Women get pampered at Becky’s Fund’s Pre-Valentine’s party

Jayne Sandman, Becky Lee and Barbara Martin at the Becky's Fund Pre-Valentine's Party. (Photos by Sarah Khan)

For women to get pampered and ready for Valentine’s Day, W Hotel and New York based lingerie company Hanky Panky sponsored a pre-Valentine’s party choosing Becky’s Fund’s as the designated charity. With sultry music playing in the background, guests enjoyed cool pop rocks strawberry martinis, sumptuous Georgetown cupcakes and other delectable treats.

To create a romantic ambiance, the event venue W Hotel’s posh Altitude Bar was lit by dim red lights.

Women purchased all types of beauty, romance enhancement, and massage products at a mini-treatment station set up by the ever fabulous Bliss Spa.

The highlight of the event was Hanky Panky’s customization station and pop-up boutique. This was the first event of its kind that Hanky Panky has staged outside of New York City. Welcome to DC!

The evening centered around the brand’s bright red and fuchsia panties made out of lacy fabric. With such a name, it was hard for women not to buy a personalized pair. Staff at the customization station delighted guests by decorating thongs with Swarovski crystal letters as well as symbols like peace signs, hearts and stars.

Becky’s Fund puts on a variety of programs in order to further its mission of preventing domestic violence. College tours, fundraisers, research, and advocacy are all part of Becky’s Fund.

Guests included Stan Kasten, Angie Goff, Deborah Stanko, Lisa Caligiuri, Alex Gagne, Polina Govbanov, Megan Riddle, Erika Gutierrez, Reza Khadiri and Tom Spahr.

Catherine Chen and Caroline Alexander pose with Hanky Panky customized underwear at the Becky's Fund Pre-Valentine's Party at W Hotel's Altitude Bar.

Jayne Sandman, Washington Nationals President Stan Kasten and Victoria Michael at the Pre-Valentine's Party.

Lily Mazahery, Channel 9 anchorwoman Angie Goff and Becky's Fund Board Member, Nico Sanders at the Pre-Valentine's Party.

Adrienne Arsht is back in Washington and making her mark on the arts and philanthropy scene.

By Ann Geracimos

Adrienne Arsht poses near a collection of porcelain figurines in her new home. (Photo by Joseph Allen)

“Many people are bicoastal. I’m north and south and bipolar.” That’s philanthropist arts patron Adrienne way of introducing herself with a laugh – and wellpracticed charm. She is actually something of a triple threat – a tri-city habitué (Washington, D.C., New York and, officially, Florida) – and a go-go woman when it comes to supporting arts-related, social and health care causes.

Her business instincts are apparently good as well. practicing lawyer in Washington, she started her own title company before moving to Miami 13 years ago where she got into banking. After chairing TotalBank for a decade, she sold it to Banco Popular Espanol two years ago.

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KATHERINE BRADLEY, CITYBRIDGE FOUNDATION

Katherine Bradley reading to children in the Jump Start program.

Three years ago, I invited my husband, David Bradley, and our son, Carter, to tour a brand new charter school in a church basement on Minnesota Avenue in Southeast Washington’s Ward 7. We were visiting KIPPLEAP, the first early childhood program launched in the District by the KIPP public charter school network. Most of the school’s students came from low-income households. Their demographic peers across the nation generally struggle in failing schools, but these students were thriving in a program indistinguishable in quality from the sought-after Upper Northwest preschool my children had attended. The more we watched, the more we realized that these four-year-olds were more advanced than my boys had been at the same age. David turned to me and – with uncharacteristic emotion – said: “Once anyone has seen this, how can they tolerate failing schools around the corner? Do,people know this is possible?”

Increasingly, the answer is “yes.” We do know what’s possible. Low-income kids are succeeding in rigorous (and nurturing) schools all over the country. We are beginning to understand that poverty need not be destiny. Every single one of the four-year olds we saw in the church basement – 100 percent of the class – is now at or above grade-level in reading. Once you’ve seen this sort of standardsetting school yourself – as Education Secretary Arne Duncan and President Obama have – you urgently want to spread the word: The country’s urban education crisis is a solvable problem.

Our family foundation, CityBridge, has focused on education reform in the District since the 2005 launch of our Early Years Education Initiative, a series of investments in schools and teachers for young children in Washington. We were lucky that our partners’ work complemented City Council Chairman Vincent Gray’s legislative goal of quality pre-kindergarten for all District children. A powerful model for change resulted: Political leadership, philanthropy, and nonprofit advocates all aligned toward the same set of early childhood goals, allowing significant social change to happen quickly and (relatively) easily.

Getting early childhood right is the essential first step for school reform, but it’s no magic bullet. Each part of the educational continuum has to be good for low-income kids to thrive. As we’ve broadened our focus, we have found that the K-12 space is also filled with compelling ideas, levers for real change, such as new ways to support the best teaching talent or interventions that help children thrive in high-poverty schools. Even with highest-caliber talent – such as Chancellor Michelle Rhee has recruited – it’s much harder to teach when children come to school burdened by the stresses of poverty. So we are helping a successful New York-based organization, which addresses the school-based challenges of poverty, explore whether to come to Washington.

