For Love of Children (FLOC) would like to invite you to our annual Beyond the Classroom Fundraising Luncheon on Thursday, May 1, at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park.

This inspiring event brings FLOC friends, new and old, together to hear from FLOC students, families, volunteers, and board members about the work we do to ensure that DC youth have a viable path to educational success and earning a postsecondary degree.  This year’s event is especially important to us, as we share more about our strategic planning efforts and our vision for growth.

In the development of FLOC’s strategic plan, we asked ourselves how FLOC could use its successful focus on enhancing learning to prepare students for postsecondary success, to have an even larger and more meaningful impact. We pushed beyond a simple calculation of growing the number of students served or opening a new satellite operation.  We rekindled a connection to our organization’s roots in the civil rights movement, and were energized by the activist spirit that lives in our organizational DNA.

We soberly named out loud the tragic inequity in our city, where children with family resources can easily secure tutoring, mentoring and college preparation services, while children in less advantaged neighborhoods struggle without access to educational services beyond the classroom — programs and services like those provided by FLOC.  We affirmed our belief that every child matters, and every child deserves access to programs that provide viable pathways to a postsecondary degree.  We embraced our role in empowering FLOC’s key stakeholders, our students and their families, to offer ideas and a path toward that change.

At our luncheon, on May 1st, we will share our vision for FLOC’s growth over the next several years, as well as opportunities to invest in creating a new future for our community and the students and families we serve. We invite you to come, share our message with others in our community, and support a path towards change. To R.S.V.P, please contact FLOC’s Operations Manager, Ellie Haga, by phone at 202-349-3500 or by email at ehaga@floc.org. We hope you will join us.