Your donations and nonprofits working together in a time of crisis
Initial Grants from the Arlington Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Prompt Response Fund
We are at a time of exceptional need for our neighbors in Arlington who are experiencing job loss and other crisis situations. Fortunately, our network of nonprofit safety net providers has responded quickly and forcefully, as have the many generous people in our community who are pitching in to help with contributions of time, talent, and treasure.
Arlington Community Foundation has moved swiftly to support their efforts. We have refocused our longstanding Prompt Response Fund exclusively on support to nonprofit organizations on the front lines with clients, patients, and residents impacted by the health crisis.
So far, more than 40 Arlington nonprofits have received a total of over $500,000 in emergency response support from the Arlington Community Foundation.
The entire community across all sectors has responded generously. We would particularly like to acknowledge the support of Amazon, Washington Forrest Foundation, Meyer Foundation, and Philip L. Graham Fund.
Here is the list of groups we have supported so far with grants from our COVID-19 Prompt Response Fund.
AHC Inc. — $20,000, $50,000
AHC develops affordable housing and helps communities thrive in the Northern Virginia, Washington DC and Baltimore region. The grant will cover Arlington residents’ emergency needs such as groceries, diapers and other supplies with maximum flexibility.
ALS Association DC/MD/VA Chapter — $5,000
The DC/MD/VA Chapter of the ALS Association serves the needs of those living with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and their families throughout Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The grant will support technology purchases for online support to Arlington clients who are highly susceptible to COVID-19 because of advanced respiratory issues.
American Red Cross in the National Capital Region — $5,000
The Red Cross responds to disasters and provides support to maintain our regional blood supply. The grant will support protective equipment for staff and volunteers for an Arlington-based blood drive.
APAH — $20,000, $50,000
APAH is a nonprofit focused on increasing the number of committed affordable apartments in the DC Metro area for our low-income neighbors. The grant will provide its Arlington residents with financial assistance for rent, food, and other emergency purchases.
Arlington Bridge Builders — $10,000
Arlington Bridge Builders is a partnership of area churches, faith-based organizations, and individuals that provides social and educational services to people in need in Arlington. The grant will help ABB purchase food and protective equipment and provide financial assistance to clients, with a focus on the immigrant population.
Arlington County Department of Human Services – $27,500, $75,000
The Department of Human Services offers a variety of assistance programs to Arlington residents. The grant will help DHS expand the Meals on Wheels program to provide meals to low-income older adults in their homes during the COVID-19 crisis.
Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) — $5,000, $20,000
AFAC’s mission is to feed our neighbors in need by providing dignified access to nutritious supplemental groceries. Initial first-day emergency grant, and second grant to purchase groceries that will help meet increased COVID-related demand.
Arlington Free Clinic — $5,000, $27,500
The Arlington Free Clinic ensures the medically underserved have access to affordable quality health care. The first-day quick response grant provided flexible support to the Clinic for its initial response to the crisis. The larger grant was used to purchase grocery gift cards for clients.
Arlington Neighborhood Village — $5,000
Arlington Neighborhood Village is dedicated to helping older Arlington residents continue living in their own homes. The grant will provide emergency supplies including food, medicine, and cleaning supplies for low-income seniors.
Arlington Thrive — $20,000
Arlington Thrive provides same-day, emergency financial assistance for Arlington residents facing a hardship. The grant will support increased needs for rent and food assistance.
A-SPAN — $20,000
A-SPAN strives to end homelessness in Arlington through housing and ongoing case management. The grant will support additional food purchases for increased meal demand, and emergency nursing and medical supplies, including protective gear, thermometers, and hospital grade cleaning supplies.
Aspire! Afterschool Learning — $30,000
Aspire provides after school tutoring and enrichment activities for the children of South Arlington. This grant will be used to purchase grocery gift cards for Aspire’s clients.
Ayuda — $5,000
Ayuda provides legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants. The grant will provide emergency support for approximately 25 families during the crisis including food, medical care, and supplies.
Bonder and Amanda Johnson Community Development Corporation — $10,000
Bonder and Amanda Johnson Community Development Corporation addresses needs in the Green Valley (formerly Nauck) community through education, healthy living, financial empowerment and community involvement. The grant will support neighborhood residents with emergency assistance for rent, food and supply purchases as well as to provide emergency medical transportation services.
Bridges to Independence — $10,000
Bridges to Independence offers a continuum of shelter and support for homeless individuals and families, helping them attain financial security and moving forward into self-sufficiency. The grant will provide families in the shelter and rapid rehousing program with groceries, cleaning and personal supplies as well as food for its pantry, application fees for apartments, and holding fees to landlords.
