About 500 people turned out to support the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia at its annual gala last week. The nonprofit recognized Inova Health and the Reston Scholarship Fund’s Gil and Liz Blankespoor with community leadership awards.
The 2026 Raise the Region Gala was held at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner on October 16. It was hosted by NBC4’s Tommy McFly, and the event raised more than $130,000 through live and silent auctions and donations.
Inova Health received the CFNOVA’s inaugural Organizational Community Leadership Award for its “extraordinary impact, visionary leadership, and enduring commitment to the people of Northern Virginia,” said Harry Klaff, chair of CFNOVA’s board of directors.
Inova CEO Dr. J. Stephen Jones accepted the award on behalf of the nonprofit, which has served the Northern Virginia community for more than 70 years.
“Our mission is to provide world-class health care every time, every touch, to each person in every community we have the privilege to serve, and every word in that is a serious commitment,” Jones said.
‘We Saw the Need’
The 2026 Individual Community Leadership Award went to Gil and Liz Blankespoor. “From Gil’s commitment to public service and entrepreneurship to Liz’s work in education, volunteerism, and community engagement, they have consistently invested and created opportunity for others,” said Amy Wells Mackay, who is a member of CFNOVA’s board of directors.
The couple co-founded the Reston Scholarship Fund, which has awarded more than $860,000 in scholarships, sending area students to NOVA Community College or George Mason University. “If you know them, you know that mentorship, relationship building, and a deep belief in the potential of others has helped Gil and Liz cultivate a stronger and more connected Northern Virginia.”
In accepting the award, Liz recalled getting a phone call from CFNOVA president and CEO Renée Byng Yancey. “My response to this wonderful news: No way, Renée. No thank you. It is a tremendous honor, but no, no,” she said. “Gil and I are just ordinary people. We don’t have illustrious resumes, and we certainly didn’t begin with a grand plan.”
But after she and Gil talked, they agreed to accept the honor.
“I have come to think that perhaps our ordinariness is precisely the point. The Reston Scholarship Fund began 10 years ago with that one conversation with a hardworking Reston family whose daughter wanted to attend college but could not afford it. We saw the need. We gave the fund Reston’s name because we hoped the whole community would feel ownership in it, and they did. … We joined the Community Foundation in 2017, and that partnership made everything that followed possible. This year, we awarded our 100th scholarship,” she said.
“We are still just ordinary people, and if we can do it, so can you,” she told gala attendees.
