DASH is proud to announce a new partnership with People Animals Love (PAL). Twice a month, volunteers with dogs will be joining DASH children and their mothers for some pet therapy and playtime.
November 2nd was the first PAL event and it was beautiful outside. We had two 
puppies, Paris and Tamu, join us for an afternoon of fun on the playground. Paris even came dressed in costume as a banana split! Both the dogs are trained by PAL to work with people and are calm, loving animals. We ran around, played on the playground, did tricks and enjoyed some cuddling with the puppies. After an hour of hardy playing, both the puppies and the kids were ready for naps. We can’t wait to have the puppies and their owners back in two weeks!
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Happy Halloween from DASH!
The DASH Community Room at Cornerstone on Wednesday was an explosion of dragons, bumblebees, doctors and ninjas as the DASH kids picked out their Halloween costumes. The excitement in the air was palpable as the kids dug through mountains of donated costumes. It took some kids over a half hour to choose between being a ninja, a zombie, a knight or batman for this Halloween. It’s thanks to the work of the Red Derby that they get to choose between so many wonderful options. The Red Derby donated over 70 costumes and dozens and dozens of bags of Halloween candy to DASH again this year, helping to make it special and fun for all our kids and their moms.
Tonight the kids will celebrating Halloween at a Halloween party hosted by Homeless Children’s Playtime Project. The community room has been decorated, there is green spaghetti in the fridge candy everywhere in the office. It looks like it’s going to be a fun, spooky night.
As the kids are celebrating Halloween at DASH, we will be celebrating BalderDASH at Agora bar for our annual fall fundraiser. Stop by for a chance to win the costume contest and meet some of our great staff!
From Garden to Table
This week at DASH, we brought our gardening and eating full circle. On Tuesday, Wellness Coordinator Annabeth Roeschley and a child resident in DASH’s Cornerstone transitional housing spent time in the garden, harvesting a bounty of fresh “cherry” red and “sun-gold” tomatoes, as 
well as learning about the natural therapeutic value of herbs. (After picking lavender, the child was overheard sharing it with her mom and “teaching” her how to use 
it for stress relief.)
Two days later found Annabeth with Advocate Afusat Olaifa for her cooking class in our Wellness Room kitchen, joined by two avid cooks who live at Cornerstone. Together, big bunches of basil 
were clipped from the beds outside, becoming the star ingredient in a tasty homemade pesto. Mixed in with fresh pasta, seasoned chicken, and our homegrown tomatoes, this garden-to-table pesto delight wa
s shared and loved by all!
The Giving Library
DASH’s founder and Executive Director Peg Hacskaylo just returned from an exciting trip to Houston, TX, where she filmed a video for the Giving Library, a groundbreaking initiative that connects donors to nonprofit organizations through online video interviews. The library’s goal is to help nonprofits share their work while helping philanthropists enhance their strategic charitable giving.
DASH is thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight the innovative work we do and the courageous families we serve, on a national stage. As Peg notes in the video, “In the last seven years, [DASH has] grown to become the city’s largest dedicated safe housing provider for victims and their families and [has] almost tripled the amount of safe housing, through our own programs and in partnership with other providers. Moreover, our model of services has since become nationally known for our comprehensive and compassionate approach.”
The video will be ready in a few months and we can’t wait to share it with you. In the meantime, check out the photo of Peg filming in the studio. Thank you so much to the Giving Library and the Laura and the John Arnold Foundation for providing us with this opportunity and for their support as we continue our work to prevent survivors from having to choose between living without a home and living with abuse.
Art Group: From the Children’s Perspective
Every week Beth and Anne Marie, two of our outstanding and dedicated volunteers from the Red Derby, have been teaching an Art Class to the kids of DASH. The class is a huge favorite among the children; they love the teachers, the fun projects and the chance to unleash their creativity.
Alice*says that she appreciates the class because of the positive encouragement that she gets: “I can’t draw, but they always tell me I can. Even when I mess up they’re like, ‘oh that’s sooo good!’”(It should be noted that Alice is in fact an amazing artist who last week used feathers and glitter to create a wacky, unique mask.)
Alice also talked about how different and fun the projects are every week, “I didn’t do any of this in art class last year.” The art projects Continue Reading
Welcome to Jennifer Lee, Newest DASH Board Member!
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Jennifer Lee (left)
Jennifer’s expertise in creating comfortable, aesthetically pleasing work and office spaces translated into creating those same kinds of spaces for survivors living in DASH residences. MOI and DASH worked together to build beautiful homes for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, with Jennifer playing a pivotal role. This past April, we honored her with the Keystone Award for Leadership in the Development of Housing for Victims of Domestic Violence.
We’re thrilled to welcome Jennifer to our board and cannot wait to work with her in this capacity! Read more about Jennifer and her work with DASH here.
Supporter Spotlight: Meghan Walsh
We’re lucky at DASH to have the support of a number of people we work with, including Meghan – author of the blog below, local architect and DASH champion. Here’s what our Executive Director Peg Hacskaylo had to say about Meghan:
“Since the earliest days of DASH, I have considered my relationship with Meghan to be incredibly valuable and rewarding. I learned so much from her in the beginning, working on the plans and renovation for DASH; and since, working together on various other construction and art projects. Meghan has been a tireless and passionate supporter of ours. I couldn’t have asked for a better ally in making DASH a reality and helping to achieve our mission.”
Read more about Meghan’s experience with DASH!
