Manassas-area children’s choirs

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Becky Verner conducts children in grades 5 through 8 in a new Manassas-area singing group for children.

About 70 Manassas-area children are joining their voices in song as members of a new choral group that began rehearsing last month.

The Greater Manassas Children’s Choir, an offshoot of the Manassas Chorale, is divided by age into two singing groups, each with a director. Becky Verner leads about 50 children in grades 5 through 8, and Susan Dommer is head of a smaller group of children in grades 2 through 4.

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Washington Post, October 11, 2015

Teachers start summer bookmobile

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Several teachers from Herndon Elementary School are volunteering their time this summer to get kids reading.

Every Wednesday, the group brings a self-styled bookmobile to two apartment complexes in Herndon, where the teachers lay out boxes of donated books on the lawn. Children are encouraged to look through, choose books that appeal to them and take them home to read. Best of all: The books are theirs to keep.

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Washington Post, August 5, 2015

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Nonprofit helps with school supplies

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Two decades ago, Susan Ungerer was volunteering at a Fairfax County nonprofit group that helps financially strapped families when she noticed a pattern: Parents tended to fall behind with their finances in August and September, just when they had to buy school supplies for their children.

That realization, combined with 23 years of experience as an elementary school teacher, motivated Ungerer to start Kids R First, a nonprofit group that provides basic school supplies to families in need. The organization has been growing ever since. This year, Ungerer anticipates that Kids R First will help 25,000 students in 96 schools across Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

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Washington Post, July 29, 2015

Fighting childhood obesity

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Children will be able to learn more about where their food comes from — and how eating locally grown food contributes to a healthy lifestyle — through a program that is coming to the Mosaic Central Farm Market in Merrifield on Sunday.

The Junior League of Northern Virginia’s Market Explorers program is part of a larger effort to combat childhood obesity.

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Washington Post, July 15, 2015