Fairfax County Park Foundation Goes Mobile

“It’s such a poignant moment when a student tells me ‘Oh, I’ve never seen a worm before,’” says Tammy Schwab, the Manager, Education & Outreach, Resource Management Division at the Fairfax County Park Authority. “Being a better steward of the environment takes that kind of spark, where a child or even one of their parents notices the bugs and the birds for the first time.” The Fairfax County Park Authority hopes to bring more of those moments across Northern Virginia, as they will use the 2023 Environment Fund Grant awarded to the Fairfax County Park Foundation to fund a Mobile Nature Center, which will be able to provide programs like this to neighborhoods across Fairfax County.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want to exclude anyone,” says Bobbi Longworth, Executive Director of the Fairfax County Park Foundation. “Whether it’s by neighborhood, language, or education level, we want this to be as accessible and welcoming as possible.” FCPF has before received funding towards more accessible programming for residents from lower-income homes. The Mobile Nature Center’s vision is to move forward in this same spirit. The Fairfax County Park Foundation is actively seeking a vehicle via an in-kind gift and/or monetary donations.

Equity was one of the topics of conversation when I asked the Fairfax County Park Foundation and Fairfax County Park Authority teams about what opportunities they saw with the funding. As the Community Foundation’s recently updated mission centers its work around advancing equity, we discussed how the Fairfax County Park Authority and Park Foundation address equity through this work. Bobbi and Tammy discussed the Mobile Nature Center in the context of equity— more specifically equity of access, as well as equity of design. As the Center launches and expands, the Park Authority intends to have include programming beyond English and Spanish, so that as many Northern Virginians as possible can enjoy the experience.

The Community Foundation is delighted to have awarded this funding, and we can’t wait to see what the Mobile Nature Center will look like when it launches. Through grants such as this one, the Community Foundation’s permanent endowments are not only addressing particular issue areas such as the environment but are addressing ways to instill more equitable access to resources available throughout our region. The Fairfax County Park Foundation received a grant of $34,000 in 2023 from the Community Foundation’s Environment fund to support its mobile nature center. You can learn more about the environment fund here.