A Homecoming Celebration of Hope and Healing

Lesli Foster has spent 25 years earning the trust of viewers across the greater Washington, DC area as a journalist, advocate, and first informer. As a weeknight anchor for WUSA9’s evening broadcasts, she works to inform, inspire, and make a lasting impact — one story at a time.

Lesli joined the station in 2001 and has covered the defining moments of our times across the DC region. Known for her warmth and her ability to surface stories that resonate deeply, she thrives on work that touches everyday living. That journey has taken her from interviews with local, national, and international luminaries to kitchen tables and community centers — because the people she most loves talking to are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

That belief drives everything. It shows up in the community-centered journalism she has championed throughout her career — work that doesn’t just document problems but rolls up its sleeves to help solve them. Through the station’s Impact franchise, Lesli has helped provide summer backpacks so children don’t go hungry when school ends, delivered vans to transport families to critical health services, secured funding for birthday parties for children experiencing homelessness, surprised a youth football team with equipment that saved their season, and joined military families and volunteers to furnish a home for a family who lost everything to mold. Each story is a reminder that journalism — at its best — changes lives.

Now, through her streaming series The First with Lesli Foster on WUSA9+, Lesli is taking that mission further. The franchise shines a light on trailblazers in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as other compelling figures whose pioneering ideas, careers, and movements have helped reshape life for those who came after them.

Beyond the newsroom, Lesli founded Girlfriends Give Back in 2012 — an event built on a simple but powerful idea: that everyday philanthropy is within every woman’s reach. Lesli believes deeply in service and supports many local organizations throughout the DMV.

Her work has earned some of the industry’s highest honors, including 15 Emmys (7 for Best Anchor), alongside Edward R. Murrow, Gracies, NABJ Salute to Excellence, Associated Press, and TEGNA Make A Difference awards.

Prior to joining WUSA9, Lesli reported for WBAL-TV in Baltimore and launched her career at WEYI-TV outside of Flint, Michigan.

Lesli graduated from Howard University and is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, International Women’s Forum DC, and the Potomac Valley Chapter of Jack and Jill of America. She gives her energy to many causes throughout the Metropolitan Washington, DC region.

Journalism, she says, is her life’s work — and feeds her drive to make a difference in the lives of people. In her personal time, Lesli enjoys family life as a wife and mom with her husband, favorite daughter, and her dog, Boomer, in Maryland.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, serving as congresswoman for the District of Columbia since 1991, is the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. She serves on two committees: the Committee on Oversight and Reform(link is external) and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Before her congressional service, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to serve as the first woman to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She came to Congress as a national figure who had been a civil rights and feminist leader, tenured professor of law, and board member at three Fortune 500 companies. Congresswoman Norton has been named one of the 100 most important American women in one survey and one of the most powerful women in Washington in another. The Congresswoman’s work for full congressional voting representation and for full democracy for the people of the District of Columbia continues her lifelong struggle for universal human and civil rights.

Congresswoman Norton’s accomplishments in breaking barriers for her disempowered district are matched by her success in bringing home unique economic benefits to her constituents. Among them are senatorial courtesy to recommend federal judges, the U.S. Attorney and other significant federal law enforcement positions for the District; up to $10,000 per year for all D.C. high school graduates to attend any public U.S. college or university and up to $2,500 per year to many private colleges and universities, known as the District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG); a unique $5,000 D.C. homebuyer tax credit, which has sharply increased home ownership in the District and was a major factor in stabilizing the city’s population; and D.C. business tax incentives, including a significant wage credit for employing D.C. residents, which has maintained businesses and residents in the District.

Congresswoman Norton has also brought significant economic development to the District of Columbia throughout her service in Congress, creating and preserving jobs in D.C. The most significant are her work in bringing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security headquarters compound to D.C., which is one of the largest federal construction project in the country; co-sponsoring the bill that developed the 55 acre-Southeast Federal Center, the first private development on federal land; her work that resulted in the relocation of 6,000 jobs to the Washington Navy Yard; and her successful efforts to bring to the District the new headquarters for the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, along with an additional Metro station at New York Avenue (now the NoMa – Gallaudet U Station), which resulted in the development of the NoMa neighborhood.

Congresswoman Norton helped end the city’s most serious financial crisis in the 1990’s, by achieving a historic package that for the first time restructured the financial relationship between Congress and the District, by transferring $5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and billions more in state costs to the federal government.

The Congresswoman, who taught law full time before being elected, is Professor Emerita at Georgetown University. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Antioch College in Ohio, she simultaneously earned her law degree and a master’s degree in American Studies from Yale University. Yale Law School has awarded her the Citation of Merit for outstanding alumni, and Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has awarded her the Wilbur Cross Medal for outstanding alumni, the highest awards conferred by each institution on alumni. She is the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees.

Before being elected, Congresswoman Norton served as a trustee on a number of public service boards, including the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar Association, as well as served on the boards of civil rights and other national organizations.

The Congresswoman is a third-generation Washingtonian and is the mother of John Holmes Norton and Katherine Felicia Norton. In her free time, she loves being with her family and friends and advocating for D.C. statehood.

Marvin Ellison is Chairman, President and CEO of Lowe’s Companies, Inc., a FORTUNE® 100 home improvement company with more than 1,700 stores and approximately 300,000 associates across the United States. With more than 35 years of retail leadership and operational experience, he is the only African American to have served as Chairman and CEO of two Fortune 500 companies.

Prior to joining Lowe’s, Marvin served as Chairman and CEO of J.C. Penney and previously held senior leadership roles at The Home Depot and Target Corporation. He serves on the board of directors of FedEx Corporation and the board of trustees of the University of Memphis, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He also holds an MBA from Emory University.

Marvin has been recognized on Barron’s Top CEOs list, Fortune’s Most Inspirational CEOs and World’s Greatest Leaders lists, and received the National Retail Federation’s Visionary Award in 2023 and the McGowan Fund Ethical Leader of the Year Award in 2024.