Matt Hanna knows what it takes to succeed. A talented athlete and natural born leader, he captained his Johns Hopkins University lacrosse team to several NCAA championships. After college, he brought that commitment to excellence into the classroom, teaching middle and high school history classes for 13 years, as well as coaching lacrosse and other sports.

He spent the last five years of his teaching career at Baltimore City’s Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. But Hanna was troubled by the lack of after-school and weekend opportunities available to his students. So he decided to create his own.

“When I see something that’s broken, I don’t wait for other people to fix it,” explains Hanna. “So I started a weekend program that was just a chance for some of the young men that I coach to meet me at a park to work out and talk about college and their career plans.”

Gradually, Coach Hanna’s pick up games and informal chats with his athletes began to have a profound impact on their lives, motivating Hanna to found Next One Up in 2009. The program is named for the poem by Marc Kelly Smith that encourages every person to “pull the next one up” the mountain.

Next One Up supports promising student athletes in Baltimore City who face challenges in their homes, neighborhoods, or schools. It addresses these challenges through creative individual solutions, and partners with each student, providing year-round athletic, academic, and mentoring resources from middle school through college.

“We bring in 25 young men starting in seventh grade. We’re not looking for the best athletes or students; we want to know—how badly do you want it? We’re looking for the kid that’s going to show up on Sunday mornings at 9 o’clock with no excuses, ready to work. We have alumni who work for us, so we understand what these students need. A lot of it is love and discipline.”

Next One Up’s playbook for improving lives has proven to be a winning strategy, evidenced by its participants’ 100 percent high school graduation rate and alumni success stories. This fall, Next One Up celebrates the opening of its first dedicated space—a 14,000-square foot facility at Belvedere Square, dubbed “Base Camp.”

“We’re calling it ‘Base Camp’ because of the idea of climbing the mountain,” says Hanna. “Base Camp is the gathering point for the climb. This facility will have everything we want in one place: a weight room, kitchen, academic spaces, and maker spaces. It will even have a small barbershop that one of our graduates will run. It’s really bigger than I imagined. That’s because I have an awesome team and there’s so many amazing kids I get to work with every day.”

Hoe’s Hill Orchard is a green oasis wedged into a residential neighborhood bordered by Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane, a small educational garden filled with edible plants—as well as a library fashioned from a hollowed-out tree trunk—started six years ago by Doug Retzler. Retzler, 69, launched the project as a way to green over a bleak patch of unused land next to a Baltimore City pocket park. Despite struggles with the Baltimore City Recreation and Parks office, Retzler’s orchard is flourishing, with the support of his neighbors and his community.

You know, it’s just an experiment. I wanted to canopy over this so it wasn’t just a dust bowl, and I thought, I can do it with fruit trees: Italian plum, McIntosh and Granny Smith apples, apricot, Greengage plum, loquat, Moonglow pear, bush cherries, spearmint, goji berries, black elderberries, mulberries, fennel, crabapples, and a hackberry, a rare tree native to Maryland. I’m playing with a lot of things I’ve never seen before or tasted before [that] I want to see, and then I want to have kids see.

I’d been working out in Leakin Park, and we’d bring buses of city kids out there. And they’d be scared because they’d never been in the woods, and they were afraid of everything. And you know, at the end of the day, after we’d been out there for three hours, we’d have them making things out of vines and stuff, making their own nature, art, hats. And they’d say, “Can we come back again?”

 

“This is your park. That’s why we want you to take care of it. So it will be here for you and your children and your children’s children. 

 

 

It’s like, “This is your park. That’s why we want you to take care of it. So it will be here for you and your children and your children’s children.” That has always been the biggest thrill for me, because you just see a lightbulb going off in their heads and it’s like you’ve empowered them. I wanted this to be community-building. If we don’t introduce kids to nature now, then when they’re adults and have to vote on something, there’s going to be no stewardship.

And so it activated the orchard, because the only people who were using this park when I moved here were the dog-walkers. I’m proud of what I’ve done. And I’m so happy that it’s working. It’s a litmus test, you know, when the community takes over and I can pull away.

One of the reasons I started this is because of Charles Grandison Hoe, a Black gentleman who bought his way out of slavery and put in an orchard. Right where my house is was all fruit trees. It was in homage to that. And it’s a story I want to see told.

Second Lieutenant Richard Collins III had plenty of potential. He was a student athlete, ROTC leader, beloved by his family, and a soon-to-be Bowie State University graduate.

