Bread for the City

[Update: we have photos from the event! Read below.]

Our volunteers rock. That was the overall gist of last night’s Good Hope Awards, an annual celebration of the amazing volunteers who donate their time to help us further our mission.

We all got together at our Northwest Center and snacked on yummy appetizers from Occasions Caterers and participated in a ceremony dedicated to a few superstar volunteers who received Good Hope Awards in categories like Fresh Food Partner and Community Leader (full list below).

It was such a fun night to share with staff and volunteers, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our sponsors. A big thank you to Pepco, Bates White, and Ellen Look and Tony Cavalieri for your generous contributions!

We also had help from two special volunteers that I want to mention. We have beautiful photos of our celebration, courtesy of Jessica Del Vecchio Photography, who has documented several of our events and captured some awesome moments of the evening. See the entire set here, or check out the slideshow below:

I also want to thank Yael Krigman of Baked by Yael, who donated very yummy cake pops (red velvet and birthday cake…I may have had both) to the attendees. Thank you both so much!

Lastly, I have to thank the volunteers. We have over 1,500 people dedicating their time to the BFC family, and without you, we wouldn’t be able to serve over 56,000 of DC’s neediest residents each year.  Interested in volunteering? Find out more and join our family!

Ida M. Smith & Stacey Smith

2011 Good Hope Award Winners

• Corporate Partner- City First Bank
• Fresh Food Partner- West End Farmers Market
• Food Program Partner- Leonard Edwards
• Social Services Program Volunteer- Ida M. Smith
• Social Services Program Volunteer- Brittany Hales
• Medical Program Volunteer- Eleanor McClean
• Community Reformer- April Goggans
• Community Partner- Capital Area Food Bank
• Outstanding Citizen- Sergeant Jon Podorski
• Community Leader- Cynthia Krus

If you’d like to make a contribution to our amazing volunteer program, it’s not too late! Please consider donating today.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City.

Cynthia Krus, on right

Cynthia Krus got involved with Bread for the City about a decade ago. As a Partner at Sutherland LLP (a long-time supporter of ours), Cynthia had heard of our work before she decided to check it out for herself. I guess she liked what she saw because she hasn’t left our side since.

Since that first encounter, Cynthia has jumped in with both feet. Cynthia now serves on our Board of Directors and Executive Committee. She has packed grocery bags, sorted clothing, unpacked garbage cans for our new medical clinic, and even helped operate the crane that laid the dirt on our NW rooftop garden over the summer. Cynthia also now chairs the Art with a Heart gala (four years and counting!), helping to make the annual gala  more successful than ever before.

Cynthia can do everything! (Except Scrabble. She has yet to beat me at Scrabble.)

Thank you, Cynthia, for your friendship, your tireless leadership, your continuous advocacy, and the meaningful input and advice that you judiciously provide in your role as a Bread for the City Board Director. This award is well deserved.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center —  it's not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City.

Ms. Smith, Center, with PEP Graduates

I’ve been working with Ida for over 2 years through the Pre-Employment Program (PEP) and I can tell you her support has been invaluable to our staff and clients alike. A retired journalist who knows how to market a story, Ida has been relentless in making herself available not just as a volunteer, but as a mentor for the women within the program. She always emphasizes the importance of being able to sell yourself as the product and to close the deal when meeting with employers. Our clients have been successful as a direct result of her guidance.

Not only does Ida support the clients in PEP, but she really gets the program, believes in its students, and sees that it works. That sort of faith and unwavering dedication is what makes her an incredible asset to PEP and to Bread for the City. She is a stakeholder in PEP and I’ve truly enjoyed having her involved in every class cycle.

Cheers to you, Ida.

Oh, hi there. As you may have noticed by the recent blog posts, we really love our volunteers. To show our love and appreciation, we’re getting together here, at our Northwest Center (1525 7th Street NW) tomorrow night, October 6th from 6-8pm for our 6th Annual Good Hope Awards. We would love for you to join us; all you have to do is send me your rsvp!