BU-GATA Tenants Association — $30,000
BU-GATA advocates for affordable housing, partners and collaborates with other community organizations for the production and preservation of affordable housing in Arlington. This grant will be used to purchase grocery gift cards for BU-GATA’s clients.
Capital Caring Health — $20,000
Capital Caring’s Halquist Center in Arlington provides hospice, palliative care, and counseling to patients and their families. The grant will help Capital Caring expand support to care at home, hospice, and advanced illness programs by deploying telehealth remote patient monitors in homes.
Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services — $5,000
Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) resettles and assists refugees and asylees throughout Northern Virginia. The grant will provide food, diapers, and other essential household items to Arlington residents affected by the economic downturn.
Chris Lantos Foundation — $5,000
The Chris Lantos Foundation supports pediatric cancer patients and their families. The grant will support the purchase and distribution of personal protective supplies for their Arlington clients.
The Church at Clarendon — $10,000
This Baptist church in Clarendon is housed in a multi-use building with eight stories of apartments, 60 percent of which are designated as affordable housing for low-income tenants. The grant will help provide food, rent and mortgage assistance to low-income residents during the crisis.
Clarendon Presbyterian Church — $5,000
CPC is a church located in the heart of Clarendon. The grant will provide urgent assistance to approximately 30 families including doctors’ visits, childcare for children with sick parents, groceries, cleaning supplies, transportation and assistance with utilities and rent.
Computer Core — $5,000
Computer CORE provides basic computer skills instruction to low-income unemployed and underemployed adults. The grant will provide direct cash assistance to 16 Arlington residents who were enrolled in the program when classes were paused.
Culpepper Gardens — $10,000
Culpepper Gardens is an affordable senior living community with two independent senior living facilities comprised of 267 apartments. The grant will cover food and transportation needs of assisted-living residents as well as additional personal protective and technology equipment.
Doorways for Women and Families — $20,000
Doorways creates pathways out of homelessness, domestic violence and sexual assault leading to safe, stable and empowered lives in Arlington. The grant will support crisis-driven increases in housing assistance and basic client needs, including food, cleaning supplies, baby formula, diapers, and clothes for growing children.
Dream Project — $10,000
The Dream Project serves promising young immigrant students through mentoring, scholarships, community-building, and advocacy. The grant will provide emergency financial assistance, including rent, utilities, and groceries for Dream Project students from low-income families.
Edu-Futuro — $20,000
Edu-Futuro empowers immigrant and underserved youth and families through mentorship, education, leadership development and parent engagement. The grant will support rent and food relief to Latino and immigrant families in Arlington.
Eliana’s Light, Inc. — $5,000
Eliana’s Light supports families with children who have complex medical conditions. The grant will provide financial assistance to Arlington families for food, household cleaning supplies and protective gear, and other basic needs.
Ethiopian Community Development Council — $20,000
ECDC serves the African immigrant and refugee community through a broad spectrum of local and national programs. The grant will provide rental assistance to Arlington clients in need of immediate help.
Fellowship Health Resources — $5,000
Fellowship Health Resources provides behavioral health services to improve the quality of life for individuals living with mental illness and addictions. The grant will help FHR provide food and supplies, to individuals in Arlington with mental health needs.
The Fenwick Foundation — $5,000
The Fenwick Foundation is focused on improving the quality of life and health of older adults, veterans and active military, individuals with special needs and caregivers. The grant will support financial assistance to the very low income and vulnerable assisted living and independent living residents in Arlington.
Food and Friends, Inc. — $5,000
Food & Friends provides nutritionally tailored, home-delivered meals to people facing life-challenging illnesses. The grant will help Food & Friends serve more Arlington clients.
Food Rescue US — D.C. — $10,000
Food Rescue US uses volunteer food rescuers to deliver fresh food from businesses that have too much to social service agencies who serve people who have too little. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Food Rescue US has recovered food from seven businesses and provided that food to four agencies serving those in critical need. The grant will allow them to provide more food to those in need in Arlington.
Friends of Guest House — $10,000
Friends of Guest House helps women successfully reenter the community from incarceration. The grant will provide food and financial assistance, including rent, utilities, and other emergency purchases to clients, as well as cleaning supplies and protective gear for staff and residents..
Fruitful Planet — $10,000
Fruitful Planet is dedicated to bringing fresh fruits and vegetables to all people. The grant will provide fresh fruit and vegetables to various Arlington partners serving the community during the crisis.
