Community Partnerships

GW is deeply committed to our city's public schools. Located on the Foggy Bottom campus, GW is intimately involved at the School Without Walls since 1980. Renovated in 2012, Walls’ students share all GW facilities, benefit from GW professors’ teachings, and many even take courses at GW to earn a GW Associates Degree with their high school diploma. The university has another long-standing academic partnership: the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. Since its founding over 40 years ago, GW has supported students through use of facilities, professors, library and programs for their academic work. 

Each year, GW holds several annual service events and workshops that give opportunities for students, faculty and staff to engage in service that addresses the needs of residents of the District and surrounding communities. 

Welcome Day of Service is the official welcome event for the incoming first-year class at GW. The president, provost, faculty, staff and student leaders join first-year students for a day filled with engaging speakers and various service projectsaround the District. In the past, projects have included painting the walls of classrooms at the Gap Community Child Center in Northwest D.C. and helping build Habitat for Humanity houses.

The George Washington University is a proud partner with 9/11 Day and participates in the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance. And as part of the GW celebration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members participate annually in the MLK Day of Service to give back, promote leadership development and interfaith dialogue.

ArtReach GW and THEARC partnership is designed to promote community-engaged arts programs in D.C.’s Wards 7 and 8 as collaboration among D.C. youth and adults, nonprofits, arts organizations and GW faculty and students. In 2005, ArtReach became an inaugural partner of the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) located in Ward 8 and run by Building Bridges Across the River, a nonprofit dedicated to improving lives east of the Anacostia. ArtReach GW has tapped a range of GW schools, departments and programs to help fullfil their mission in making meaningful connections between youth and their communities through art. ArtReach leads community projects that highlight the area’s intricacies. In the Community Portrait Project, for example, students created and displayed portraits of people who are making an impact in their neighborhood. 

Similarly, Life Pieces to Masterpieces (LPTM) and GW have been partners for more than 10 years through engageDC. LPTM is a nonprofit that works with African American young men and boys, ages 5 to 25, to provide safe passage to adulthood through arts, academics and personal and spiritual development.