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I started working with Peg on DASH in 2008 I believe. She called me for help in renovating a 5 bedroom rowhouse – her earliest vision of DASH. As Peg’s vision evolved and she found support, that small project grew. I didn’t hear from Peg for a while after our first conversation. But then one day she called to request my help on a 27-unit building in Southeast Washington. She, and I , were very excited about it. I prepared an extensive feasibility study for the abandoned low rise apartment building, but the building was sold out from under DASH and Peg was back to square one… looking for a home for DASH. Again, a hiatus in my working on DASH, until one day when she called to tell me that now, it was looking very positive and this time the building was 51 units. I was thrilled for Peg and for the opportunity to work with her on her vision which had grown ten times since our first conversation.
The DASH building was a very challenging renovation project because of its extremely solid construction, and the constraints of budget. Working with Peg and the team at DASH was a wonderful way for me to gain insight into what DASH does on a daily basis. Understanding issues of security, community, and safety were key as the project developed. Working on a building as the architect, you spent lots of time together with the team at the building during its construction with weekly and sometimes bi-weekly visits. At the end of this process there is a bittersweet feeling of happiness at the completion, yet loss because of the relationships that were developed for that moment in time. I think Peg understands this as do all of the staff at DASH, for everything is in transition at DASH, all of the time.
By the end of the project, Peg knew me not only as architect, but she also learned that I have a fine arts background and I have done some public art and community projects, both in DC and in Brazil, through Axis Mundi, Inc., a non-profit that I founded in 2004. When the Redskins alumni joined with KaBoom to build the playground in the front yard, she asked me if I could create a project to involve younger folks who live at DASH. Peg had visited my home in Bloomingdale and seen the mosaics I made and incorporated into the design of my house. We had spoken about bringing some of this to DASH and this was the chance. Axis Mundi contributed materials to the project and we started to make the mosaic panels for DASH on the day of the Redskins playground build.
The mosaics that I like to make are broken tile mosaics. I particularly enjoy this process because it feels healing to me. When we see a piece of broken tile by itself, our tendency is to consider it garbage. When we break a plate or cup, we throw it away usually. But when I begin to put them into a mosaic, I see that each broken piece has its distinct place amongst the other broken pieces. In life, I have had my failures and experiences that have hurt me, or that I might not like. I tend see these experiences as unworthy, unimportant or ugly and want to throw them away, just like a broken plate. And yet in combining these “failures” into a complete mosaic – my whole life – it is something spectacularly beautiful and incredibly unique… there will never be another exactly the same. The act of laying each piece into place may seem monotonous or tedious to some. But I find it soothing, and healing. And I am always amazed at the end result. While I plan out the overall image – a flower, a spiral, a beach scene, or just a field of a particular color, there is a joyful spontaneity and randomness to the placement of each individual piece. It requires patience, some discipline, and time, but it is an enjoyable process with an always surprisingly beautiful end result. It is also a fun thing to do socially. The day we made them at DASH I had some great conversations with all those volunteering. And since then, I have spent time with my friends completing them and we too have had the opportunity to work on something constructive, while have long talks about life, joking and laughing together through the messy process of creating something beautiful.
Today, when I visited DASH to drop of the mosaic panels, I had a few flashbacks to the many stages of the building, from the run down apartment building it was prior to DASH, to the challenges that came up through the middle of construction process to the moment of completion, and move-in. I don’t have a day-to-day role at DASH anymore, and it makes me happy to be asked for an ID when I come through the door anonymously. It is a feeling that is hard to describe. Kind of like being a broken piece of tile that found its spot in a beautiful mosaic flower. Thank you DASH for letting me be a part of you too!
Beautiful Playground!
On Saturday, September 15th, DASH hosted a group of volunteers from Clark Construction to work on making the DASH playground safer and more beautiful. The volunteers met at 7am with DASH staff to drink coffee and eat delicious cheese and bacon muffins generously made by a 
talented Clark volunteer. Due to the hard work of the Clark volunteers, DASH now has fresh wood chips to ensure the children’s safety; a freshly cleaned playground; more durable, stained, outside furniture; beautifully hung murals that were created by DASH children during our playground build 
with KaBOOM!; and no more weeds! The volunteers from Clark Construction also spent time putting in colorful stepping stones painted by DASH children in the Red Derby sponsored Art Group. They look absolutely beautiful! A huge thank you to Clark Construction for providing the manpower, the materials and the expertise for our playground re-beautification. We are so grateful for Clark’s continued support of DASH and look forward to working together again in the future!
Back to School!
On August 22nd, DASH held a Back-To-School Party to give out all of the amazing backpacks and schools supplies that were donated by the Red Derby and Eagle Bank, and to get the children excited for the new school year! In total 37 elementary school students, 8 middle school s
tudents, 11 high school students and 4 college students were provided with all of the materials they needed to start the school year off right and be ready to learn. Our parents/guardians were extremely grateful for this support given how expensive starting a new school year can be, and all of the kids were absolutely thrilled! Thank you so much to the Red Derby and Eagle Bank for making such a huge difference in the lives of DASH’s families. We are so grateful for you!
Appreciation for the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market!
Each and every Sunday during the growing season, Cornerstone residents take part in a bounty of fresh vegetables from our friends at the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market. Everything from spring radishes, to summer squash, to fall greens – all are used in cooking classes at Cornerstone, and most 
often, cooked directly in our residents’ apartment kitchens, adding to the veggies harvested from our own garden. We are so grateful for our local farmers who grow and donate their vegetables, and especially to our wonderful neighbor Ted McGinn, who faithfully brings the produce to and from DASH every week.
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