Severna Park Voice Launches “Nonprofit Of The Year” As New Initiative To Give Back

As the Severna Park Voice newspaper celebrates its 45th anniversary in 2026, our staff members are investing time and resources in an exciting new program that will enable the Voice, its readers and its clients to support the nonprofits that give back to our community in even greater ways.

Throughout 2026, the Voice will partner with its first company-chosen Nonprofit of the Year, establishing a concerted annual effort to support a charity that helps our neighbors in need in a more formal way than ever before.

“We find giving back to the community in which we live and work to be extremely important,” said Voice Publisher Dianna Lancione. “We’ve had successful charitable programs in the past and find that most of our readers and clients genuinely like to give back as well, so this year we decided to select one nonprofit that would be the beneficiary of all of our philanthropy for 2026.”

Lancione cited a special-edition magazine that supported the Baltimore Washington Medical Center Foundation and annual Art in the Park music and arts festival beneficiaries including Bello Machre and Partners In Care as examples of recent charitable efforts of the Voice.

In mid-2025, the Voice staff established criteria for a charity to be selected as Nonprofit of the Year, including whether its impact is local, demonstration of good financial stewardship, the amount of support the nonprofit already receives, and how much good could be done for the community via the nonprofit through a partnership with the Voice.

“Hopefully, in elevating one nonprofit to cover, create awareness for, give donations to, and benefit from our events, we will help move the needle forward for the people they serve,” Lancione explained.

For the inaugural year of the initiative, the Voice has selected the Walk the Walk Foundation (WTWF) to be its first Nonprofit of the Year.

Based in Millersville, WTWF celebrated its 20th anniversary in September. It was founded by longtime Severna Park residents David and Kim Mitchell and is now led by Executive Director Nicole Dolan.

The nonprofit serves people in Anne Arundel County through three programs: Diapers for Babies, Backpacks for Kids, and Christmas for Children. Last summer, WTWF shared that in the five years leading up to its 20th anniversary party, over 6,000 county students received backpacks filled with school supplies; nearly 2,000 children experienced the joy of opening gifts on Christmas morning; and over 1.4 million diapers were distributed to banks around the county.

“I’m honored (for WTWF) to be recognized and to be selected, but I also think it’s really neat the way that the Voice is for the community, and Walk the Walk exists to serve the community, so I think it is just a wonderful parallel,” Dolan said of WTWF being chosen as the first Nonprofit of the Year.

Dolan shared that she hopes community members will become more aware of the great need for diapers in the county, something she believes is often overlooked.

“You can’t take action on what you don’t know about,” she said, adding that partnering with the Voice will expose people to all that WTWF does and provide opportunities for them to participate in ways that are most meaningful to them.

Throughout 2026, the Voice will partner with WTWF to increase awareness about its three programs and ways community members can get involved. WTWF will be the beneficiary of Art in the Park, hosted annually in conjunction with Cafe Mezzanotte. The nonprofit will be an integral part of the Voice’s first-ever “Best of Severna Park” celebration later this year – look for more information about that event in upcoming editions. And, the Voice is considering additional opportunities for the newspaper, its readers and its clients to support WTWF.

“This is not the only thing we will do to give back to the community this year,” Lancione noted, adding, “We will continue to give coverage to other nonprofits and raise awareness, not only because they are newsworthy, but also because we believe doing so is a critical part of our role as the local newspaper.”

More information about how to join the Severna Park Voice in supporting the Walk the Walk Foundation throughout the year will be available in upcoming editions. To learn more about the organization, go to www.wtwf.org.