Five years of school reform work has taught us, however, that great schools are not enough. Education reform is a fragile enterprise, and hard-won progress will lastonly if residents from all over the District invest time, resources, and political capital in permanent change. We think education advocates need to build a movement – not just fix the schools. What would that look like for CityBridge? Our K-12 portfolio of education work, which we are calling Breakthrough Schools, will also include local advocacy, funder collaboration, and broadbased engagement – from grass-roots leaders to local corporations. One idea we have is to expand our existing CityBridge Foundation model of corporate civic engagement. We hope to connect local companies to schools at the vanguard of exciting change, such as the schools in the DC Catalyst project, where new programs in science, the arts, and world cultures will launch next fall.

CityBridge envisions a city of stewards – all invested, across time, in results for our kids. We have so much progress to celebrate: Test scores are up, education talent is flocking to our city, and we have a sound system of schools – charters, traditional public schools, and voucher schools – all creating a healthy market for educational options. If our city can continue this progress, and build a very large team of education stewards, our kids will succeed. At CityBridge, we are (incessantly) hopeful.

JACK DAVIES, VENTURE PHILANTHROPY PARTNERS

Venture Philanthropy Partners Board Member Jack Davies. (Photo by Betsy Spruill-Clarke)

At Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), we invest significant charitable dollars in education because we believe Nelson Mandela’s famous words: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” In the battle to secure a better future for the young people of our region, and indeed, to shore up the viability and vibrancy of our region itself, quality education for all students is critical.

VPP’s model combines large amounts of scarce “growth capital” – funds to help nonprofits scale proven programs, hands-on strategic assistance, and leverage of our networks. We work in partnership with phenomenal nonprofit leaders who have bold ambitions to grow and serve more children in need.

Our commitment to education has led us to invest in programs and services like charter schools, afterschool programs, quality preschool and early childhood development programs, tutoring, mentoring, college access programs and more. We look for leaders with innovative solutions that will support and enhance the kinds of dynamic reform efforts taking place in local school systems like those in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County.

Nonprofits working to transform the system need help building up infrastructure to survive for the long-term. They need access to worldclass talent and performance measurement systems that will give them the data critical to fine-tuning curriculum and programs. Leaders need help navigating a regional system that is complex and not always hospitable to innovation.

The amazing journey of the See Forever/ Maya Angelou Public Charter School (MAPCS) exemplifies the transformation we see possible and necessary. David Domenici and James Foreman Jr. were public defenders who became frustrated seeing the same youth cycle through the criminal justice system over and over again. They first started a pizza delivery/after-school tutoring program to provide alternatives, but they needed to do more. So they created MAPCS, which is designed to offer young people who haven’t succeeded in traditional educational environments the support they need to rebuild their lives and graduate from high school. When VPP first met these incredible educational entrepreneurs, they had one campus serving 85 students and plans to open a second. However, they were struggling to make their bold dreams a reality.

VPP provided $2.4 million to help See Forever create a plan for growth, build a strong senior management team, expand its board, improve curriculum, develop a system for measuring results, and increase its fiscal stability. More importantly, VPP helped broker partnerships with District Public Schools, the Gates Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and others that brought needed resources and visibility to the groundbreaking work at the Maya Angelou School.

David and James’ dream came full circle in the fall of 2007 when they won the bid to deliver the educational program at the New Beginnings Youth Detention Center. Today, See Forever is serving almost 600 students through three campuses, its program at New Beginnings, and a transition center that helps young people move from New Beginnings back to their communities. Even more impressive, 90 percent of its graduates this year went on to enroll in post-secondary programs, far exceeding the rate for the cohort of students enrolled in other D.C. public or charter schools.

Nonprofits like See Forever demonstrate how, with the right interventions, the trajectory can be changed for many of the children and youth in our region. All students can have the opportunity to reach their potential and the battle for the future can be won.

CHANCELLOR MICHELLE RHEE

Chancellor Michelle Rhee (Photo by Tony Powell)

This morning I awoke to headlines that hunger in the United States is at a 14- year high. In the D.C. Public Schools, 70 percent of children do not have the money to pay for a school lunch. I am grateful that the local community pulls together every year during the holidays to increase donations for children who come to school hungry and cold. Yet as we focus on giving this month, my challenge to the community is an even bigger one.

Every conversation I have with students tells me they are as bright as high-achieving children in the suburbs. I speak with many adults who doubt this, especially considering the sobering numbers we face. Only nine percent of our high school freshmen go on to graduate from college within five years. We have achievement gaps in math and reading that are over 50 percent between black and white students, and 79 percent of our students are black. When I accepted leadership of the school system in 2007, only 12 percent of our eighth graders were proficient in reading, and eight percent were proficient in math.

Recently a reporter implied that I was crazy to think we could create a successful school system from this starting point. Those who agree with him tell me that as long as we have capitalism, there will always be “haves” and “have-nots.” Once any ethnic group dominates either category, the cycle is bound to continue from one generation to the next, providing little hope that we can expect discouraging statistics to move in our lifetimes.

