The City of Alexandria has awarded two contracts to local nonprofits to provide services to the homeless. New Hope Housing, Inc., an innovative, award-winning non-profit agency that has provided emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing in Northern Virginia since 1977, received a contract to operate the Alexandria Community Shelter on Mill Road.

Ten Thousand Villages in Old Town, Alexandria is joining the fight against modern slavery in the DC region with a shopping fundraiser from 5-9 pm on Thursday, August 26.

The fair trade retailer will donate 20% of the evening sales to the community organization, DC Stop Modern Slavery, in support of their efforts to put a halt to human trafficking in the Washington metropolitan area.

While most of us are focused on enjoying the end of summer, United Community Ministries (UCM) is already focused on the beginning of the next school year. Last year UCM supplied 800+ children with the tools that they would need to begin the school year on an equal footing with their classmates. This year we expect to exceed that number. School supplies will be distributed on August 26 and August 27.

The atmosphere in the gym at Francis Hammond Middle School on Friday morning was more like that of a big basketball game than something called the Olympics of the Mind. Five hundred kids from the D.C. Metro area were standing and cheering – for themselves and for their peers – in the Olympics of the Mind, the grand finale for the Higher Achievement Program’s Summer Academy.

The Scholarship Fund of Alexandria announced that three new members were elected to the Board of Trustees – Dwight Dunton, John Leary and Terese Wilson. All are residents of the City of Alexandria who have strong records of community service and past involvement with the Fund.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a historical, bipartisan bill aimed at protecting our nation’s children. Passed with overwhelming support (412 – 4), HR 1469, The Child Protection Improvements Act, expands and makes permanent a background check pilot program created in the PROTECT Act of 2004. The bill will allow youth-serving organizations access to timely, inexpensive fingerprint-based checks of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s criminal records database.

Rony Wise has lifted the equivalent of ten blue whales. He has run 600 miles, round trip from Washington to New York with a jaunt to Philadelphia thrown in for good measure. Over six months, Wise ran and lifted weights every day to raise funds for Ripples of Hope, an organization that provides financial aid to schools in Haiti.

The ServiceSource Network has announced that its President and CEO, Janet Samuelson, has received a Washington SmartCEO 2010 BRAVA! Women Business Achievement Award. The award recognizes 25 female CEOs making unprecedented strides in business, building a stronger community both financially, philanthropically and most importantly, through leadership.

For the next six weeks, teams of teens will interview business, community, church and nonprofit leaders in Alexandria’s West End to learn what services are and are not available for youth.

On Wednesday, June 30, more than a hundred well-wishers gathered at Columbia Firehouse restaurant to bid farewell to Diane Charles. For the last 12 years, she served as executive director of Stop Child Abuse Now.