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JUVENILE JUSTICE | The District’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services isn’t perfect, but it has made gigantic strides of improvement in recent years. A new report, Notorious to Notable, released today by WRAG members the Moriah Fund, the Carter and Melissa Cafritz Charitable Trust, the Meyer Foundation, and the Public Welfare Foundation shows how a collaborative effort between local and national funders has supported the transformation of the District’s juvenile justice agency from one of the worst to one of the most notable.
HIV/AIDS | Today is World AIDS Days. To mark the occasion the Washington AIDS Partnership’s Channing Wickham shares a personal story on the Community Foundation’s blog about a friend who died from AIDS and how the event defined his career:
I recently came across his Washington Post obituary from 1989. It lists the cause of death as pneumonia. He was 54. My friend took his secret – that he had AIDS – to the grave.
Looking back, it breaks my heart to know how ashamed he was of his diagnosis – so embarrassed he couldn’t even talk about the illness with his closest friends. I was shocked to learn, after he died, that he was afraid that if he revealed that he had AIDS he might lose his business and worried that his employees would be out of jobs.
Related: The Partnership’s AmeriCorps team is also hosting an event Children’s National Medical Center.
NONPROFITS | A Potential $15-Billion Windfall for Effective Nonprofits (Chronicle, 12/1) Better information = better philanthropy.
AGING | In our region, more than one in five people age 65 or older are either working or looking for work – a trend that is above the national average. Some continue to work for economic reasons while others work to feel younger. (WaPo, 12/1)
FOOD | Maryland, Virginia at top of nation for food stamp fraud (Examiner, 12/1)
EDUCATION | The District spends $92 million a year on transportation costs for special-education students, which comes out to $26,285 per student. (Examiner, 12/1) Which is at least the cost of a solid car, if not a private driver. I’m pretty sure there are better and more efficient ways of spending that money on the kids. (Examiner, 12/1)
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Happy December, everyone! This is my favorite month, and I hope we get a ton of snow. Yes, you heard that right.
Rebekah has the Daily tomorrow, but I’ll leave you with something hilarious (which you might have already heard about). Over the summer, an Australian news anchor tried to tell the Dalai Lama a joke about pizza. It didn’t go well – although the joke was great!