The problem with this line of thinking is that the data shows otherwise, and it doesn’t take a bleeding heart to believe what children are demonstrating through data. At one D.C. Public School, Noyes Elementary, under a new principal student reading proficiency went from 24 percent to 85 percent in just four years, and in math from 10 percent to 64 percent. In another school, only nine percent of the students were on grade level, when just down the street in a successful charter school, over 90 percent of students were.

The challenges poverty, violence in the surrounding neighborhood,—all of the reasons used to lower expectations— did not change from school to school. Schools have enormous power when they are backed by the collective will, work, and expectation to succeed. Even on the district level we are seeing results. In math, in 2009 our 8th grade growth was three times the national average, and our 4th graders were the only group in the country to see gains in every subgroup: African American, English language learners, students on free and reduced lunch … they are outpacing the nation and are absolutely capable of meeting the high expectations we have held for suburban children for decades.

It is no pipe dream to say that public education can break the cycle of poverty that falls along racial lines in this city, and we have become far too comfortable accepting this cycle as a given for thousands of children. If I could have three wishes on my holiday list this year, I would ask for even more than the important holiday donations of food and clothing that will get many students’ families through the holidays. I would ask for:

• A shared outrage about any school or system that sends children into a competitive world without the skills to compete;
• A shared belief in the capabilities of all of our children, even those living in the most difficult of circumstances to achieve at the highest levels;
• A shared commitment to fueling our actions with both. This may be in the form of funds that are allowing us to radically reform teacher development, support and accountability; the time and expertise that businesses and individuals volunteer; or the political courage to make decisions that prioritize the politically voiceless children whose futures ride on our choices.

Even in an economy that pulls at both heartstrings and purse strings to make this commitment, I hope that readers will continue to give in these ways, pulling your friends and colleagues along with you throughout the year.

Starlight MidAtlantic’s tenth annual Taste of the Stars Gala serves up a feast of goodwill

Brent Haber, Jen Haber and Henry O'Connell. Photo by Kyle Samperton.

Starlight MidAtlantic whipped up a star-filled ballroom of Washington D.C.’s Four Seasons Hotel with its annual Taste of the Stars. Over 400 metro area luminaries helped make this year’s gala bigger and better, so the non-profit could raise funds to allow it to bring more programs to local families dealing with the severe impact of a childhood illness.

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Pop rock icon Blondie helps to raise $1.15 million for the National Kidney Foundation.

By John Arundel

Debbie Harry. Photo by Michael Domingo.

What happens when you combine the titans of D.C. commerce with a cause they believe in, fill the massive ballroom of the Hilton Washington with 1,000 true believers, then throw into the mix Blondie, the snarling icon of the early American new wave and punk rock scenes?

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Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure comes to the Middle East.

Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukry and Ambassador Nancy Brinker stand before a work from her extensive collection of Hungarian Art. (Photo by Joseph Allen)

Nancy Brinker’s last promise to her sister, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 1980, was that she would continue to fight against the potentially life-threatening disease. Two years later, Brinker founded Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which has raised over $1 billion in 27 years and has become the largest source of nonprofit funds devoted to the fight against breast cancer in the world.

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Private equity pros invest in programs benefiting local children

By Dean D’Angelo

Capital for Children’s founders have raised over $250,000 for local programs to assist underprivileged youth. They include Ken Doyle (seated) and (back row, left to right): Peter Manos, Kevin Lavin, Morten Kucey, Dean D’Angelo, and James Hanna.

While sharing a beer one night with Ken Doyle, a managing director of Halifax Partners, a Washington-based private equity firm, an impromptu brainstorming session began.

“It’s about time we pulled together some of the folks in the local private equity community to help children in our area,” Ken said, pointing out that many area youngsters “don’t have all of the resources we are able to give our kids.”

Almost two years later the idea has become reality. The group we founded, Capital for Children, now has 23 members (all active in the private equity community in the metropolitan area), and has created a strong base from which to support philanthropic efforts focused on children’s educational issues. We have contributed over $250,000 to date and are looking for opportunities to offer our experience in organizing and growing businesses to help committed organizations reach their operational and financial goals.

We hope to be more than just another group that contributes money, which is why we seek out organizations that are facing challenges of managing growth – areas where our professional experiences and skill sets can be helpful. Peter Manos, a managing director of Arlington Capital Partners who heads up Capital for Children’s Philanthropy Committee, notes that the group “takes a private equity investing approach to find great non-profits with strong management teams and stable operations that need capital to grow and also expertise to address some of the challenges that come along with that growth.”

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Hitting the trail with the 13th Annual Start! Heart Walk.

By Scott Wilfong, SunTrust Greater Washington region CEO

Participants in the 2007 Start! Heart Walk on the National Mall.

Saturday November 3rd, was a beautiful breezy day, perfect for a walk on the Mall. So I, along with Tracey Neal of WUSA 9, and 6,000 other walkers, hit the trail for 2.9 miles, as participants in the 13th annual Start! Heart Walk. Along the way, we raised $1.2 million for the American Heart Association.

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