The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-03)

KLMNO

METRO

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

The secret motorcycle,

the tampered sheet, the

forged letter: more reader

confessions. B3

MARYLAND

A boy was fatally shot

when he and a young

relative were playing with

a gun, authorities say. B3

OBITUARIES

Wilford Brimley, 85,

played gruff, plain-talking

characters in “The

78 ° 81 ° 81 ° 77 ° Natural” and “Cocoon.” B5

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 2 p.m.

84

°

Precip: 60%

Wind: SSW

6-12 mph

New cases in region

Through 5 p.m. Sunday, 1,959 new

coronavirus cases were reported in

the District, Maryland and Virg inia,

bringing the total cases to

194,330.

D.C. MD.VA.

+69 +909 +981

12,27 49 0,27491,782

Coronavirus-related deaths

As of 5 p.m. Sunday:

D.C. MD.* VA.

+1 +9 +3

586 3,515 2,218

* Includes probable covid-19 deaths

BY REBECCA TAN

The pastor of a Catholic

church on Capitol Hill who urged

people not to “cower in fear” of

the novel coronavirus has con-

tracted covid-19, the disease the

virus causes, prompting D.C.

health officials to tell about

250 staff and parishioners to

self-quarantine for two weeks.

Monsignor Charles Pope of

Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Cath-

olic Church on East Capitol

Street was admitted to the hospi-

tal on July 27 after experiencing a

high fever. He tested positive for

the coronavirus after a rapid

diagnostic test that afternoon.

On Friday, the D.C. health

department issued a letter saying

that “additional individuals have

been identified as having been

exposed to the virus.” Parish -

ioners who participated in Com-

munion at the church — where

wafers and wine are shared to

represent the body and blood of

Christ — between July 25 and

July 27 were told to stay home for

14 days and monitor themselves

for symptoms.

City health officials did not

respond to questions Sunday

about whether they had contact-

ed parishioners and told them to

quarantine before Frida y, or

whether other members of the

church have tested positive for

the coronavirus.

The virus has surged in the

District, Maryland and Virginia

in recent weeks, after declining

sharply in June. Officials attri-

bute the spike to the increase in

gatherings after a prolonged

shutdown this spring, and have

expanded mask restrictions and

urged people to maintain their

distance from others, especially

while indoors.

On Sunday, of ficials reported

69 new cases in the District, 909

in Maryland and 981 in Virginia.

The seven-day average in corona-

virus-related fatalities in the D.C.

area rose to 31, up from 17 the

week before.

Nine days before testing posi-

tive, Pope, 59, wrote an article in

the National Catholic Register

questioning the sweeping orders

SEE REGION ON B4

D.C. priest who said not to ‘cower in fear’ tests positive

PARISHIONERS, STAFF TOLD TO QUARANTINE

Recent surge in cases linked to increase in gatherings

The twin crises of

pandemic and

recession are

straining the

region’s

philanthropies

and could force as many as a

third of nonprofits to close or

merge before the economy

recovers, according to top

executives in the sector.

Area donors responded

generously at the onset of the

disease and financial slump, as

foundations, corporations and

individuals increased their

giving.

But the explosion in the need

for food, rental assistance and

other charity quickly outstripped

available resources. The Greater

Washington Community

Foundation, the region’s largest

funder, collected more than

$8 million starting in March for

its Covid-19 Emergency Response

Fund — only to see requests for

aid exceed $60 million.

Now private donors, facing

their own financial problems, are

turning cautious just as federal

aid risks drying up because of

political gridlock in Congress

and the White House.

The pressure on the

philanthropic sector adds to the

region’s difficulties because

nonprofits provide important

social and cultural services not

supplied by government and

business.

“Human service organizations,

shelter and food programs are

stretched b ecause there’s just

greater demand for those

services as people become

unemployed and families have

need,” said Glen O’Gilvie, chief

executive of the Center for

Nonprofit Advancement. “Any

attempt at recovery without

nonprofits will only put our low-

income residents at even greater

risk.”

Said Rosie Allen-Herring,

president of United Way of the

National Capital Area: “Funding

continues to be difficult....

Unfortunately, many of our

nonprofits will not be able to

sustain themselves in this time.”

Most vulnerable are small

nonprofits whose services are

seen, rightly or wrongly, as less

essential. Funders are now

focused more on helping families

eat and pay the rent, and less on

supporting programs in, say, the

arts and education.

SEE MEMO ON B4

Nonprofits

struggle as

needs outdo

donations

Regional

Memo

ROBERT

MCCARTNEY

BY JULIE ZAUZMER

The federal government has

rejected requests from jurisdic-

tions including D.C. and Mary-

land to extend a food-stamp pro-

gram waiver past August, mean-

ing that despite the ongoing pan-

demic, needy families will a gain

be required to prove their income

or risk losing their benefits.

The Trump administration’s

refusal to continue the waivers,

which the U.S. A griculture De-

partment has offered since

March, has left the D.C. govern-

ment scrambling to set up a

website so that families can “re-

certify” their income online rath-

er than coming to a government

office in person.