Hope for the Warriors — $10,000
Hope for the Warriors is a nonprofit veteran service organization that provides assistance to combat wounded service members and their families. The grant will assist approximately 20 financially vulnerable veterans and their families with rent/mortgage, utility, car payments, and gift cards for food.
HOPE Multiplied — $10,000
Hope Multiplied serves at-risk children, their families and the homeless in the Metro DC region. The grant will provide high quality, nutritious food to children in Arlington’s Green Valley neighborhood in partnership with Drew Elementary.
ICNA Council for Social Justice — $10,000
ICNA Council for Social Justice is a Muslim-based social justice/human rights organization. The grant will support planning large-scale distribution of drop-off, no-contact Ramadan iftars (meals to break the fast), Eid meals, and providing virtual companionship for the incarcerated in Arlington Detention Center, people quarantined with their abusers, the immune-compromised, ill, elderly, and undocumented who won’t receive unemployment or a stimulus check, and those who are unable to isolate because of their frontline jobs.
L’Arche Greater Washington, D.C. — $10,000
L’Arche has two homes in Arlington that provide housing and support services to adults with intellectual disabilities. Core members (adults with disabilities) and assistants who support them live together like a family. The grant will provide 14 adults with disabilities and 25 assistants with support for cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment (PPE), groceries, and other essential items.
La Cocina VA — $20,000
La Cocina VA is a bilingual culinary training program for low-income individuals in the Washington DC Metro Area. The grant will support rent, medical needs, and food for approximately 26 Arlington graduates working in restaurants and hotels,many of whom have been laid off
Legal Aid Justice Center — $10,000
The Legal Aid Justice Center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty. The grant will provide food assistance and necessary supplies to immigrants and other clients struggling through the crisis.
Meals on Wheels of Northern VA — $5,000
Meals on Wheels of Northern Virginia offers home-delivered food service to Arlington County residents who are homebound or unable to procure or prepare meals for themselves. The grant will support a shift to weekly delivery of flash frozen and shelf stable meals to increases in Arlington residents seeking meal assistance.
Mt. Olive Baptist Church — $10,000
Mount Olive Baptist Church provides needed support to vulnerable and in-crisis individuals through its outreach mission. The grant will support emergency assistance to low-income and food-insecure residents, including food and help with urgent bills.
Neighborhood Health — $5,000
Neighborhood Health improves health and advances health equity in Northern Virginia by providing high quality primary care regardless of ability to pay. The grant will support medical equipment for patients, PPE and cleaning supplies.
New Hope Housing — $5,000
Since 1978, New Hope Housing has been providing a comprehensive array of services to homeless families and single adults in Northern Virginia. The grant will support rent for low-income housed Arlington clients, food and emergency supplies for homeless clients, and security deposits for residents leaving the shelter.
Northern Virginia Family Service — $10,000
Northern Virginia Family Service helps families and individuals in need create stability and self-sufficiency with a wide range of critical services. The grant will provide food, medicine, rent, and other necessities to Arlington individuals and families impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
NOVA ScriptsCentral — $10,000
A nonprofit pharmacy, NOVA ScriptsCentral (NSC) increases access to affordable medication for more than 1,100 low-income, uninsured children and adults in Northern Virginia. The grant will enable NSC to provide a 30- to 90-day supply of free prescription medication to all uninsured patients at its Arlington-based clinic partners: Arlington Pediatric Center, A-SPAN, and INOVA Juniper Arlington.
OAR (Offender Aid and Restoration) — $20,000, $30,000
OAR works with men and women returning to the community from incarceration and offering alternative sentencing options through community service to youth and adults. The grant will help OAR meet the increased need for assistance with rent, medication, food and transportation that program participants returning to Arlington County after incarceration are experiencing because of the health crisis.
Our Lady Queen of Peace Church — $10,000
Our Lady Queen of Peace is a Catholic church in Arlington that provides support to vulnerable and in-crisis individuals through its outreach mission. The grant will support the church’s food pantry.
PRS Inc.— $10,000
PRS provides mental health, crisis intervention and suicide prevention services in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. The grant will provide personal protective equipment for PRS staff and food, health and financial needs for clients.
National Capital Treatment and Recovery — $20,000
National Capital Treatment and Recovery (formerly Phoenix House) is an addiction treatment center serving individuals struggling with substance use disorders. The grant will help cover costs for patients when insurance/personal funds do not completely cover the full course of their prescribed treatment.
