The 2009 Meyer Foundation Exponent Award winners are featured in The Washington Post.
About Ana Lopez
Executive Director, Community Bridges
Ana Lopez is a native of Silver Spring/Takoma Park. She has a passion for empowerment and educational programming for low-income youth of color. With more than eight years of experience with Latino immigrant families and youth in Brooklyn and East Harlem, New York, and in Washington, D.C., she has worn many hats working as an individual and group counselor, social worker, youth empowerment promoter and organizational development advocate. She is a graduate of the Leadership Montgomery class of 2007, and is a member of the Nonprofit Montgomery! steering committee and the Montgomery County Executive's Latin American advisory group.
Prior to coming to Community Bridges, Lopez worked at the Latin American Youth Center, where she managed the Transitional Living and Street Outreach Program, which serves homeless Latino youth in Washington, D.C. Lopez holds a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Social Work, with a concentration in program development. She also holds a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University in human and organizational development with a concentration in community development and social policy.
Key Accomplishments
Ana Lopez
Executive Director, Community Bridges
Annual Budget: $500,000
Service Area: Suburban Maryland (Montgomery County)
Organization founded: 1997
Ana has also become one of the leading nonprofit voices in Montgomery County. She is a 2007 graduate of Leadership Montgomery, and is a member of the steering committee of Nonprofit Montgomery!, an initiative of the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington.
She is described as a mentor to other executive directors and as one of the "sparkplugs" of young nonprofit executives who are changing the way services are delivered in Montgomery County.
Community Bridges has expanded significantly under the leadership of Silver Spring native Ana Lopez, a social worker by training, who became executive director in 2006. The operating budget has nearly doubled; the number of program sites has expanded from five to 15 schools; and the number of girls served has increased to more than 200. The program now engages participants' families, and in 2009 Community Bridges' second annual day-long conference, on the topic of sexual harassment, attracted more than 200 parents, school administrators, and elected officials.
Ana has also built successful partnerships with Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery College, City at Peace, the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council, and many other nonprofits.
Community Bridges works with girls ages 8 to 15 from low-income, predominantly immigrant families (50% Latina, about 25% African) in Silver Spring and Takoma Park, helping these girls gain the skills and values necessary for their personal well-being, academic success, and development as change agents for the community.
More than three quarters of the girls it serves are middle school students, who are vulnerable to gang involvement, teen pregnancy, and academic failure. The organization's work with these students includes building self-esteem, leadership skills, and interest in learning.
In 2008, Community Bridges became one of only 75 nonprofits in Maryland to be certified under the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations' Standards for Excellence program--especially remarkable for such a small organization, since smaller groups often lack the infrastructure and systems necessary for the rigorous certification process.
Impact of economic downturn: Ana has remarked that she has never seen the girls have such negative sense of self and their futures. In elementary school classes at multiple sites girls said that they couldn't be doctors, lawyers, etc. and at the high school level girls commented that they could only be maids.
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