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!
domestic violence
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.
Welcome to Jennifer Lee, Newest DASH Board Member!
![facesoffisher39205[1]](https://dashdc.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/facesoffisher392051.jpg)
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!
Art, Healing, and Community
As part of our ongoing, wonderful community 
partnership with The Red Derby, we’re pleased to announce that two Red Derby staff, Ann-Marie VanTassell and Beth Hansen, started an Art Group/Class for DASH’s children every Tuesday night at our Cornerstone Facility. The class is a huge success and we could not be more grateful to Ann-Marie and Beth for 
bringing this experience to DASH as part of their innovative, new non-profit, The Arcade, which is dedicated to promoting and educating art in Washington DC, and whose goal is to establish studio and workshop space for artists in the area to enable artists to have a dedicated space to continue their craft both affordably and in a creative, collaborative environment, and to continue teaching and encouraging children to create art. They accomplish this through their arts programs for youth groups in the city, and they use their fundraising events as a space for education.
Most recently, DASH’s Children’s Art Group held its first Art Show at Cornerstone. Our resident children proudly provided tours of the works to their families and community members. The beautiful pieces represented projects ranging from an “About Me” magazine to prints made from melted crayons and paint mixed with water and soap. It was a wonderful opportunity to 
celebrate our children’s hard work and support healing from trauma through creative expression. Michael Henderson, Edgewood resident and a valued member of the DASH community, attended the art show and shared the following: “The value of this type of expression for children cannot be described in an email. But I’ve seen the work you’ve done with the 
children and how you’ve engaged the community and, well, thank you. The art work was wonderful!”
Thank you to all of those who attended and a HUGE thank you to our volunteer art teachers Anne-Marie and Beth and to our 
extended family at the Red Derby.
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To learn more about Ann-Marie and Beth’s work at The Arcade, click here: http://thearcadedc.blogspot.
DASH Founder and Executive Director Blogs from Kabul
Our founder and executive director Peg Hacskaylo is in Kabul and will be in other parts of Afghanistan on sabbatical for the next three months. She’s traveled there to visit domestic violence housing and shelter services, run by Shukria Khaliqi. Shukria visited DASH last year for three days. Follow along as Peg blogs for The Huffington Post from Kabul. Here is her first post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-a-hacskaylo/the-currency-of-change_b_3254787.html.
SPOTLIGHT ON ALLIES IN CHANGE AWARDEES: A WIDER CIRCLE AND MARK BERGEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Thanks to the leadership and support of Mark Bergel and A Wider Circle, families moving into housing with DASH had their new households fully furnished and equipped, ready for them to easily and quickly move into their new homes and begin rebuilding their lives. When DASH doubled the number of families housed through our Empowerment Project, A Wider Circle provided everything needed to help them move into their apartments seamlessly. With the simple mission of helping children and families lift themselves out of poverty, A Wider Circle does so much more. They ensure that families who have escaped abuse, leaving everything they had behind them, not only have a safe place to live but everything need to make it a home.
We would like to honor Mark Bergel, the Executive Director of A Wider Circle, with our Building Brick Award. In construction, the building brick is that which makes up the substance of the structure. A Wider Circle’s help to ensure that the families at DASH are provided with more than just a safe place to run, but the ability to establish new homes – quickly, easily, and comfortably, the way a home should be – helps change lives. Read the interview with Mark Bergel below, and remember to buy tickets to the Allies in Change Luncheon here:
I believe that we can end poverty, that it is the single greatest blight on our society and on our world. I believe that poverty leads to so many other destructive forces and I am deeply devoted to working to end it.
My relationship to our nation’s capital is simply that it provides the perfect opportunity to show what is possible when people come together to address a major problem. I have spent many, many days in all parts of our capital city and am always shocked that we allow poverty to endure and two worlds to exist side by side in the same land. I think we owe it to every ideal on which this nation was born and every ideal we hold sacred in our lives to end poverty. To me, DC is a metaphor for the connection that is needed in this world.
If you are doing anything of importance in this city, you will hear about DASH. It was
fairly early in the life of A Wider Circle, the organization I founded in 2001, that I came across DASH and forged a relationship with its leadership.
I believe that the work that DASH does – and the way it is done – is a real uplift. DASH and its leadership represent truly the best in social service, and we need to serve in an extremely high-quality and dignified way. That is what I see with DASH.
A mutual desire to serve well – that is what brought us together. A Wider Circle’s relationship with DASH is a true partnership. They provide support in many ways for our work, and we respond with urgency when a family from DASH is in need of our support.
While it may not sound unique, what stands out about DASH to me is the exceptionally
professional manner in which is it is managed and in which its programs run. It may not seem unique to be a consistently high-quality and first-class operation, but the way in which DASH is managed makes me feel good about how the women and families they serve will be supported.
Unfortunately, domestic violence is almost synonymous with poverty, so I am connected with domestic violence much more than I expected to be. In fact, I always say that it would be difficult to meet a woman who was born and raised in poverty and did not face some form of violence. Every conversation is heartbreaking, but at the same time, motivating. So, to be a part of what DASH is doing, and to partner in the effort is among the most important things that I and A Wider Circle do. We are deeply committed to confronting the issue of domestic violence and to making sure that those who have been victims of it can realize a future filled with positivity and joy.
Spotlight on Allies in Change Awardees: MOI and Jennifer Lee
DASH’s longtime corporate community partner, MOI, is this year’s recipient of the Keystone award. MOI not only works with DASH to build awareness and support for the cause of safe housing and safe lives through events, they also donate their time volunteering and organizing much-needed drives for DASH’s women and children. MOI has also donated endless amounts office furniture for DASH staff and its staff has helped design our office spaces. Jennifer, Senior Consultant for Commercial Interior Solutions, explains more about this wonderful partnership below, and remember to buy tickets to the luncheon here:
My name is Jennifer Lee, I’m a Senior Consultant at MOI. MOI is a Commercial Furniture Dealership with 30 years of experience providing clients with comprehensive furniture solutions.
I work and play in DC! I first heard about DASH back in 2009 when we hosted an art show that raised funds and awareness for DASH. It also gave members of the industry an opportunity to showcase our artistic talents.
When DASH was renovating the Cornerstone building MOI donated furniture as well as our services for design, labor, and project management for their staff offices.
DASH knows firsthand how large the need is locally for safe housing and support services. They bring vital awareness needed to educate others on the cause and effect relationship between domestic violence and the prevention of homelessness.
Their low barrier policy and the passion that their team has for the mission along with their unbridled resolve to give their residents the tools/skills needed to rebuild their lives with the respect and kindness they deserve. DASH addresses the need for services and local housing for victims and assists with getting them into safe, supportive environments, where they can find success at their own speed. DASH is nationally recognized for their best practice model organization.
I feel passionate that women and children should be protected from violence and sexual abuse. Having a sense of security and safety in your home…this is the most basic need most of us take for granted. All women should have an alternative housing solution to living in an unsafe environment or on the streets.
“We” in the global sense, are ALL affected by domestic violence, sexual abuse, and homelessness.
