2009- Oh What a Year!

At Calvary Women’s Services, 2009 was a fantastic year.  The women at our programs had many successes – gaining employment, earning diplomas, starting mental health services, maintaining sobriety, and much more.  And, as in years past, every five days a woman moved out of homelessness through Calvary’s programs.  There is a lot to celebrate.

As an organization, we have much to celebrate, too.  A few highlights:

• Calvary was awarded the Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Leadership Award, a recognition of excellence and innovation in community-based organizations serving women and girls.

• For the second time, Calvary was recognized by The Catalogue for Philanthropy as “one of the best small charities in the Greater Washington Region.”

• We hosted our Ninth Annual Hope Awards Dinner, this year honoring entrepreneur and philanthropist Sheila C. Johnson and Michel Martin of NPR.  See photos from the event here.

• Calvary Women’s Shelter hosted a successful health fair for homeless women in our community.  Topics included breast health, diabetes, hypertension, nutrition, substance addiction, HIV/AIDS, cancer, smoking cessation and other subjects.  Participants received a healthy lunch and an opportunity to receive a massage, a blood pressure screening, an HIV test and more.

• We launched a new website – and this blog.  If you haven’t yet, check out the site.

• Our staff were keynote speakers at events hosted by a wide variety of organizations including The Junior League of Washington, PEPCO, Hogan & Hartson LLP, J. Jill’s Evening of Compassion, and Booz Allen Hamilton’s Nonprofit Conference on Fundraising Development Speaker Series.

• Guest speakers Rep. Bennie Thompson and reality TV star Omarosa helped us launch Holiday Give Back 2009, the first annual reception for Calvary Women’s Services on Capitol Hill.  The event raised money and collected much needed supplies for Calvary’s programs.  See photos from the event here.

• Over the year we got some great coverage in the press, including two recent stories in The Washington Post that mention our excellent volunteer program and highlight the resiliency and success of one Calvary resident .

It’s been an exciting year, but we have a lot of adventures in store for 2010, too.  Stay tuned!