Fact Sheet
Background
Public school students in the District of Columbia need our community's help.The average District public school is more than 60 years old, and repairs across the city may cost more than $2 billion. Students who already face enormous challenges often have to learn in outdated and deteriorating buildings.
Poor infrastructure is not the only obstacle these students face. Those who do finish school often lack the money to go to college; too many others become dropouts because their futures seem so limited. The graduation rate for DC public high school students now hovers around 50% and only a fraction of graduates go on to college.
These conditions are why Hands on DC exists. It helps students by:
- Refurbishing schools to create a better environment for learning and allowing the school system to focus on larger maintenance issues
- Raising funds to support local scholarship programs; and
- Educating volunteers about public education in the District and the opportunities to become involved in lives of students.
Hands on DC sends an important message to our children: The community cares about your future. Hands on DC is a community-based non-profit run entirely by volunteers. It is dedicated to creating better schools and brighter futures for District of Columbia public school students.
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| What is Hands on DC and how is it organized? | |
Hands on DC is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that conducts an annual citywide work-a-thon to improve Washington, DC public schools, raises funds to support local college scholarship programs, and encourages greater community involvement in the public schools.
At the center of Hands on DC is the Organizing Committee. This group of 40 to 50 volunteers breaks itself into committees responsible for recruitment, publicity, fundraising, and projects. Overseeing their efforts are two Event Directors, who are elected by the previous year's volunteers. The Organizing Committee meets every other week as a group and its members spend many more hours working alone or in small groups in order to make the event a success. Hands on DC also has a Board of Directors that focuses on long-term organizational goals and provides guidance to the Organizing Committee. The members of the Board are previous Event Directors and other individuals with a long history of participation in Hands on DC. The Board also appoints a Treasurer to manage its finances. After each year's event, Hands on DC conducts an evaluation workshop with its Organizing Committee. Feedback from volunteers and school officials is collected in our annual report and also forms the basis for adjustments to the following year's program. |
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| How was Hands on DC started? | |
Hands on DC was founded in Fall 1994 by a half-dozen friends who wanted to improve the quality of life in Washington. They were particularly concerned by reports about poor conditions in the District's public schools, and dedicated themselves to helping local students get a better education.
On May 1, 2004, Hands on DC marked a major milestone - we completed our tenth annual work-a-thon to refurbish Washington, DC public schools, raise college scholarships for public-school students, and get our stakeholders more involved in the community. Our 2,500 volunteers conducted more than 325 projects in 41 different DC public schools and raised more than $32,000 in college scholarship funds for College Bound, a local tutoring and mentoring program. Today, Hands on DC continues its second decade of "Brighter Schools and Better Futures" for DC students. Over the past 13 years, more than 26,000 volunteers have created a better environment for learning in more than 120 DC schools and have funded more than $500,000 in college scholarship contributions for DC public school students. |
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| What is the Hands on DC work-a-thon? | |
Hands on DC's main event is a one-day work-a-thon held every spring. During the work-a-thon, more than 2,000 volunteers spend the day at one of about 30 to 40 DC public schools. Their work typically involves projects such as painting, cleaning, or landscaping. Other projects require greater skills and resources, such as repairing bathrooms, laying carpet, building tree boxes or wiring classrooms for Internet access.
Creating a better environment for learning is just one of the ways volunteers help local students. They also collect pledges that fund college scholarships administered by local tutoring and mentoring organizations, and they learn about the condition of and the people involved in the schools. That knowledge helps build support for public education. The volunteers for the work-a-thon come from across metropolitan Washington. We recruit from government offices, federal agencies, local businesses, universities, and churches, as well as encouraging participation from the city's public school students. |
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| How does Hands on DC select the work-a-thon schools? | |
Public schools throughout the District of Columbia must apply to Hands on DC to be considered for the work-a-thon. The Hands on DC site team then selects the schools to be part of the Spring improvement effort based primarily on the school's need and those which best match the skills and abilities of Hands on DC volunteers to help. Among other factors that are considered is the school's overall commitment to be involved in the work-a-thon and the events leading up to it. As part of the process, committee members visit public schools throughout DC, consult with principals and maintenance staff, and identify possible projects. |
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| How does Hands on DC fund its activities? | |
As with all our activities, the annual fundraising program is run entirely by volunteers; the organization does not use professional fundraisers or consultants. The Fundraising Committee works with the Board of Directors and a committee of other volunteers to raise the $50,000 needed to run the event each year. This money comes from corporations, foundations, and individuals and goes toward the purchase supplies for the work-a-thon. The pledges raised by volunteers on the day of the event, as well as additional funds raised from corporations and foundations, go directly to the scholarship fund. This fund provides college scholarships through College Bound, a local mentoring and tutoring organization dedicated to supporting DC public schools students who want to attend college. |
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| How does Hands on DC use donations? | |
We use donations from corporations and foundations to purchase the materials our volunteers use. Some are durable goods, such as paint rollers, brushes, rakes, shovels, and edgers. (For most of the year, Hands on DC lends its equipment to the Community Tool Chest, a project created by Hands on DC and Greater DC Cares. The Tool Chest lends durable supplies to other local non-profits.) Some are disposable supplies, such as paint and mulch. Contributions also pay for the materials needed to publicize the event, such as posters, recruiting brochures and pledge forms, which help us recruit an ample supply of volunteers to complete the projects at the schools and to raise scholarship funds.
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| How does Hands on DC find volunteers? | |
The Recruitment Committee is in charge of finding volunteers to work during the annual work-a-thon and does so through word-of-mouth,
monthly happy hours and electronic communication and advertising opportunities through online resources such as Volunteer Match and
Craig's List. Teams represent a mosaic of the Washington community -- university groups, church-related groups, corporate teams, small businesses, alumni organizations, and simply groups of friends.
For more information about volunteering, please visit Volunteering with Hands on DC |
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| What is College Bound and how it affiliated with Hands on DC? | |
College Bound (www.CollegeBound.org) is a mentoring and
tutoring program that prepares DC public
school students to enter college and earn their degree.
To be eligible, students must be:
College Bound students and mentors participate in the Hands on DC event and Hands on DC volunteers often work as College Bound mentors. |
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| How does Hands on DC distribute its scholarships? | |
Because corporate and foundation contributions pay for the event itself, all of the pledges raised by the work-a-thon volunteers go directly to college scholarships. When corporate donations have exceeded project costs, we further increased the amount in the scholarship fund. Over the past 13 years, more than $500,000 in scholarship funds has been distributed through local organizations.
Since 2002, Hands on DC has worked exclusively with College Bound. Since 1995, Hands on DC has awarded over $366,000 in scholarships to DC public school students participating in College Bound. |
Last year, out of each dollar raised for operating expenses, 50¢ was spent on painting, landscaping and special project supplies, both to be used in the schools and to maintain our inventory. We also spent 11¢ on equipment rentals, transportation costs, and inventory storage. In addition, last year, Hands on DC spent 8¢ of each dollar on publicity to attract volunteers to the event and 6¢ on T-shirts. Finally, 12¢ was spent on insurance and 13¢ went to unavoidable administrative expenses such as telephone service, legal/filing fees, bank charges, accounting, postage, and photocopying and fundraising.