We have over 1,500 volunteers that walk through our door each year, and this ceremony is our way of saying thanks to all those amazing people who donate their time and energy to further our mission. We’ll be honoring a few special volunteers (can you tell by the theme of this week’s blogs?) with an awards ceremony at 6:15, so if you want to cheer on your favorite BFC volunteers, stop by before then to catch a glimpse of the awardees.

Whether you’re able to make it tomorrow night or not, we hope you will lend your support to our volunteer program. Without volunteers, Bread for the City wouldn’t exist, so please consider making a donation to help grow this wonderful program and in turn, grow the organization.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center —  it's not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City.

Most people at BFC volunteer doing front of the house work; conducting intakes, helping patients in the Medical Clinic, working with clients in the food pantry to select groceries, or gardening on our roof, to name a few. However, there are several other ways to volunteer that help our organization in a different way. Brittany Hales, a Social Services Program Volunteer award winner, has provided dedicated services to our Representative Payee Program. Here’s how she’s helped our BFC family and why she’s awesome:

• She is consistent – she comes every week, twice per week.
• She is flexible: she’s willing to come to either center and work in any tiny cramped space we offer without complaint!
• She seems very comfortable here: she asks enough questions to get the task done right, but can take an assignment and run with it.
• She is willing to do just about any (relatively mundane) administrative task that we throw at her.
• She has sorted and stuffed checks, sent out mailings, scanned client records into eCW, and helped to process Representative Payee Accounting reports, etc.
• She does it all with a smile. See?

April Goggans

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center —  it’s not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City.

April Goggans is a leader at Bread for the City and also within the larger Southeast DC community. We are so pleased to recognized her as the Good Hope Awards Community Reformer of the Year. 

Arriving to DC five years ago, April moved into an apartment at Marbury Plaza, one of DC’s largest housing complexes. (Read this profile of April on People’s District.)

Tenants at Marbury Plaza had been working together to improve housing conditions since 2005, and when the building was put up for sale in 2008, April helped with an attempt to purchase the building through DC’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA).

After the bids fell through due to the economy, she continued to organize through the Marbury Plaza Concerned Tenants Association (MPCTA) around housing code violations. April led a group of ten tenants who were ready to withhold their rent in demand of improvements. They knew that by taking this action they were risking their very homes — but they believed the law was on their side. With April as President of the MPCTA, the rent strike grew from 10 to 80 residents.

Last year, with the help of Bread for the City lawyers and former Attorney General Peter Nickles, the tenants reached an initial settlement with the owners of the housing complex, which required the investment of $5 million into repairs and upgrades, and awarded tenants significant abatements on their rent.

April was also one of the charter members of Bread for the City’s Client Advisory Board in 2010. She has provided valuable feedback on Bread for the City’s services and advocacy, as well as support and direction for board members and staff. I first met April when she led a protest of Mayor Fenty’s budget as part of Save Our Safety Net, around the same time. April has also contributed generously through the Combined Federal Campaign, and donations to the capital campaign, legal clinic, rooftop garden, and new refrigerator.

April’s work has also meant times of pain and heartache, time spent with groups such as SOS and MPCTA that have not always had clean, easy victories. The part of my relationship with April that I am most thankful for is these moments at the growing edge, when she’s modeled learning from failure and taking steps to be a healthier worker in the movement.

April’s contributions have value far beyond what we can put on paper — campaign victories, dollar amounts, attendance records, etc. Her work with MPCTA, BFC, and other networks have created spaces for her to grow and develop as an organizer, and to recruit and learn with new leaders. It all directly and indirectly strengthens the work we do at Bread for the City. Please join us Thursday evening (rsvp here) to celebrate the courage and love April has demonstrated through acts of collaboration, campaign leadership, healing, and critical reflection.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center — it’s not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City.

