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The Washington Home Invests $511K to Launch Aging Well Collaborative for Older Adults in Ward 7

New collaboration unites 15 community organizations to create a coordinated ecosystem of health, wellness, and social support reaching more than 6,665 older adults

WASHINGTON, DC (July 22, 2026)  – To strategically strengthen the aging services and care infrastructure for older adults across the District, The Washington Home (TWH) has awarded $511,422 to launch the Ward 7 Aging Well Collaborative (AWC), an unprecedented partnership of 15 community-based organizations working together to transform how older adults access health care, wellness programs, and essential social services.

The collaborative moves beyond traditional service delivery by creating an integrated network of care that connects older adults with the right resources at the right time through a more seamless, coordinated experience. Together, the partners will coordinate referrals, expand access to preventive health services, reduce social isolation, and improve overall well-being for more than 6,665 older adults living in Ward 7.

“This investment reflects a new vision for aging services in the District – one where organizations can deepen impact by working as a connected ecosystem rather than in isolation,” said Crystal Carr Townsend, MPA, CEO of The Washington Home. “By working together around the needs of older adults, we’re creating a model that expands access, strengthens community connections, and empowers older adults to age with dignity, independence, and purpose.”

The Ward 7 Aging Well Collaborative (AWC) is part of TWH’s redesigned FY26 grant strategy, which prioritizes collaborative solutions that improve coordination, reduce duplication of services, and create sustainable community impact. In FY26, TWH awarded more than $4.5 million to organizations serving older adults across all eight wards of the District through initiatives focused on healthcare access, social connection, workforce development, and aging in place.

Connected Services Deepens Impact

The Ward 7 collaborative is designed to support two critical areas to influence healthy and connected aging:

Intentional Collaboration
Coordinated referrals and integrative services for expanded access to primary and behavioral healthcare, dementia screening and support, telehealth training, and transportation.

Enhanced Programming
Strengthening of health, wellness, and social activities that increase engagement and support healthy aging.

The integrated social activities and screening opportunities for older adults can reduce social isolation as well as help to more quickly identify health concerns that could potentially contribute to poorer health outcomes.

Network Connections Drive Impact

TWH is proud to partner with these 15 organizations to deliver connected access to medical care, senior wellness centers and medical day-care centers, specialized social programming resources, and more:

    • Bread for the City: Offers client-choice pantry access, leverages food credits with CAFB to expand dignified access.
    • Capitol Hill Village: Delivers social isolation intervention and wellness programming at various sites across the Ward, while conducting outreach and strengthening caregiver programming based on Memory Studio.
    • East River Family Strengthening Collaborative (ERFSC)/Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center (BFSWC): Provides coordinated wellness and social services to reduce isolation and BFSWC provides screenings, telehealth training, and transportation to expand older adults’ access to care.
    • Goods for Good: Provides critical care and goods to underserved and vulnerable neighbors in the Washington, D.C. area, partnering with local nonprofits and volunteers to amplify its impact.
    • HelpAge USA (Friendship Bench): Provides peer-led, basic cognitive support for older adults as well as behavioral health support to caregivers by offering safe, community-based spaces to build resilience, confidence, and emotional well-being.
    • Holistic Horsemanship Services: Provides equine-assisted learning fieldtrips to Trillium Farm in Northern Virginia.
    • Home Care Partners: Enables older adults to remain in their own homes in comfort, safety, and dignity through its excellence in workforce, programs, and services. Will serve as the collaboration’s central convener providing coordination and accountability across training providers, employers, and community partners.
    • Iona Senior Services: Operates a Dementia Navigators program, ensuring timely follow-up after screenings and helps families access appropriate services and maintain stability at home. Offers caregiver respite, an information hotline, and social programming.
    • Mary’s House for Older Adults: Provides LGBTQ/SGL friendly, affordable, independent, communal housing for older adults. Also provides Lunch and Learn programs, supplemental food, transportation, and mobile health fairs for LGBTQ/SGL seniors.
    • Prevention of Blindness Society of Metropolitan Washington: Hosts low-vision support groups, tech talks, community events, and caregiver training.
    • Rebuilding Together: Creates healthy neighborhoods for residents by providing volunteer-based home repair services. Provides safety home modifications that remove barriers to connection. Improves independence, mobility, emotional well-being, helping older adults stay socially engaged and reducing isolation.
    • Sibley Memorial Hospital and Sibley Senior Association: Provides memory screenings, Club Memory programming, and caregiver support groups to strengthen cognitive health and reduce isolation among older adults and caregivers.
    • Story Tapestries: Facilitates culturally responsive, art-based workshops at Jubilee Housing to support memory, mental health, and social connection among older adults in permanent supportive housing.
    • Unity Healthcare: One of the largest networks of community health centers in the country, serving one out of every eight DC residents. Provides preventative dental services and surgeries for seniors to support oral health.
    • WildTech: Provides basic digital literacy training and device access, as well as virtual training opportunities and technical support, to reduce social isolation.


Aging Well Collaborative partners celebrate TWH’s funding of its new grant initiative designed to create a more connected, coordinated approach to older adult care services in the District.

“For many older adults, the greatest barriers to good health aren’t only medical – they’re transportation challenges, technology gaps, and social isolation,” said Rahman Branch, CEO of East River Family Strengthening Collaborative. “This special group of community leaders represents a shared commitment to building a more equitable and responsive network of care – one that recognizes every organization has an important role in supporting healthy aging and that collaboration creates greater impact than any single organization can achieve alone.”

About The Washington Home

The Washington Home is a private foundation that provides funding to entities that create and deliver innovative, compassionate, and well-managed programs to improve the quality of life for elderly and/or terminally ill residents in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Founded in 1888, The Washington Home, until recently, provided long-term care to residents of its nursing home facility in upper Northwest Washington, DC, hospice care to patients in their own homes, and care in the in-patient hospice wing of the nursing home.

In recent years, the Board of Directors of The Washington Home directed a repositioning of the organization by ceasing hands-on care and consolidating its financial resources to be deployed for maximum impact in accordance with its longstanding mission. Learn more at www.TheWashingtonHome.org.