Windy Hill Foundation Always Looking To Do More

Windy Hill Foundation Always Looking To Do More

Windy Hill executive director Bob Dale (second to left) and Middleburg residents Pauline Haley, Florence Hill, Michael Dade and Witchell Ward.

By Leonard Shapiro

On the surface, the numbers represent an obvious anomaly.

The median income for a family of four in the Middleburg area in 2021 is estimated at about $126,000. And yet, the Middleburg-based Windy Hill Foundation, which provides 310 units of affordable housing to over 800 low and lower-income individuals, families, seniors and adults with disabilities, has never faced a greater demand.

“We’re getting more calls than ever for housing,” said Executive Director Bob Dale, entering his fifth year at the helm of a non-profit that’s been providing affordable housing and countless resident services since 1981.

In addition to 67 Middleburg units, the foundation also provides housing in The Plains, Marshall, Ashburn, and Sterling. The waiting list now ranges from one year to as long as three years.

“I don’t know how much can be blamed on the pandemic,” Dale said. “I just think most people don’t realize how many lower income people we have in this area, especially in Loudoun. People will call the county and they’ll say, ‘call Windy Hill.’”

The foundation was started 42 years ago by Irene “Rene” Llewellyn, a native of Great Britain who considered Middleburg her adopted home. Windy Hill is an area off Route 50 on the western outskirts of the village where mainly African American families lived. Back then, fifteen families shared six outhouses and two cold-water spigots. There was no other running water, no plumbing, and some homes had dirt floors.

It all began when she raised an initial $100,000, including donations from members of her bridge club. The foundation has a $1.3 million annual budget. A third comes from modest rents, the rest from grants and donations.

Dale said the foundation has been especially grateful for the continued support of loyal donors during the pandemic. Its annual gala, a major source of financial support, had to be called off last year. Sponsors still supported a stay-at-home version and Dale remains optimistic for a possible November event.

“No matter what, we’re hoping to do in person events,” said marketing director Lisa Capraro. “Our last (gala) we had 375 people. We’re looking at smaller events, different scenarios, but we’ll do something.”

In addition to housing, Windy Hill also provides nocost, on-site programs and services for its residents.

They include after-school academic and social programs for children, a drop-in summer day camp, tutoring programs during the school year, family programming, and personal enrichment, social, and health programs.

They commit more than $400,000 annually to these programs, with help from individual and organizational donors and grantors from local communities, as well as the greater Washington area.

The goal is to help residents to overcome some of the barriers –housing costs, child care, financial management, employment – that may make it difficult to move themselves and their families from affordable to market rate housing.

“Once they get a roof over their heads and life stabilizes,” Dale said, “we go to work trying to improve their lives and help people become more self-sufficient. Education is our greatest opportunity to break the cycle. A lot of our families have been in this situation for generations.”

Added Capraro, “We want to do it right from the get-go with a commitment to see it through. We want the residents of Windy Hill to have options. We have a college education fund and many of the students qualify for financial aid. We’ve also partnered with Fauquier schools to provide after-school programs at Coleman and Marshall Middle School with a funds received through a Federal grant.”

For senior citizens, daily activities range from bingo to yoga to gardening. A grant has provided computer tablets as well as creating free wifi hotspots at two Windy Hill Communities in Middleburg. They also have three busses that will take residents on field trips, and shopping and running errands.

Some medical services are available through volunteers and partner organizations and the foundation also partnered with local food banks to have a constant supply of food distributed to all Windy Hill communities

“When I started (as executive director), our number of units was getting ahead of our services,” Dale said. “I was tasked with focusing on resident services. We had a director of services and one person on that staff. Now we have four staff members. And we want to do more.”