Agnes L. Colgan Community Service Award – Arts and Education WINNER

Keep Prince William Beautiful

4391 RIDGEWOOD CENTER DRIVE, WOODBRIDGE, 22192 kpwb.org

Camp Under the Stars

Future Kings

17739 MAIN ST., SUITE 320, DUMFRIES, 22026 future-kings.org

Top local executive: Dr. Arik King, executive director

Founded: 2009

Employees: 1

Description: Future Kings is a workforce development program targeting Black and Latino boys in secondary school. We provide college-level training in biomedical sciences, cybersecurity, drone engineering, and computer game design without reducing rigor. Our program is multi-year/multi-level. 2022 accomplishments or challenges: Completion of a research project that identified the elements of the Future Kings’ instructional training that are key to the program's success. The research project also concluded that the Future

Top local executive: Rico Fleshman, executive director

Founded: 1982

Employees: 7

Description: Keep Prince William Beautiful is a 501(c)(3) environmental organization that serves Prince William County through partnerships to educate and inspire environmental stewards who actively work to reduce litter waste, increase recycling and broaden environmental education throughout the county.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: Pivoting the organization and readying it to move forward.

Other Nominees

Kings program is scalable. Another major accomplishment was a cybersecurity project in which we were the lead agency for a cyber vulnerability study of various nonprofit organizations in Loudoun and Prince William counties. We collaborated with MITRE Corp., University of Texas at San Antonio and Northern Virginia Community College.

GFWC Dominion Woman’s Club

P.O. BOX 1053, HAYMARKET 20168 dominionwomansclub.org

Top local leader: Rosemary Boettke, president

Founded: 2007

Members: 56

Description: GFWC Dominion Woman’s Club is a nonprofit service organization affiliated with the General Federation of Women’s

Clubs, an international women’s organization dedicated to improving communities through volunteer service. Our members are active in our community supporting this mission.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: One of our biggest challenges at the beginning of 2022 was that, because of continuing COVID restrictions, we were not able to serve our community outreaches in person nor hold our club's meetings in person. But as restrictions lifted and our members became more comfortable meeting again in groups, we were able to get all our programs and outreaches up and running at 100%. Along with this accomplishment, one of our biggest accomplishments of 2022 was that we gained 15 new members who were eagerly seeking the opportunity to get out and about, meet new people and serve the community.

AGNES L. COLGAN AWARD - ARTS & EDUCATION: OTHER NOMINEES

HireGround

9994 SOWDER VILLAGE SQUARE, SUITE 526, MANASSAS, 20109 Hiregroundworks.com

(See write-up, Veteran-Owned Business of the Year category)

Hylton Performing Arts Center

Manassas Ballet Theatre

9004 MATHIS AVENUE, MANASSAS, 20110 manassasballet.org

Top local executive: Amy Wolfe, artistic director

Founded: 1983

Employees: 40

Description: The largest professional ballet and performing arts organization in the Northern Virginia region.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: Being able to thrive and grow our services to the community despite the challenges imposed by COVID.

Manassas Symphony Orchestra Inc.

8665 SUDLEY ROAD, #107, MANASSAS, 20110 manassassymphony.org

Top local leader: Diane Bennett, president

Founded: 1992

Employees: 0. Volunteer organization

Description: The Manassas Symphony Orchestra is a volunteer organization dedicated to providing our community with world class classical music, innovative programming and original works.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: The biggest accomplishment in 2022 was our collaborations with the Prince William Little Theatre, which received rave reviews for “The Sound of Music.” It brought in many new patrons to the Hylton Performing Arts

Center and the orchestra. Over 1,400 patrons attended the three-day production –56% were from outside Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park. Staging for “The Sound of Music” was unique with the orchestra visible onstage nestled under the elegant Von Trapp mansion staircase. The orchestra and the theater will join together to present Lionel Burt’s “Oliver” in July.

Matthew’s Center for Visual Learning

10651 LOMOND DRIVE, MANASSAS, 20109 matthewscenter.org

Top local executive: Zachary Haney, executive director

Founded: 2000

Employees: 55

Description: The Matthew’s Center for Visual Learning is a nonprofit educational institution operating under the Virginia Department of Education as a non-public day school specializing in autism and intellectual disabilities. Our mission is to enhance lives through the principles of applied behavior analysis

2022 accomplishments or challenges: After sweeping changes in leadership and organizational structure, the Matthew’s Center was able to hire over 20 local workers and increase student enrollment nearly 30%. This accomplishment required extensive, meaningful outreach to our local education agencies and community stakeholders. Through these strengthened relationships, the Matthew’s Center is now at full capacity and looking to expand its educational programming throughout the greater Prince William County region.

Prince William County Public Schools – Robotics Program

14715 BRISTOW ROAD, MANASSAS www.pwcs.edu

Top local leader: Denyse Carroll, robotics and STEM

Founded: 2009

Employees: 105

Description: Prince William County Public Schools’ Robotics Program is a team-based program that starts in elementary school and goes through high school and beyond. Eight types of robotics programs allow children to explore robotics/STEM on land, underwater and in space.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: The number of robotics students increased, with the proportion of females jumping to 38%. Two-thirds of the MS teams at the state championship were from Prince William, and more than half of the ES VEX IQ teams and the VEX high school teams were also from Prince William. Prince William sent the most teams ever to the VEX World Championship, winning trophies in almost every category. In addition, 13 out of 33 FLL teams were from Prince William at the state championship, the most ever. All three FRC teams went to district championships with two traveling to the FIRST World Championship. And seven SeaPerch teams were invited to the International Challenge, winning two trophies and three top 10 pool spots.

- ARTS & EDUCATION: OTHER NOMINEES

Read With Carylee Inc.

12244 SEDGE STREET, BRISTOW, 20136 readwithcarylee.org

Top local executive: Carylee Carrington, founder

Founded: 2021

Employees: 1

Description: Read With Carylee Inc. is dedicated to diversity in children’s literature. Our goal is to ensure that all children are able to read books that help them feel represented. We connect with diverse authors, fostering collaboration with schools, organizations and visibility to parents and children.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: We promote mostly self-published authors. Unfortunately, most schools have contracts with the major publishers, and it is at times hard to get truly diverse books into schools.

SPARK, the education foundation for PWCS

P.O. BOX 389, MANASSAS, 20108 poweredbyspark.org

Top local executive: Dawn S. Davis, executive director

Founded: 1989

Employees: 5

Description: SPARK is the education foundation for Prince William County Public Schools. Through community and business partnerships, SPARK is able to provide programs and initiatives to our schools that they may not otherwise have.

2022 accomplishments or challenges: This year saw the restart of many programs and initiatives post-pandemic. With a robust school division strategic plan and foundation funding agenda, SPARK was able to not only reinstitute many longstanding programs, such as our grants program, but launch many others. This year, SPARK launched a partnership with Amazon Web Services InCommunities and the Children’s Science Center with science lab field trips for our fourth- and fifth-graders as well as SPARK Talks, supporting social and emotional learning for our staff and faculty.