In eight short years, Alice’s Kids has experienced incredible growth. In our first two years, we spent approximately $10,000 on children in the DC Metropolitan area. In 2019, we provided $159,311 in direct assistance to over 2,000 children – and we continue to expect year-over-year growth.

But the raw numbers do not tell the whole story. Because Alice’s Kids delivers its assistance anonymously, we do not interact directly with our beneficiaries so we rely on feedback from our extensive network of teachers, social workers and others who regularly attest to the positive impact we are having on the children. Here is one such testimonial from a teacher:

“Your assistance was genuinely appreciated when one of our students who had serious health issues (liver transplant) could not afford the cost of a field trip with his classmates to New York City. Because of Alice’s Kids, he was not only able to make the trip but he said he felt the trip has had an impact on him to the point where he is now interested in finding a career in that great city. He had never been there before and now says he will work hard so he can make the trip again. The gratitude is not only from this boy and his parents, but from the community and school, who also know what an experience like this can mean in the young life of a child – and how being left out can hurt in more ways than one.”

We also rely on the words and actions of others who have recognized the impact we are having in our community. For example, the Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce recently named us their “Non-Profit of the Year.” In 2017, former President George H. W. Bush’s Points of Light Foundation awarded us their “Daily Points of Light Award.” Congressman Don Beyer paid tribute to our work in a Congressional Record statement in 2017 and Supervisor Dan Storck named our Executive Director the “Mount Vernon Community Champion” for his work with Alice’s Kids. Meanwhile, many local corporations, churches and others have made significant donations and asked us to speak about our work. Finally, we have received the enthusiastic support of TV personality/comedian Patton Oswalt who speaks often about Alice’s Kids from his national perch.

Then there are the intangibles. How do you measure the impact on a child when they proudly go to school wearing their new winter jacket? While we can give you the number of prom tickets we paid for, how can we assess the delight that girl felt when she had that corsage pinned on to her dress? And what about that child who will be attending a two-week summer camp instead of sitting in front of the television in their sweltering apartment?