Impact Stories

Our Children Fund

Our Children Fund Supports Foster Care Coat Drive

December 17, 2020

The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia’s Our Children Fund recently awarded $3,804.19 to support the Operation Warm Coatcampaign that has provided hundreds of coats this year to foster care children in Fairfax County, Virginia. Social workers, foster families, and children in foster care all expressed sincere gratitude after receiving the coats.

Our Children Fund Opens to Help Foster Children

March 17, 2017

Deborah G. MatthewsThis is an interview with Deborah Matthews, a local trust and estate attorney devoted to supporting foster children in our region, who recently established the Our Children Fund with the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia.

What is the Our Children Fund?

This fund is focused on the needs of foster children, which are immediate and present every single day. It will help provide foster care children access to “normalizing” items and experiences and to address their otherwise unmet medical, social, emotional, and educational needs. These children in the Fairfax County foster system are between the ages of birth and 17 years, and young adults between the ages of 18 and 21, if permanency (return to home, relative placement, or adoption) is not achieved. Some examples of what might be supported include fees for before or afterschool activities, tutors, field trips, camps, elective activities, sports-related fees, and dental and health services.