Welcoming Falls Church is building a community of neighbors. Our goals are to promote hospitality toward immigrants and refugees and to create opportunity for all. We believe that by engaging locally, we can overcome divisions and reinforce some of our society's greatest strengths. Inspired by a national movement called Welcoming America, we are a grassroots, nonpartisan group, public-private in character.
Falls Church's history bears testimony to the struggles of African Americans to attain their rights and freedoms, from Jim Crow through the Civil Rights Movement to today. And Falls Church—especially greater Falls Church—is becoming more and more racially and ethnically diverse. Just as the United States is in the midst of a historical demographic transition, so too is Falls Church changing. The public schools of the City of Falls Church play host to families that speak a total of 42 languages at home, and the national and cultural backgrounds represented in greater Falls Church—with its population of almost 90,000—are even more varied.
The residents of the City of Falls Church and their elected representatives are responding to the challenge and opportunity of this growing diversity. The City of Falls Church has been particularly supportive: the first sentence of the City’s Falls Church 2040 Vision strategic plan states “The City of Falls Church is a welcoming and inclusive community," and the City of Falls Church City Council has supported Welcoming Falls Church with resolutions proclaiming Welcoming Week in Falls Church City every September since 2018.
Vision
About Us
Members of Welcoming Falls Church’s board of directors are: Christine Lee Buchholz, President & Co-Founder; Paul Boesen, Secretary & Co-Founder; Emily Draper, Treasurer; Samira Davis; and Ann Niederpruem.
Questions? To learn more about Welcoming Falls Church, please sign up for our monthly newsletter below or email us to get in touch.