In its 56th year, we continued to provide high quality childcare and served as a principal source of emergency assistance, including food, furniture, and financial support, for our vulnerable neighbors.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, the demand for our services has continued and we have focused our operations to meet the increasing needs of the community. ACCA continued to help individuals and families with money for rent, utilities, food, and other essentials.
The ACCA Child Development Center (CDC) program served more than 296 infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-agers, and their families by meeting or surpassing NAEYC standards and consistently providing healthy learning environments and high-quality early childhood programming.
The CDC also provided special needs services to 73 students and special needs referrals to 32 students. Hearing, vision, and developmental screenings are provided to all infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
The CDC staff continues to strive to provide high-quality care to the children and have completed 2000hours of professional development this year. Many of our teachers have their Child Development Associate credentials, associates, bachelors, and masters degrees.
The Family Emergency Assistance Program (FEAP) ministry assists low income individuals and families facing financial crises, including some of the most vulnerable among us: families with young children, the elderly on fixed incomes, victims of domestic violence, individuals with permanent physical and mental challenges, and veterans of military service.
In FY2023, our Family Emergency team provided direct financial assistance to 385 households totaling 1163 individuals (family members) for rent or security deposits, utilities, prescription drugs, medical or dental needs, and miscellaneous purposes.
The Food and Nutrition program provides nutritious food and other essentials to families and individuals in need in our community. Pantry volunteers made 1249 deliveries helping a total of 3864 individuals with a 7 to 10-day food supply. Food donations totaling 166,000 pounds were received from numerous individuals, businesses, churches, and community organizations throughout the year.
The Furniture Program team delivered 598 items to 229 persons in 62 needy households. This work included 2660 hours of work by 78 volunteers. Through partnerships and sharing of resources with other community partners, we can help our neighbors to provide a safe and comfortable home for their families.
The Housing Program worked with Rebuilding Together on repairing and upgrading two homes on the annual workday in April of 2023. With the help of 8 churches and 34 volunteers, we repaired and upgraded one home which is a respite/emergency care home owned and operated by the Hartwood Foundation. The second house is owned by Operation Renewed Hope foundation which provides quality housing and supportive services to homeless veterans. Since 1990, ACCA volunteers have given over 3900 hours of service and rehabilitated 130 houses and group homes in our community.
The Annandale CROP Hunger Walk in October 2022 raised a total of $17,600 in donations for Church World Service (CWS), and CWS returned a total of $4540 to ACCA for our local programs.
Ruffing Scholarships of $4,000 per year for college education were provided to four local students with disabilities
The combined Shepherd’s Center of Annandale Springfield/ACCA Transportation provided 546 round-trip rides – with 35 volunteer drivers. Of these rides, 29 were provided to former ACCA clients. Unfortunately 88 ride requests were unfilled due to our shortage of drivers.
We continued our Neighbor to Neighbor program in partnership with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service along with our churches this year. Through financial and volunteer support, ACCA assisted refugee children with their schoolwork and helped their parents with their English language skills.
We continue to work with Just Neighbors to support their operations in the Annandale/Bailey’s Crossroads area. Just Neighbors provides legal services to low-income immigrants who reside in the ACCA service area. ACCA funding helped with 7 DACA renewal cases, 6 green cards, 1 naturalization, 5 work permits and 3 consultations for 19 clients from 13 different countries.
We received generous support from the community including numerous individuals, businesses, churches and community organizations. We appreciate the help from the Boy Scouts, Rotary, Knights of Columbus, Stuff the Bus, Fairfax County Police Department, BRAWS, National Active and Retired Federal Employees to help meet increased food needs.
Our work was made possible by about 200 repeat volunteers and many one-time volunteers in addition to the staff of the Child Development Center. We celebrated our many volunteers at a picnic at Mason District Park in May.
