Thank you to everyone who made the DCAF Winter Holiday Party such a great success! We packed the Enlightenment Room at Topaz Hotel, and by the end of the night, raised more than $10,600 dollars – and donations are still pouring in!

“Peace, Joy and Choice” brought dozens of people out to celebrate DCAF’s mission – to help area women get the abortions they need. The average woman who calls DCAF for assistance receives $149 in financial support. With the donations we raised, we’ll be able to provide 71 women with that same grant assistance.

Feminists and friends gather to celebrate DCAF!

“It was a huge success,” said DCAF Board President Tiffany Reed. “More people showed up than ever before and we filled the room all night long. We got more sponsors than ever before, too.”

Board members mingle

Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the help of our fabulous sponsors. More than 40 items were donated for the evening’s raffle, from yoga sessions to T-shirts to an adorable plush uterus. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t thank our sponsors:

Jack and Frances Heller (our top sponsors this year!)

Suzy Filbert

George Lizama/Production Solutions

Michael Rizzo

Catholics for Choice

NARAL Pro-Choice America

and many more!

Our volunteers know a good raffle when they see one!

Again, thank you to all who came and celebrated with us. We had a great time, but it’s important to remember that during the holidays and throughout the year, women are still struggling to pay for their abortions – especially since DC Medicaid hasn’t paid a dime yet for a single abortion beyond what the Hyde Amendment allows, even though federal restrictions were lifted earlier this year. But we’ll be sure to keep you posted on that issue here!

We are proud to release our FY 2008-2009 Annual Report, as written by our very own board member Diana Philip.

To read our FY 2008-2009 Annual Report, please click here.

We know that we often come to you with fundraising requests and exciting events and so the day to day information like…

Who do we serve?  What are their stories?  How old are they?

What is our budget? Where does it come from?

How great is the community need?

… are questions that get lost in the race to meet the demands for our services.  So in that spirit our annual report seeks to make it all a bit more transparent.

A few key highlights:

• 971 calls placed to the DCAF Hotline in FY 08-09
• 335 individuals were offered grants, 234 received funding
• Demand for our services has increased 200% over the last three years

To read our FY 2008-2009 Annual Report, please click here.

About three or so weeks ago, two women came to the DCAF board and said, “Hey, we saw on twitter that the other Abortion Funds are doing bowl-a-thons in May. We want to plan one for you. We pretty much won’t take no for an answer”

We agreed to bowl. Shock. Silent glee. Acceptance.

We set an ambitious goal of $4,000.

Thanks to the amazing women who spearheaded this event, Danielle Geong and Val Vilott (aka Han-Bowlo & Millenium Val-Con), we blew past the $4,000 mark! Then the $8,000 mark! At the urging of the National Network for Abortion Funds, we changed the goal to $12,000.

And then the DC pro-choice community blew that goal out of the water too!

While the last day to make a bowl-a-thon gift is Friday May 7, as of today… we’ve raised $14,503.25!

Let’s put that in perspective:

• Average annual income of the women we serve $7,000
• ALL Event-related donations made between July 2008 – June 2009 (FY08-09): $6,275

Thank you for coming together as a community to make this event so successful!