In its 55th 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.
With the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic, we continued to focus our operations to meet the increasing needs of the community while following guidance from local public health agencies. 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 260 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 45 students and special needs referrals to 20 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 1800 hours of professional development this year. Many of our teachers have their Child Development Associate credentials, associates, bachelors, and masters degrees.
ACCA’s nutrition/hygiene ministry provides nutritious food and other essentials to families and individuals in need in our community. 941 families comprising a total of 2,802 individuals were assisted with a 7 to 10-day food supply. Food donations totaling 75,377 lbs. were received from numerous individuals, businesses, churches, and community organizations throughout the year.
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 FY2022 during the second year and part of the third year of the pandemic, our Family Emergency team provided direct financial assistance to 348 households totaling 989 individuals (family members) for rent or security deposits, utilities, prescription drugs, medical or dental needs, and miscellaneous purposes.
The Furniture Ministry team delivered 505 items to 195 persons in 61 needy households. This work was accomplished by 75 volunteers on 10 teams. 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 combined Shepherd’s Center of Annandale Springfield/ACCA Transportation program provided 628 round-trip rides – with 38 volunteer drivers. Of these rides, 23 were provided to former ACCA clients. Unfortunately 75 ride requests were unfilled due to our shortage of drivers.
The Housing Ministry worked with Rebuilding Together on the annual workday in April, with the help of 8 churches and 40 volunteers. They repaired and upgraded two homes for senior homeowners on fixed incomes in Annandale on the workday in April of 2022.
The Annandale CROP Hunger Walk in October 2021 raised a total of $17,665 in donations for Church World Service (CWS), and CWS returned a total of $4416.15 to ACCA for our local programs.
Ruffing Scholarships of $4,000 per year for college education were provided to four local students with disabilities.
We continued to participate in Fairfax County initiatives such as prevention of hypothermia, ending homelessness, emergency preparedness and encouraging interfaith dialogue.
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 are working 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.
We were fortunate to receive generous donations from the community including numerous individuals, businesses, churches, and community organizations. We have had tremendous support from the community including the Mason District Police, Boy Scouts, Rotary, Knights of Columbus, churches, Stuff the Bus and many individuals to help meet the increased food needs.
Communications flowed to member churches, community partners and individuals through our website, electronic newsletter, annual report and brochure, Facebook, Volunteer Fairfax and the Catalogue for Philanthropy.
The Development team worked with member churches, individuals and community benefactors, as well as county, state and federal programs to ensure that ACCA has the resources to continue to meet emergency needs and to provide quality early childhood education in our community.
ACCA’s work was made possible by about 200 repeat volunteers and hundreds of one-time volunteers in addition to the staff of the ACCA Child Development Center under the leadership of Isabel Ballivian.
