Donate to a Deserving Child in Our MVT Community this Holiday Season
Wednesday December 2, 2020
During this holiday season of giving, we’re featuring a local opportunity to bring joy to the life of a deserving child in our Mount Vernon Triangle community.
Plaza West is an innovative affordable housing development serving grandparents raising grandkids. The unique development has 50 units for head of households age 50 and older who have legal custody/guardianship of at least one minor child. Plaza West is just one of a handful of such projects across the country and is the only project of its type in Washington, DC.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 has exacerbated the already many financial, health (mental and physical), education (due to virtual learning platforms) and social service (navigating community resources) challenges faced by the building’s grandparents. That’s why we’re partnering with the resident services staff at Plaza West to seek our community’s support in joining Capital One, Howard University, the Metropolitan Police Department and YMCA to provide donated gifts and toys to kids in the building, due to the grandparents’ inability to do so at this time.
Donating is simple and easy! Click the red button below to view each child’s wish list (along with their age and gender), select the gift you would like to donate, purchase it and then deliver it using instructions to be provided by MVT CID.
Thank you for helping to warm a child’s heart by donating a gift this holiday season, and we truly appreciate all that you are willing and able to give! And please contact us for additional details regarding how you can engage with the Plaza West community.
Plaza West Resident Profile
- 68 youth between the ages of infant to 18 years old:
- Age 0-5: 6 youth
- Age 6-12: 34 youth
- Age 13-18: 28 youth
- All residents identify as African American/Black
- Average household income: $23,000/year
- Average household composition: three people per household
- 40% of grandparents are age 65 or older
- All but three of the apartments have a single grandmother raising a minor child
Learn More about Plaza West:
- “District Breaks Ground on Affordable-Housing Development for Families Headed by Grandparents,” Washington City Paper (June 20, 2016)
- “A refuge for grandparents stepping up to raise their grandchildren,” Washington Post (July 8, 2016)
- “‘Grandfamily Housing’ created for grandparents raising grandchildren in DC,” WJLA News (September 23, 2018)
- “Born from circumstance and built on loss, ‘grandfamilies’ get their own building in D.C.,” Washington Post (October 6, 2018)
- “New affordable housing program targets D.C. ‘grandfamilies’,” Washington Post (October 3, 2018)
- “Inside D.C.’s First Apartment Building For Grandfamilies,” WAMU Radio (November 8, 2018)
- “A Home For Grandfamilies,” Forbes (May 17, 2019)
- “Grandfamilies Find Support in D.C. Development,” Affordable Housing Finance (January 16, 2020)
- “The Rise of the Grandfamily,” Washington Post Magazine (January 22, 2020)