On May 20, 2017, two days after his ROTC commissioning in the U.S. Army, that potential was cut short when Collins was fatally stabbed at the University of Maryland, College Park while waiting for an Uber with friends. He was the only Black person in the group. The perpetrator, now serving a life sentence for first- degree murder, was affiliated with a white supremacist Facebook group.

While Dawn and Richard “Rick” Collins grieved, they pondered the best way to honor their son’s life. Bowie State had already funded a scholarship in the younger Collins’ name, and the Maryland General Assembly, spearheaded by State Senator Thomas V. “Mike” Miller Jr., created the $1 million Richard W. Collins III Leadership with Honor Scholarship program to promote diversity in ROTC programs at the state’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). But the Collinses wanted to do more.

“Something my son said to me right before he was commissioned is that ‘the world is going to know my name,’” Dawn Collins recalls. “That sticks in my spirit. We’re doing things to elevate who he was and what it is that he stood for.”

Shortly after the state funded the scholarship in 2018, the Collinses established the 2nd Lieutenant Richard Collins III Foundation. Its mission? To invest in the education and empowerment of promising young Americans who’ve proven themselves to be outstanding citizens and are committed to working toward a hate-free, more just society for all.

The foundation funds scholarships and mentoring for students and ROTC cadets at the University of Maryland and Maryland’s four HBCUs and recently launched a program with Outward Bound to bring together ROTC cadets from HBCUs and predominately white universities for team-building wilderness retreats on the Adirondack Trail.

“Individuals have said how life-changing that is, and that gives me hope,” Collins says.

Working for social justice drives the Collinses, as parents and as philanthropists. At the beginning of the trial in 2019, the judge threw out the hate crime designation of their son’s murder, as Maryland’s hate crime statutes require the murder to be solely a result of racial hatred. Although there was ample evidence to indicate their son was killed because he was Black, it was not absolute.

In early March 2020, they were at the Statehouse when the 2nd Lieutenant Richard Collins III Law passed, amending Maryland’s hate crime law to state that an act of violence motivated by hate “either in whole or in substantial part” is considered a hate crime.

“There have been state prosecutors who have been able to use the law,” Collins says, adding, “We would love to see a national hate crime law because I think it’s needed.”

The foundation’s more recent Social Justice Alliance is a groundbreaking partnership between the University of Maryland and Bowie State that centers on difficult conversations about racial differences among students to forge common ground and solutions.

Last September, the Collinses were selected by President Joe Biden to participate in the United We Stand Summit at the White House, where they spoke about the loss of their son.

“The pain is always there, but we just have to keep fighting. Because he did matter.”

Lonnie Walker understands what the homeless and displaced youth who are served by JOY Baltimore are going through—that’s because he’s been there himself.

He grew up in Brooklyn, New York’s infamous Red Hook public housing project, a community that was ravaged by the 1990s crack epidemic. Walker’s younger years were marked by adversity. His single mother was not only raising her own three boys, but often took in and cared for their relatives. The family’s resources were stretched thin and neighborhood violence impacted their daily life. Remarkably, Walker overcame these hardships and they fueled his dedication to improving the lives of others.

“I love people and I want to help them,” says Walker.

When Walker first arrived in Baltimore about 20 years ago, it troubled him to see so many young people who lived in foster care or were homeless. He wanted to help, so he became a director of a group home. He grew to love the kids in his care and eventually resigned from the group home to make it possible for him to pursue adopting some of the children who needed a stable parent figure. In a twist of fate, he found himself jobless and a step away from homelessness—but his reduced circumstances only increased his passion for helping others.

“I stepped out in faith, without any funding. I just started doing the work, helping those in foster care who I had worked with in the past,” recalls Walker.

This “work” included sourcing donations from his own network of essential supplies like hygiene products, food, and clothes, and getting these items to the children who needed them.

Walker’s grassroots efforts gradually gained recognition and funding and evolved into JOY Baltimore. JOY stands for “Just Our Youth,” but “joy” is also an apt characterization of Walker, a charismatic and proudly gay man who exudes positivity and optimism.

JOY Baltimore seeks to support vulnerable children and end youth homelessness, with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Its JOY Drop-In Center provides access to vital services including medical care, access to emergency shelter, food, toiletries, bus passes, treatment, counseling, crisis intervention, and more. JOY Baltimore also hosts a free bi-monthly market called The Boutique, which provides necessities like clothing and access to community services. Finally, the organization facilitates the mentorship programs Black Men United (BMU) and Black Women United (BWU), which connect young African Americans with older adults mentor- ship, guidance and access to opportunities.

