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CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION MEETS THE PANDEMIC Local Hard-Hit Organizations Are Receiving CHCF Support
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by Stephanie Deutsch
In spite of this, the Serve Your City/ Foundation was able to Ward 6 Mutual Aid make its usual spring grants Serve Your City had for and, in May, to augment years been providing afterthem with special grants toschool and weekend entaling $100,000. This was richment for underserved possible because as Cymyoung people, activities like rot said, “Every single perfinancial literacy classes, son who had bought tickets tennis and rowing. Foundto the dinner that we had to er Maurice Cook says that cancel left their contribuCovid has “shined a flashtions and pledges in place.” light” on deeper needs The special grants went to in the community – the five organizations Cymlack of adequate access to rot calls “anchors” of the the technology and skills community – CHAMPS needed for virtual school(the Capitol Hill Associing as well as more basic ation of Merchants and needs like food. Building The CHCF Literary Pumpkin Walk was held in Professionals), Hill Center on his connections in the place of Literary Feast dinners which usually at the Old Naval Hospital, raise $40,000 for school support programming. community, Maurice has The Walk did not raise any money, but the winEveryone Home DC (forturned Serve Your City ner was given a grant of $1,000 to donate to a merly Capitol Hill Group into the lead partner in the local school. Photo: CHCF Ministry), Little Lights and newly formed Ward 6 MuServe your City, all organitual Aid. The special grant zations with which the Foundation has strong, ongofrom the Foundation allowed him to begin to dising relationships. tribute large amounts of school supplies, food and household items, storing them in space provided by Everyone Home DC the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. He sees tremen“I was stunned,” says Karen Cunningham, dous, increasing need especially as winter approachExecutive Director of Everyone Home DC of es and tent encampments continue to grow. her reaction to news of the special grant. “It said that we trust you in this uncertain time.” Little Lights Because the homeless and housing-inseThe early summer brought not just the cancellation cure population with which her organization of events and uncertainty about the future course of works is especially vulnerable to the virus, evthe virus, but the crisis that followed the death of ery aspect of what they do had to change with George Floyd in Minneapolis. Little Lights, a longthe pandemic. The day hospitality center at established organization bringing tutoring, mentorShirley’s Place that had been offering a place ing and a host of other services to residents of public to do laundry, to take showers, to use computhousing on Capitol Hill, had responded to the paners was shut down by the city (though it is now demic by stepping up its partnership with the DC partially reopened). Cunningham had to manFood Bank, enabling it to bring ready-to-go meals age an increased and changing work load and for distribution at Potomac Gardens and Hopkins plan for what she fears may be drastically inapartments. But Little Lights also saw hugely inLittle Lights tutors have stepped in to help with supervised virtual learning. Photo: Courtesy Little Lights creased need this winter. creased interest in the “Race Literacy 101” class it ow do you meet twice the need with half the resources? How to you offer financial assistance to organizations facing dramatically changing circumstances without the in-person fundraising events that for years have provided money for hundreds of small grants? That is, more or less, the situation being faced by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation and other organizations as the neighborhood copes with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In late March Foundation president Nicky Cymrot realized that emerging consensus around the virus meant that 250 people could not safely gather for the annual Capitol Hill Community Achievement Awards dinner that has for many years been the Foundation’s largest fundraiser. The event was cancelled. This fall the popular Literary Feasts that normally raise $40,000 to underwrite grants to local public schools were replaced by a Pumpkin Walk -an invitation to create decorations inspired by books and then to vote for a favorite. The result was 40 homes and yards decorated with witches from Macbeth, spiders from Charlotte’s Web, a skeletal Dorothy and Toto from the Wizard of Oz and other spooky sights. It was lots of fun, but it didn’t raise any money.
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