Major Awards for AFF's Programs

Our Bridging the Watershed field studies for urban high school students, conducted in National Parks throughout the region, recently received an extraordinary honor from the National Park Service – a Centennial Challenge Grant for $200,000 a year for the next two years (as long as Congress appropriates the funds) and potentially until 2016 when the Park Service celebrates its 100^th birthday.

LEADERSHIP FAIRFAX
Northern Virginia Leadership Award

For meeting the leadership criteria of ‘vision, inspiration, courage, and commitment,’ The Alice Ferguson Foundation (AFF) is pleased to announce that it will be awarded one of this year’s prestigious Leadership Fairfax “Regional Leadership Awards” at the Northern Virginia Leadership Awards Gala on Friday, November 2 at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Va. The award recognizes individuals and organizations for leadership in advancing the cause and spirit of regional collaboration and partnership.

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Accokeek, MD-based Alice Ferguson Foundation has been selected as a featured charity in the 2007-08 Catalogue for Philanthropy. This is the Catalogue's fifth year in the Washington, DC region. Supported by local foundations (Harman Family Foundation, Meyer Foundation, Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, J Willard and Alice S Marriott Foundation, Marriott, Freddie Mac Foundation, John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation, Corina Higginson Trust) and local corporations (CGI, Chevy Chase Trust, Fannie Mae, Landon Butler & Co.) as a service to the community, the Catalogue profiles environmental, cultural, educational, human services, and international organizations.

According to Barbara Harman, Executive Director of the Harman Family Foundation, "The Catalogue is designed to be a showcase for DC region philanthropy and an inviting way for individuals and families to participate in charitable giving." A single check sent to the Catalogue's DC office, or an online donation at its website, www.catalogueforphilanthropy-dc.org, can be allocated to as many charities as the donor pleases. Donors may also contact the charities directly. "Because the Catalogue is fully paid for by its philanthropic partners," Harman notes, "100% of every donation goes to the designated nonprofits."

Alice Ferguson Foundation was selected from a competitive field of over 250 candidates. "Charities were selected for excellence, innovation, and cost-effectiveness--and for what they can teach us about the extraordinary ways that philanthropy works,” Harman said. “These are certainly among the best small charities in the Washington, DC region.”

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
"Centennial Challenge"

National Park Service Director Mary Bomar and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the Alice Ferguson Foundation’s Bridging the Watershed (BTW) environmental education program will be expanded throughout the Potomac Watershed as part of the National Park Service "Centennial Challenge."

The Centennial Challenge Initiative is a multifaceted approach, with public and private funding, to:

• engage all Americans in preserving our heritage,
• connect them with their parks with a special emphasis on linking children to nature, history and park resources, and to
• strengthen park operations and keep them sustainable in the next 100 years.

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