On November 7, 2024, Belong! (a 2024 grantee of the Child and Youth Development Fund) welcomed Sari Raskin and Amanda Bomfim from the Community Foundation of Northern Virginia (CFNOVA) during an after-school session at Cunningham Park Elementary School. Serving Fairfax County, Belong! offers weekly after-school mentoring to 81 immigrant and refugee children from low-income families in grades K-8. The organization received a $15,000 grant to enhance resources (such as math and reading curriculum materials) and support staff capacity. Our team had the opportunity to see those resources at work during the visit, as mentors and mentees worked on puzzles, completed homework, or played Jenga, cards, and Legos.
Childhood Beginnings in Social Trust
The Belong! team shared that the Community Foundation’s 2024 Shape of the Region Conference on Social Trust helped shape their strategic planning. Now guided by a relationship-centered approach that emphasizes the value of lived experiences, Belong! transitioned the focus of their services from tutoring to mentoring. Sessions consist of one-on-one engagement between students and their mentors, fostering trust to drive positive outcomes. Through a strengths-based learning approach, mentors help students build self-confidence in areas such as math, language acquisition, and reading.
Belong! sees its core program activities having a profound impact at Cunningham Park Elementary, where 30% of students are considered low-income. The organization’s Theory of Change model outlines how the program helps improve students' attitudes
toward school, broadens their aspirations, enhances their self-worth, and promotes authentic, cross-cultural relationships with staff and volunteers. The organization tracks these outcomes through bi-annual assessments based on age groups.
In early 2024, Belong! mentors and students created 57 affirmation boards to celebrate the students' strengths and potential. These boards highlighted 305 individual strengths, including skills in math, English, and personal qualities. Key themes of personal affirmations included kindness, leadership, hard work, teamwork, and creativity.
Social Trust Strategies in Action
On February 9, 2024, the CFNOVA’s 2024 Shape of the Region Conference addressed a pressing issue: the decline in trust among Americans. According to the General Social Survey, trust in others has dropped by 47% from 1984 to 2022, with only a quarter of Americans believing that most people can be trusted.
The conference’s keynote speaker, David Brooks, highlighted America's crisis of disconnection and how it leads to social and political challenges. Denise Bellows, Senior Director of Insight Region®, then presented data showing a decline in trust within Northern Virginia, where only about a third of residents reported finding their neighbors trustworthy. However, as the conference panel (in collaboration with WEAVE: The Social Fabric Project) emphasized, building and serving one’s community fosters trust, happiness, and a greater willingness to give back.
Thanks to support from the Child & Youth Development Fund, programs like Belong! help promote social trust among school-aged children, creating a stronger sense of belonging within our community.
The Child & Youth Development Fund
Meaningful after-school and extracurricular activities are crucial to boosting children's self-esteem, fostering community connections, and creating safer neighborhoods.
CFNOVA devotes substantial resources to providing annual grants through the Child & Youth Development Fund. The Children & Youth Fund is part of The Permanent Fund for Northern Virginia, an unrestricted endowment supporting grants that aim to build a stronger, more inclusive community. Contact CFNOVA today to learn more about the Child & Youth Development Fund and make a lasting impact.
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