Arlington Neighborhood Villages

The ANV MISSION is to enable seniors to continue living safely, independently, and with an enhanced quality of life in their own homes and communities as they age by providing access to support services and social programs.
Our VISION is that over the next five years, Arlington Neighborhood Village will become an essential piece of the social safety net for seniors in Arlington, providing volunteer services for older adults from all segments of the community and collaborating with the County and senior-serving organizations to make aging in place possible for those who want it. Our STRATEGIC GOALS are:
1. To be a welcoming inclusive village that helps address the challenges of aging in place.
2. To build a diverse membership, volunteer corps, staff, and board that reflect Arlington's demographics.
3. To deliver rewarding, interesting volunteer opportunities to a robust, engaged, multi-generational volunteer corps that is large enough to meet the demands of increasing membership.
4. To build the capacity, policies, and structures to enable the organization to achieve its strategic vision.
5. To cultivate diversified portfolio of sustainable funding to support ANV's growth.

Programs and services available to members of ANV include volunteers performing 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; daily check-ins; simple household help such as changing light bulbs and smoke alarm batteries; technology assistance; decluttering assistance.

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 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 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 pandemic has caused us to build upon our previous success of supporting low-income seniors in-need and at-risk.
Currently, we provide discounted fees based on a sliding income scale to one-third of our membership.

Securing dedicated funding for the Financial Aid Fund will be a continuous effort so that ANV can support more low-to-moderate income seniors via subsidized memberships. Our fundraising efforts include seeking gifts and grants from individuals, foundations, and corporations. 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. In 2022, we sponsored a webinar on legacy planning to introduce our members to ways to leave legacy gifts to ANV. That same year ANV received its first legacy gift. In addition, we are becoming more closely engaged with corporate Arlington, making ANV more widely known by becoming a member of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce in 2021. ANV is working to build a diversified portfolio of sustainable funding that includes not only donations and grants but also legacy gifts and support from the county's business/corporate sector.

For its first 8 years, ANV operated successfully with a small part-time staff. To achieve our goals, we need more capacity. In 2022, ANV hired a Member Services Specialist; in 2023 we increased hours of our Executive Director, Member Services Manager, and Volunteer Coordinator. We will soon recruit a Community Outreach Manager and a Program Manager.

ANV is a rapidly growing village. Membership has grown from 205 at end of 2017 to 328 at end of 2022; the number of adult volunteers has grown from 201 in 2017 to 445 at the end of 2022, of whom about 240 are active volunteers. Volunteer training has been moved online, and the process of onboarding volunteers continues to run smoothly.

In 2022, ANV volunteers fulfilled over 3,000 service requests. Volunteers contributed 8,900 hours and drove over 30,000 miles on behalf of our members. The number attending our events totaled 4,940. These data are all on an upward trend.

Requests in 2022 for transportation were 46 percent of all requests. About one-third of requests involved errands for groceries, prescription pick-up, or food delivery from the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). Other services performed 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.

When the Covid pandemic struck, ANV quickly pivoted to help Arlington's most vulnerable seniors regardless of their ability to pay the membership fee. We welcomed over 80 of Arlington's most vulnerable lower-income seniors with "temporary" no cost subsidized memberships. Another 64 seniors participate in ANV's Discounted Membership program where 80 to 90% of the membership fee is reduced for people with incomes less than $47,250. We engaged in outreach to those "temporary" members to fully incorporate them into the ANV family.

ANV's fall Financial Aid Fundraising Campaigns in 2020 through 2022 greatly surpassed our goals, raising almost $30,000 in 2020 to permit ANV to support more lower-income, at-risk and in-need seniors. In 2021, we raised $40,000 in our Fall campaign; in 2022, we raised about $50,000. We will build upon this success and make growing efforts to obtain grants from foundations and other nonprofits.