Across the region, local offi-

cials are concerned that families

will be unaware of the bureau-

cratic steps they need to take and,

therefore, will inadvertently lose

much-needed benefits during an

economic crisis.

“It’s a big problem,” D.C. De-

partment of Human Services

spokeswoman Dora Taylor-Lowe

said. “This is not the time for

people who are already vulnera-

ble to lose their benefits. It’s just

insane.”

Hunger has become a rampant

problem regionally and across

the country during the coronavi-

rus-induced economic downturn.

The Capital Area Food Bank fore-

casts that an additional quarter-

million people in the D.C. region

could be unable to feed them-

selves in the coming year.

In April, the latest month for

which USDA data is available,

5.8 million Americans started

claiming new SNAP benefits, in-

cluding a 10 percent increase over

the previous month in D.C., a

16 percent increase in Maryland,

and an 8.5 percent increase in

Virginia.

For families who received food

stamps before the pandemic, “re-

certification” is a familiar and

time-consuming ritual. Usually

once or twice a year, but some-

times as often as every month

depending on their circum -

stances, they gather up a pile of

SEE FOOD STAMPS ON B3

U.S. ends

waiver for

food-stamp

program

D.C. scrambling to allow

recipients to recertify

online during pandemic

BY TOM JACKMAN

When the family of Robert F.

Kennedy in 2009 decided to sell its

famed Hickory Hill estate in

McLean, Va., the late senator’s

widow, Ethel Kennedy, told each

of her children to pick one item

from the property to take with

them. Daughter Kerry Kennedy

picked a four-foot-high urn plant-

er from the front yard as a family

heirloom to be relocated to the

Kennedy compound in Hyannis

Port, Mass.

When the Kennedys moved out

in the spring of 2010, the new

owner resisted giving up the urn,

Kerry Kennedy said. He suggested

that he would be willing to part

with it in 10 years and put the

agreement in writing and signed

it. Kerry Kennedy said she was

willing to wait because she was

moving to New York City and

didn’t have room for it.

Ten years later, Kennedy is liv-

ing in Hyannis Port and asked

Hickory Hill owner Alan J. Dab-

biere for the urn. And though Dab-

biere wrote to her in 2010 that in

10 years “you are free to take the

urn ,” he is now refusing, Kennedy

said. So Kennedy sued Dabbiere

on Friday in federal court in Alex-

andria for breach of contract.

“It belonged to the people who

are so important to me,” Kerry

Kennedy said Friday. “I ’m going to

put it in Hyannis Port, where my

children live, my mother lives, all

of my family comes every summer,

so they can have this connection to

our family’s history.”

Dabbiere said he initially

agreed to relinquish the urn under

the mistaken belief that it had

been brought to Hickory Hill by

Jackie Kennedy in the 1950s and

was part of her family’s history.

When he learned that the urn was

there long before the Kennedys

purchased the property, Dabbiere

said, “As a steward of the proper-

ty’s long and rich history it is my

belief the urn should stay with the

property.”

Hickory Hill, built on about 5.6

acres in 1870, has nine bedrooms

and 11 baths, a tennis court and a

pool, and is designated as a Na-

tional Historic Landmark. It was

bought in 1955 by then-Sen. John

SEE LAWSUIT ON B4

RFK’s daughter s eeks return of family heirloom

Owner of Hickory Hill

estate in McLean says

urn belongs on property

MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

The effort to remove Francis G. Newlands’s name from this fountain in Chevy Chase has been years in the making.

BY JUSTIN WM. MOYER

In exclusive Chevy Chase, where

Connecticut Avenue spills from

Montgomery County into the Dis-

trict, a 60-foot sandstone fountain

honors Francis G. Newlands, a U.S.

senator from Nevada and the neigh-

borhood’s founder. An inscription

reads: “His Statesmanship Held True

Regard For The Interests Of All Men.”

However, Newlands, who died in

1917, did not hold true regard for the

interests of all. The segregationist

developer wrote in a 1909 journal

article that African Americans were

“a race of children” and advocated

abolishing their voting rights. Recog-

nizing his racist past, the Chevy

Chase Advisory Neighborhood Com-

mission voted last week to begin the

process of taking his name off the

signature landmark.

In a Zoom meeting o n July 27,

commissioners voted 5 t o 0 to ask the

National Park Service, which man -

ages the fountain and the land on

which it rests, to remove a bronze

plaque bearing Newlands’s name and

to create an exhibit nearby that

explains the senator’s racism. The

commission will also begin discus-

sions on a new name for the fountain.

“There is no place for systemic

racism in the Chevy Chase communi-

ty,” the resolution reads.

Like the removal of Confederate

monuments in Richmond and else-

where after the death of George

SEE FOUNTAIN ON B6

‘No place for systemic racism’

Chevy Chase votes for

removal of p laque h onoring

senator with racist views

MD MHIC #1176 | VA #2701039723 | DC # 2242

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