Eleanor McLean

It was not a tough decision to recognize Eleanor McLean as Front Desk Volunteer of the Year. However, figuring out how to consolidate all of those reasons for her nomination into just one blog post wasn’t easy. Everyone seemed to sing her praises, so I’ve listed some of the highlights below.

Why Eleanor is awesome:

• She comes every Tuesday evening to assist with the Front Desk. Every Tuesday. EVERY Tuesday.
• She’s been volunteering for over a dozen years in Food, Social Services, and at the Front Desk.
• She’s helped with our Representative Payee Program.
• She assisted 4 clients with improving their reading skills through literacy tutoring.
• She gleaned produce, using her own connections (and her car!) years before the program even began.

In short, Eleanor does whatever is needed to help our clients live lives of dignity. And she does it with a grace and humility that is hard to come by. We’re extremely lucky to have her on the BFC team.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center — it's not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City. 

Our Good Hope Award for Corporate Partner of the Year goes to City First Bank!

Simply put, City First Bank loves finding money for Bread for the City’s programs. We love that they love to do that!

First, they played a pivotal role in Bread’s success in securing two-million dollars in tax credits so that we could finish the 11,000 s.f. expansion of our Northwest Center.  They then started giving to us every year privately — as a corporation and through personal gifts from staff. City First then started bringing stakeholders into our halls — from community members to congressional staff — to learn about our programs!

Marie Bibbs

The person at center of the support we have received from City First is Marie Bibbs.  Quite frankly, the notion of working with a banker on a $8.5 million dollar project was a little intimidating. Combine it with the complexities that come with using federal tax credits and well, Bread for the City was going to need some hand holding. Marie Bibbs didn’t just hold our hands; she immediately forged a genuinely respectful partnership with Bread for the City.

During a year of pre-development work, including developing budgets, projecting financing needs and hour long telephone conferences with multiple corporate attorneys, it was always Marie that Bread for the City could could turn to to ask the detailed and sometime elementary questions about the deal, and how the 7 year tax credit program would work.  She never made you feel like there were any dumb questions. More importantly, she consistently helped bridge the gap between the terminology and priorities the lawyers representing the tax credit investors voiced, and the needs, questions and concerns that mattered to BFTC.

And since the completion of our NW Center expansion, Marie and City First have provided sponsorship support to several Bread for the city events, like Art with a Heart. Thanks so much Marie. We are so grateful to have City First Bank in our corner.

PS- It’s not too late to make a donation to support our volunteer program! Please consider making a contribution today.

In honor of this week’s Good Hope Awards (Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center — it's not too late to rsvp!), we’re showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers here on the blog. Our deep thanks to all our Good Hope Award Winners for their amazing service to Bread for the City. 

Congratulations to Metro Police Department’s own Sergeant Jon Podorski for winning this year’s Good Citizen Award!

I’ve known Sgt. Podorski for over 5 years, as I lived and worked in the Southeast community. Witnessing him as he patrols the streets and monitors the goings on, the first thought seeing him cruising on his motorcycle would probably be like mine, “Wow…a real life Robo Cop!” but he is honestly a gentle giant.

While waiting at a traffic light one Sunday morning I witnessed him escorting a senior citizen across one of the city’s busiest intersections, then give a lost driver some directions. While this is just a small example of his character’s flexibility and dedication, it speaks volumes to how accessible and dedicated he is to providing for those in need.

There are many fine examples of great leadership from members of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, but to meet Sgt. Jon Podorski is to make a friend for life. He is truly passionate about life and never turns down the chance to share his wisdom, whether he’s giving advice on child rearing, informing citizens of their rights in a given situation or dealing with the bad guys. I am so grateful to know him and am even more proud of his receiving an award. busiest intersections, then give a lost driver some directions. While this is just a small example of his character’s flexibility and dedication, it speaks volumes to how accessible and dedicated he is to providing for those in need.