respectively. They told their grandmother, Marcy Mager that since they had everything they needed, she should take any money she intended to spend on holiday gifts and donate it to charity. She was not entirely surprised, since the children had long helped their parents working in food pantries and the family sometimes gave donations in addition to the more typical gifts of clothes, books, toys and electronics.

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One year, when I was probably 7 or 8, I was watching the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon with my family. It wasn’t the first time we’d had it on, and wouldn’t be the last, but I remember how excited everyone on the television was as the donations came pouring in. Something – maybe one of the performances? An appeal? Memory fails – triggered me to ask my parents if I could call the number and help. “That’s great!” they said. “You’ve got an allowance; you can certainly give something.” I called the number on the screen and spoke to someone offering $5, or maybe $10.

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The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia has awarded $763,696 in grants to 44 local organizations through its 2023 Community Investment Funds (CIF), Environment Fund, and Ross-Roberts Fund for the Arts, helping support broad-based needs and address complex social issues across the region. This work addresses two of the core pillars of the Community Foundation’s strategic work— to build community resilience and advance social and economic mobility for all of Northern Virginia’s residents.

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"Several years ago, my wife Laura and I heard Eileen Ellsworth talk about a new fund with the Community Foundation that could help our region for generations to come. It was a permanent endowment that would help fund the wide variety of community needs that the Community Foundation supports.

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One of the Community Foundation’s pillars in our revised mission is “resilience,” the ability to build on and endure. As the past three years have shown us, there is no set formula to endure and prevail but there are many good ways to do so. The Community Foundation recently spoke with Yolonda Earl-Thompson, the founder and leader of the LAZERA Ministries. She has been a Rt 1 Corridor resident for 14 years, and is formerly the Community Impact Officer of United Community.

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The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia is delighted to further partner with United Community by partially funding the COMMUN1TY+ Initiative, a project that aligns resources and efforts to support communities based on the needs expressed by residents of Mount Vernon and along the Route 1 Corridor.

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