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Making Change

Caring for our community

Cornerstones

Stability, empowerment, and hope

Above: Volunteers serve food at the Embry Rucker Community Shelter. (Photo: Cornerstones)

There’s nothing quite like preparing a meal with your loved ones. For MainStreet Bank’s Krishna Challa, Vice President of Engineering at Avenu, that feeling of closeness and fulfillment only grows when she knows she’s doing it to help others.
 
Krishna and her family come together on special occasions to prepare sandwiches for the Embry Rucker Community Shelter in Reston, Virginia, often delivering between 60 and 100 meals.
 
Krishna first began volunteering for Embry Rucker 15 years ago after being introduced to the organization through a former employer. So when she heard about the opportunity to give back through Making Change, she knew she wanted to help the shelter and the group that runs it.
 
Embry Rucker is a 70-bed emergency homeless shelter run by Cornerstones, a non-profit that offers support and human services to residents in Northwest Fairfax County.
 
In addition to running the shelter, Cornerstones offers a wide range of programs to help people with housing, childcare, employment, food, and other basic needs – with the goal of providing stability, empowerment, and hope to the surrounding community.
 
The organization was founded in 1970 under the name “Reston Interfaith” by six religious organizations who came together to address the affordable housing shortage in Reston, Virginia.
 
Over 50 years later, the organization has grown to serve 16,000 families and individuals a year.

Above: Krishna’s daughter and friends prepare sandwiches for the Embry Rucker Community Shelter. (Photos: Krishna Challa)

In addition to emergency shelter, housing counseling, and foreclosure and eviction prevention programs, Cornerstones has its own supply of low-income housing.
 
The organization currently owns over 100 affordable housing units in condos and townhouses in the Reston, Herndon, and Centreville area. They support another 48 affordable apartments through a local partner, and are working on constructing two new buildings that could add around 200 more units.
 
Cornerstones also offers employment assistance like job skills training and financial literacy classes – a requirement for anyone receiving direct financial assistance.
 
Families in need of childcare can enroll their children in Cornerstones’ low-cost Laurel Learning Center, which offers full-time childcare, before-and-after school care, and summer programs.
 
Kids can get homework and tutoring help from Cornerstones at community centers in the area, and adults can attend programs like English language classes or American citizenship classes.
 
Cornerstones’ food pantry, the Assistance Services and Pantry Program, served an average of 450+ households a month and distributed a total of 10 thousand bags of food and toiletries in 2021. Cornerstones also helps run a program that matches SNAP benefits, so clients can afford to shop for fresh produce at local farmers markets.
 
All of these programs can make a big difference for families facing homelessness.
 
Cornerstones is closely involved in efforts to reduce homelessness in Fairfax County, and often works with the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness.

Between 2008 and 2017, the county saw homelessness decrease by 47%. But rates have been on the rise again, and pandemic-related economic issues haven’t helped.
 
Fairfax County shelters reported serving over 3,000 unhoused individuals in the 2022 fiscal year, and county schools reported that almost 2,000 students had experienced homelessness in the 2022-23 school year.
 
The county conducts a “point-in-time” count on the same night of January every year to help measure changes over time. For 2023, the county recorded 1,310 individuals – a 10% increase from 2022.
 
The number of families with children rose 33% from 2022, and children made up over a third of the homeless population. 11% were currently fleeing domestic violence, and 30% had a history with domestic violence.
 
4% were veterans and 2% were seniors, with the report making note of one individual at a shelter who was 97 years old.
 
Racial disparities seen in previous years continue – with Black or African American individuals making up 48% of the homeless population, compared to just 10.9% of the total county population.
 
Cornerstones supports those who are currently homeless but also helps people avoid becoming homeless in the first place. And once the crisis situation is over, Cornerstones is there to help plan a path towards a more stable future.
 
While Cornerstones receives some government funding, they rely on public support and donations to keep their programs running.
 
Krishna described the reception of the donation by Cornerstones as very welcoming and grateful. She said she knew she made the right choice and couldn’t be any happier as this donation directly impacts local Fairfax and Loudon communities.
 
“Giving not only impacts the receiving, but it profoundly impacts the one giving,” Krishna said.

To learn more about Cornerstones visit cornerstonesva.org

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Making Change: A community giving initiative from MainStreet Bank

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