Hear Together

ForKids serves 14 cities and counties over the Hampton Roads region to provide mental health counseling, educational resources, help with building generational wealth and finding employment—all conducted through a trauma-informed care lens. They also prioritize physical health with an on-site dental clinic.

The 400 calls they receive in one day to their regional housing crisis hotline help to meet various needs, including utility assistance, children’s clothing, and more.

Listen to our interview with Will White, shelter program manager, below, and learn more at forkids.org.

A mix between tennis and ping pong, pickleball is an equal-opportunity sport that is enjoyed by people of all ages. The Central Virginia Pickleball Club, a nonprofit founded in 2016, worked with the local government to paint pickleball lines on tennis courts throughout Charlottesville. Since then, interest has only grown.

When Max Pfannebecker saw the level of determination in the kids teaching his son how to skate, he wanted to bring that same level of determination and grit to everyday life. 

Triangle Skateboard Alliance serves the Coastal Virginia area, especially the peninsula around Williamsburg. Their original plan to build on to the existing skate park has evolved into skate camps, food drives, school supply drives, and fundraisers for other nonprofits like addiction recovery centers. Pfannebecker’s vision is to help create a community that takes care of the park, and then take that set of values and perpetuate it. 

Center In The Square originally opened in Roanoke in 1983 with five organizations, and saw 45,000 patrons in one weekend. Kids can experience multiple things in the building at one time, giving the staff the momentum they need to keep thinking about gifting the spaces to other nonprofits.

BikeWalk Williamsburg and Bicycle Co-Op has partnerships with more than 23 local social service agencies: House of Mercy, CASA, Literacy for Life, and many more. With a certified voucher from any of those recognized organizations, the co-op provides the certificate holder with a bike, a light, a lock, and a helmet for free. 

The Grandin Theatre is a cultural icon in the Roanoke region. If you think about a montage collage poster of a place, in Roanoke, it’s the H&C Coffee sign, the Mill Mountain Star, and the Grandin Theatre marquee. 

Executive Director of the Grandin Theatre Foundation, Ian Fortier, says the theatre is 92 years old and is the first talking cinema house in Roanoke. In Grandin Village, it’s the economic, geographic, and historic anchor. 

Susie Farmer is the Education Director at Ivy Creek Natural Area and Historic Riverview Farm in Charlottesville—a nature preserve with over 7 miles of trails and original buildings. Through year-round programming, the Ivy Creek Foundation preserves the legacy of the Carr-Greer family and educates the community about their contributions. Hugh Carr never learned to read or write, but made sure that his seven children received an education. They all went on to become educators or community leaders, including his oldest daughter, Mary.

George Rivera is the founder of Wartime Fitness Warriors—a nonprofit boxing gym in Charlottesville that promotes peer support and mental and physical health—while acting as a safe haven and outlet in the community. In the past four years, he’s helped more than 200 students learn the discipline and art of boxing as a means to structure their future physical wellness and simultaneously provide natural peer support to increase their mental health and wellbeing.

Nestled in the back of Peggy and Buddy Parker’s piano store in Williamsburg, the Virginia Musical Museum & Music Hall of Fame traces the lineage of recorded music through collected artifacts. From nickelodeons and organs, to the first voice recording by Thomas Edison, the couple has collected rarities for more than 50 years, and displayed them for the public since 2013.

A section of the museum is dedicated to the impact Virginia musicians, highlighting the impact they have had on all genres of music. Hear from museum owners Peggy and Buddy Parker in our interview below, and learn more about the museum at virginiamusicalmuseum.com.

The Friends of East End is an all-volunteer nonprofit established in 2017. They grew out of a cleanup effort that began in 2013 at East End Cemetery, a historic African American burial ground in Henrico County, Virginia. The sixteen-acre cemetery, founded in 1897, had been overwhelmed by dense overgrowth and illegal dumping.

With the help of thousands of volunteers, they have worked steadily for years to clear the vegetation, remove the trash, and recover more than 3,300 hidden grave markers of the estimated 70,000 people buried in East End and neighboring Evergreen. In partnership with descendants and the broader community, Friends of East End seek to transform these burial grounds into public sites of memory, contemplation, and beauty that honor Richmond’s African American past and present. 

The Wildlife Center of Virginia uses the backgrounds of animal education ambassadors like Hudson, the Gyrfalcon—who are deemed non-releasable by veterinary staff—for educational programs at libraries, schools, festivals, and online communications. 

They provide emergency veterinary and rehabilitative care for about 4,000 animals per year. During their 42 years of operation, they’ve cared for nearly 100,000 animals, connected with more than 1 million adults and children through educational programs, and trained countless professionals in veterinary medicine and rehabilitation for wildlife. Learn more at their website, https://wildlifecenter.org

The Virginia Prison Birth Project serves pregnant and postpartum people in a max security prison facility. Founded in 2018 by Sara Zia, their goal is to be a continuous source of care throughout the pregnancy.

The majority of the birthing people they serve are victims of violence prior to their incarceration, including domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, and child abuse. Their support also attempts to create compassionate alternatives to incarceration through awareness.