What Your Money Goes Toward at These 30 Local Charities

Education

What a $100 Donation Buys:

School supplies and backpacks for two fifth-graders, often from low-income households, in Alexandria’s Emerging Scholars program.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

Chess sets for 40 underserved elementary- and middle-school students, through Chess Challenge in DC.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Assistive technology such as noise-canceling headphones (to help kids focus) and weighted vests (to help fidgeters sit still), for three classrooms, through DC Special Education Cooperative.

Homelessness

What a $100 Donation Buys:

Toiletries, linens, and personal items for one participant in Samaritan Inns, a recovery and transitional-living program in DC for homeless and addicted individuals.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

Assistance with a homeless family’s security deposit to rent an apartment, through Alexandria’s Good Shepherd Housing.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

One month’s rent for a family, through the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless.

Hunger

What a $100 Donation Buys:

A month of breakfast and lunch for an underprivileged student at DC’s Bishop John T. Walker School for Boys.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

A season of produce for a low-income family, from Common Good City Farm in DC.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Backpacks filled with food for the weekend for 250 low-income Northern Virginia elementary-school students, through Food for Others.

Nature

What a $100 Donation Buys:

The chance for 50 young kids to roast marshmallows and experience their first campfire, through Maryland’s Alice Ferguson Foundation.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

A mini-grant to help Washington Parks & People clean up and transform an urban green space in DC.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Help for a farmer to move a cattle herd so it doesn’t pollute and erode the Shenandoah River, through Shenandoah Riverkeeper.

Women & Girls

What a $100 Donation Buys:

A college tour for a prospective first-generation student, via Crittenton Services of Greater Washington, which assists young women in DC and Montgomery County.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

A workshop on preventing dating violence, through Rockville’s Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

A year of counseling, testing, and treatment for 15 low-income DC women with or at risk of HIV/AIDS, through the Women’s Collective.

People in Crisis

What a $100 Donation Buys:

A bag filled with toiletries and clothes for one child-abuse victim or witness in need, through DC’s Safe Shores.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

Ten hours of therapy for a young survivor of homelessness or domestic violence, through Arlington’s Doorways for Women and Families.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Two weeks of meals for 15 residents of the emergency shelter at the Family Crisis Center of Prince George’s County, which gives counseling and medical and financial assistance to victims of domestic violence.

The Elderly

What a $100 Donation Buys:

A professionally led art workshop in Fairfax County for ten seniors, through McLean Project for the Arts, which has provided art education for more than 50 years.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

A year of yoga, exercise, and meditation for one senior at Sarah’s Circle, which provides DC’s low-income elderly with recreational and educational programs.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Four months of weekly home-care services, such as cleaning, laundry, and food delivery, for a senior citizen who needs assistance, from the Community Ministries of Rockville.

Health and Wellness

What a $100 Donation Buys:

Dance class for people with Parkinson’s—the combination of music, a partner, and movement slows the disease—at Arlington’s Bowen McCauley Dance.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

Cancer screenings for 300 multicultural, low-income individuals, through Mobile Medical Care in Bethesda.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Thirty-five hours of health-education classes for 20 patients at Mercy Health Clinic in Gaithersburg, which also provides medications and chronic-disease management to uninsured Montgomery County residents.

Sports

What a $100 Donation Buys:

Equipment for one sports-based health-education class, through the Grassroot Project, which brings local college athletes to DC schools to teach about HIV prevention.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

A yearlong sports and recreation program for one severely disabled young athlete, through Bethesda’s Kids Enjoy Exercise Now, which matches each child with a one-on-one coach.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

Fifteen pairs of running shoes for Teens Run DC, which pairs low-income youth with running mentors to help with physical and emotional well-being.

Community Arts

What a $100 Donation Buys:

Tickets for ten underprivileged students to attend a professional production with youth performers and crew at Encore Stage & Studio in Arlington.

What a $500 Donation Buys:

Supplies and food for ten scholarship campers at DC’s Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts, which helps participants turn personal stories into plays or films.

What a $1,000 Donation Buys:

A poetry workshop for ten men at a homeless shelter, through Silver Spring’s Class Acts Arts, which brings the arts to the community’s underserved.

For more information on these charities, visit the Catalogue for Philanthropy Greater Washington at givelikealocal.org.

This article appears in our December 2014 issue of Washingtonian.

Caroline Cunningham

Associate Editor

Caroline Cunningham joined Washingtonian in 2014 after moving to the DC area from Cincinnati, where she interned and freelanced for Cincinnati Magazine and worked in content marketing. She currently resides in College Park.