The History of “Zonta House”

 In the spring of 2006 the Zonta Club of Fairfax County voted to make a significant contribution to help provide affordable housing for a needy local woman and her family, We specifically wished to assist a victim of domestic violence who had moved on from the Women’s Shelter to transitional housing while working to achieve the necessary job skills to attain self-sufficiency.  After carefully investigating ways to accomplish this goal, we elected to partner with another local non-profit organization, Reston Interfaith, to renovate a specific transitional housing unit which they had acquired at foreclosure for this purpose.

The dedication day, dubbed “Zonta Day,” was marked by a major clean-up project undertaken by our club members on the exterior of the home.  First we raked, mowed, weeded and planted in the front yard. Then, under the direction of the contractor and assisted by our family, we tackled the back, where we removed two truckloads of debris and construction material, mowed, edged, created flower beds and painted the rear fence.   In addition, we planted dozens and dozens of spring bulbs!

 Our relationship with our Zonta House family has continued throughout 2007.  At Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, our club provided holiday baskets of food and gifts from each family member’s wish list.  In spring 2007 we will begin a mentor/job coach relationship with our Zonta House mom and a tutoring relationship with our Zonta House seventh-grader.  Through this type of personal interaction, we hope to make a real difference in one woman’s life and the future success of her family. 

Much of our fundraising effort from 2006 on was dedicated to the continuing support of Zonta House. It is our hope that once this particular home is fully renovated and the family is on its feet, we will be in a position to sponsor an additional transitional housing unit and directly help another deserving family. We fully expect there will be many “Zonta Houses” in our future, but it the meanwhile, it is gratifying to see that the bulbs we planted in the fall have already come into full flower by the spring of 2007.