Even though she started work this past summer, Campagna Center CEO Edith Hawkins is still moving into her office.
Hawkins succeeded the nonprofit’s former CEO of 13 years, Tammy Mann, in June. The mother of three commutes twice a week, sometimes more, from Bowie, Maryland, to the educational and social development nonprofit’s headquarters at 418 S. Washington Street in Old Town, where she told ALXnow that needs are growing.
“This is a wonderful opportunity. It’s a lot of work,” Hawkins said. “I call it heart work and hard work.”
Now in its 80th year, the Campagna Center connects more than 2,200 residents to other nonprofits and services in the city, while also hosting programs for educational and after-school programs for kids as well as adult English language classes.
Hawkins returned to Campagna following her 2022 departure, after serving as its first-ever chief program officer for eight years. In that role, she led hundreds of staffers across dozens of classrooms, oversaw a $7 million program budget, launched child care programs and helped secure millions more in federal funding.
“I always had a desire to one day lead [Campagna], because it’s near and dear to my heart,” Hawkins said. “When I stepped away, the idea was to gather more skills, potential resources for the organization, to have a broader sense of what’s going on, to be able to inform the local work that’s happening here, and that’s what I did.”
In the time between, she joined the D.C.-based Forum for Youth Investment as an executive vice president while leading her own consulting firm, Strategic Catalyst Consulting.
The only child of a single mother, Hawkins was raised in Texas and Louisiana in what she calls a “complex” family with three half-siblings. She said her upbringing made her an altruistic person, and that her family expected her to take on this kind of role.
“I was told that I was destined for this role since I was a child,” Hawkins said. “My family — my mother, my aunts, uncles, grandmother and grandfather — they’re not surprised that I’m sitting in this seat.”
Through it all, Hawkins said she leads with empathy.
“Our goal is really to make sure the people that we care for can be cared for in their best way,” Hawkins said. “If there are the external pressures that make that complicated, it is our job to do the best we can, to help them navigate how to manage those pressures.”
Goals and funding needs
Hawkins said that the next several years will be focused on improving the economic mobility of children and families.
Specifically, she and her staff are working to increase its capacity for high school workforce development services, with the nonprofit acting as a go-between with apprenticeships and trade schools.
“I feel the role that I’m playing right now, and where I am and where I’m seated, is where I’m supposed to be for this time, because the need is great,” Hawkins said.
Looking ahead, Hawkins said the Campagna Center also hopes to address food insecurity, although this is not currently in the center’s budget. She hopes to use donated funds to support families.
“We’re really trying to contemplate how we either shift the sources we currently have to meet the need, or actually continue on the path to support our strategy, and build on our basic services that we provide,” Hawkins said. “That’s where that gap is.”
While state, federal and city funding for the Campagna Center’s educational programs for children and adults is steady, the need for services is growing and Hawkins said that the nonprofit needs cash donations.
“We really need cash, we need funding,” Hawkins told ALXnow. “It gives us the flexibility to do the work that we need to do.”
Campagna Center’s next fundraising event, the Taste of Scotland, is on Dec. 5 at the Atrium Building in Old Town.