Real Food for Kids — $10,000
Real Food for Kids’s collaborates with school communities to improve the quality of school food, and help families make healthy nutritional choices. The grant will support their partnership with Bayou Bakery to provide meals to needy families.
Restaurant Opportunities Centers of Washington D.C. (ROC-DC) — $20,000
The Restaurant Opportunities Centers of Washington D.C. (ROC-DC) created an emergency Disaster Relief Fund in mid-March to offer bridge economic support to its membership base of 674 low-wage restaurant workers impacted by COVID-19. The grant will provide financial assistance to Arlington workers with demonstrated need, with a preference for those awaiting application and approval of unemployment, parents or caretakers of elderly relatives, and those with urgent basic needs.
Rx Partnership (RxP) — $10,000
Rx Partnership increases medication access for vulnerable Virginians including more than 1,000 low-income, uninsured individuals at Arlington Free Clinic and NOVA ScriptsCentral. The grant will help support a new mail delivery pilot focused on sending prescription medications to patients’ homes during the crisis.
The Salvation Army National Capital Area Command — $20,000
The Salvation Army Arlington Corps has a longstanding emergency assistance program that provides financial assistance for housing and utilities. The grant will help them serve 40 additional Arlington client families in need of emergency assistance with rent and utilities now and in the coming weeks.
Shirlington Employment and Education Center — $20,000
SEEC is a day labor center facilitating employment and vocational skills of the worker pool. The grant will provide rental assistance and meals purchased from local Latino restaurants to SEEC’s day laborers.
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church — $10,000
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church serves the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and neighborhoods in the heart of Arlington, as well as the George Mason University Arlington Campus. The grant will augment church’s financial assistance program, which helps Arlington residents to pay rent and utilities.
Saint George’s Episcopal Church — $10,000
Saint George’s food pantry feeds approximately 175 clients each week and is seeing an increase in demand for their services. The grant will support food and supplies for clients impacted by the crisis.
St. John’s Community Services — $5,000
SJCS-VA serves the Northern Virginia community through community-based employment, day, and residential services. The grant will fund personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies for SJCS staff who provide in-home support to individuals in Arlington with developmental, intellectual, and other disabilities.
Tahirih Justice Center — $5,000
Tahirih Justice Center provides free holistic legal and social services to immigrant survivors of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation, across the greater Washington, DC region. The grant will provide food, household supplies, and other basic necessities to immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.
VHC Outpatient Clinic — $27,500
The Virginia Hospital Center Outpatient Clinic serves the community by providing healthcare services to patients with or without insurance. This grant will be used to purchase grocery gift cards for clients.
VHC Pediatrics (Arlington Pediatric Center) — $5,000, $27,500
Virginia Hospital Center Pediatrics offers comprehensive, affordable, quality healthcare in a culturally sensitive environment to children, birth through 18 years of age, living in Arlington County with family incomes at or below 200% of Federal Poverty Level. These grants were for initial emergency assistance and to purchase grocery gift cards for clients.
Views at Clarendon — $5,000
The Views at Clarendon, a mixed-use building including 70 affordable housing units, is a collaboration between Arlington County, the First Baptist Church of Clarendon, and the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing. The grant will support rental assistance and emergency support for low-income residents.
VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement) — $10,000
VOICE is a non-partisan coalition of almost 50 faith communities and civic organizations in Northern Virginia working together to build power in middle and low-income communities. The grant will provide cash for groceries, medicine, cleaning products, rent, utilities and transportation to low-income Arlington residents during the COVID crisis.
Volunteers of America Chesapeake Inc — $10,000
Volunteers of America Chesapeake operates Arlington’s Residential Program Center detox and substance abuse recovery program for single homeless adults.. The grant will support the purchase of sanitation and cleaning supplies, food, personal protection equipment, over-the-counter medications/medical supplies, and personal hygiene supplies/toiletries for its Arlington residents.
Wesley Housing Development Corporation — $20,000
Wesley Housing provides safe, quality and affordable housing to residents across the Washington DC metropolitan area. The grant will support supplemental food and emergency supply needs for its low-income Arlington residents.
Year Up Arlington — $20,000
Year Up National Capital Region (NCR) is a one-year, intensive training program that provides underserved young adults, ages 18-24, with a combination of hands-on skills development, coursework eligible for college credit, corporate internships, and wraparound support. The grant will help students with groceries, utility payments, and medical expenses associated with the COVID crisis.
YMCA of Metropolitan Washington — $10,000
The Y provides opportunities in wellness, aquatics, youth sports, summer camp, childcare.The grant will support the purchase of food and basic household needs for families at its Arlington branch.