Arlington Neighborhood Villages

ANV aims to provide a wide range of programs, events, and services that address the needs of our senior population in Arlington, VA who wish to age-in-place. We provide this assistance via a large corps of dedicated, vetted and trained volunteers who provide services as well as opportunities for social connection for seniors. ANV's top three goals are as follows: (1) Serve more seniors so that they may continue to live safely and independently while feeling a part of their community. ANV is playing a larger role in addressing the needs of lower-income, at-risk seniors who are aging in place in Arlington, with partnerships serving as an important path to this achievement. ANV is deepening partnerships with the County Government and also senior-serving nonprofits like AFAC (Arlington Food Assistance Center) and APAH (Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing). During the pandemic, these organizations turned to ANV for assistance. Beginning in mid-March 2020, ANV decided to help Arlington seniors regardless of ANV membership, particularly with food deliveries; (2) Growing and managing our volunteer pool. Along with growing membership, especially of more vulnerable persons, we must grow our volunteer pool so that we can achieve 100 percent fulfillment of requests for assistance and connection; and (3) Capacity building. As we strive towards goals 1 and 2, we also need to prioritize capacity building - strengthening our management operation and technology support; increasing paid staff; moving to larger office space; improving our fiscal oversight and fundraising. We also seek to invest in decreasing the digital divide among seniors so that they can become more comfortable with technology for personal connection, medical assistance, information gathering and entertainment. These efforts will all require a steady stream of financial support.

Programs and services available to members of ANV include: Especially during COVID-19, volunteers perform errands (grocery shopping, medication pickup, cleaning supplies) and transportation to medical appointments, groceries, banks, beauty and barber shops. Other services include:
- Friendly visits and walking buddies for members on a weekly basis; during COVID, phone buddies.
- Daily check-in, involving a quick call to be sure everything is OK, and follow up if there is a problem.
- Household help such as changing light bulbs, replacing furnace filters, changing smoke alarm batteries, and hanging pictures.
- Technology assistance such as help with email issues, setting up a TV, programming a thermostat, and enabling the senior to chat online with their grandchildren.
- Decluttering whereby a trained volunteer assists a member with decluttering their home or organizing their files.
Membership in ANV includes access to the above services and also:
- Discounted emergency response system, “Lifeline,” provided through Virginia Hospital Center.
- Subscription to Arlington County 55+ programs that include exercise classes and local travel opportunities via the Arlington Seniors bus.
- Subscription to Washington Consumer Checkbook so that members can obtain information on reliable local service providers.

To reduce social isolation, ANV conducts social gatherings, outings, and educational activities: these include holiday potlucks, health and wellness programs; docent-led tours of local historical or cultural sites; weekly speakers on interesting topics; happy hours; dining out groups, and special interest groups – from gardening to bocce. During the pandemic, ANV has shifted many of its activities online, and we have trained our members in how to use Zoom technology to access these meetings and events.

ANV maintains a Financial Aid Fund to provide discounted membership to lower-income applicants. We have placed a priority on fundraising to strengthen ANV's Financial Aid Fund over the next three years.

ANV is in a unique position to be able to provide both direct support and the human connection to make aging in place in Arlington possible. A volunteer-driven operation, ANV has a clear view of the needs of seniors, and working with our partners, can provide more seniors in Arlington with the support, information, and community they need to age in place safely. We have a volunteer coordinator who oversees a growing corps of trained and vetted volunteers ready to help. Each month, more volunteers join ANV and receive training online.

ANV understands the extra challenges that seniors face if on a limited income. From the very beginning, ANV has been committed to not turning anyone away for inability to pay our membership fee of $500 annually. The Founders of ANV established a Financial Aid Fund with an initial anonymous matching gift of $5,000. Since then, without interruption, ANV has been able to provide assistance to all qualified applicants. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, ANV realized it was in a position (due primarily to its trained corps of volunteers) to extend services to even more of the most at-risk seniors in the County. The pandemic has caused us to build upon our previous success of supporting low income seniors in-need and at-risk.

Securing dedicated funding for the Financial Aid Fund is a top priority and will be a continuous effort so that ANV can support more low-to-moderate income seniors via subsidized memberships. Our 2020 fundraising efforts included seeking gifts and grants from individuals, foundations, and corporations, focused on the need to build up the Financial Aid Fund to serve our most vulnerable seniors. ANV's growing success in obtaining philanthropic grants reflects the community's recognition of ANV's contribution to the health and well-being of seniors.

ANV is agile in its ability to respond to new needs in its environment. As COVID-19 descended on Arlington, ANV quickly adjusted its spending to match expense to projected income, while placing top priority on helping seniors, especially lower income seniors. ANV also quickly pivoted to providing formerly in-person social activities online and also moved to online training of new volunteers.

ANV is a rapidly growing village. Membership has grown from 205 at end of 2017 to 300 at end of 2020; the number of adult volunteers has grown from 201 in 2017 to about 300 in 2020. Volunteer training has been moved online, and the process of onboarding volunteers continues to run smoothly.

In 2020, ANV volunteers fulfilled 1,887 service requests. Volunteers contributed 7,180 hours and drove 20,510 miles on behalf of our members. The number attending our events totaled 4,488. These figures are down from the previous year due to the safety issues related to Covid-19. We moved many of our events from in-person to online, and trained our members how to access the events via their computers.

Forty-two percent of requests were for transportation to medical appointments or grocery shopping. Due to the pandemic, there was a substantial increase in the number of "contactless" errands: 30 percent were errands for groceries, prescription pick-up, or food delivery from the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). Other services performed in 2020 included home chores/maintenance; technology support, friendly visitors and phone buddies. Our new phone buddy program has matched over 120 members with volunteers who call periodically for friendly conversation and to ensure the member has what they need to be safe at home.

In 2020 and into 2021, ANV is supporting 80 new "temporary" lower-income members. We intend to make these members permanent in 2021 and beyond, using a sliding scale for membership based on income. We received a grant to enable us to employ a part-time Member Service Specialist in 2021 to work directly with lower-income seniors referred to ANV.

In 2020, ANV's fall Financial Aid Fundraising Campaign greatly surpassed our goal of $20,000, raising almost $30,000 to permit ANV to support more lower-income, at-risk and in-need seniors. Overall, in 2020, we raised $85,000 in donations and grants. We will build upon this success and make growing efforts to obtain grants from foundations and other nonprofits. We also have a new initiative in 2021 to engage more with the corporate community in Arlington.