Another hallmark of Walker’s work is his respect for the dignity of each participant. At special holiday events, for example, Walker insists on family-style dining on nice table- cloths. This access to fine living extends to the experiences he’s able to provide the youth in his program, such as special meals at some of Baltimore’s most exclusive restaurants.

“The studies say that people climb as high as they can dream,” says Walker. “I want to make sure that young people know that there are no specific people that these nice things were created for. You can do all of this.”

After an injury sidelined him while playing baseball for Morgan State University, Mujahid Muhammad had time and excess energy to burn. He was looking for volunteer opportunities and, following a friend’s lead, picked up hours working at a nearby group home. He was shocked by what he saw.

“You assume that systems are helping,” he says. “We sometimes blindly believe that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, but they were just warehousing kids.”

The experience was transformative. “It put me in a place where it was what I had to do, not just what I wanted to do,” he says.

While still a junior in college, Muhammad started a therapeutic-based summer camp for young adults. With no budget, he and several friends ran the camp, connecting with kids from the group home, providing sports and other activities, and even group therapy thanks to some of Morgan’s psychology professors who volunteered their time. Muhammad dubbed the program K.E.Y.S, an acronym for Keep Encouraging Youth to Succeed.

“I was getting referrals from the state, when they realized, ‘Whoa, you’re just a student,’” says Muhammad with a laugh. After graduating from Morgan in 2004, he went the official route, earning a master’s degree in clinical social work from the University of Maryland.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “I did all of this just to come back to K.E.Y.S and start the process of establishing what we have today.”

What he has today is a nonprofit that has increased access to services and resources to improve the health and well-being of city residents, particularly in West Baltimore. To date, K.E.Y.S assists some 2,000 Baltimore at-risk residents a year. In addition to providing clinical treatment for individuals, as well as families, K.E.Y.S offers senior services, recreation, and even a workforce development arm, which helps train household heads in security services.

K.E.Y.S also partners with schools to do non-traditional work as a means to the end. “You tell your child, ‘I want you to go to therapy and they’ll say, ‘I’m not doing it,’” says Muhammad, now 42. “I wanted to take away the barriers of having you go to an office and sit across from a counselor.”

One of the ways he’s gotten creative is through what he calls “culinary therapy.” In houses where food insecurity is an issue, for example, a therapist delivers groceries, then a chef and the therapist show the family how to use the ingredients over Zoom, while also discussing life stressors and issues like depression and anxiety.

“The blessing of that is that the third time we deliver those groceries, we are invited into the home and sitting on that couch talking,” he explains. “And no one ever had to sign up for therapy.”

Thanks to grants from the state as well as the SEED Community Development Anchor Institution Fund, K.E.Y.S anticipates opening its new five-acre “healing village” hub in the Coppin Heights area of West Baltimore by the end of 2024.

Tammy Braswell has always had a huge heart. As a teen, she says, “I was the type of kid who was drawn to those who were mistreated or didn’t have a friend.” When she graduated high school, she won the “Most Extroverted” award.

Says Braswell, “In the graduation speech, they were like, ‘This is someone who is friends with the nerds, the smart kids, the shy people, anyone who is struggling.’”

For all her outgoing personality, at home in Park Heights, where two of her siblings wrestled with addiction, Braswell was secretly struggling. Her brother “was verbally and sometimes physically abusive,” says Braswell, 54. While her parents did their best, she was often told to “keep quiet” about what was happening to protect her brother from getting in trouble with the law.

“I lost my voice at a very young age,” she says. Braswell was a gifted student but acted out in school. “The principal took an interest in me,” she says. “She tapped into my purpose. She saw me as a leader and enrolled me in a business leadership program.”

Eventually, thanks to this mentorship and adults who gave her a safe space, Braswell found her voice again through public speaking. Not surprisingly Braswell decided to pursue a path in which she could be a beacon for others in need. She earned a bachelor’s degree in pastoral counseling from North Carolina College of Theology in 2009, a master’s degree in human services administration from the University of Baltimore in 2016, and a Master of Education degree in rehabilitation counseling from Coppin State in 2018, all while working at Health Care Access Maryland, eventually as the deputy director.

Still, her own childhood experiences continued to loom large. “I began to want to create a space for little girls like me,” she says. “There are so many Tammys out there.”

In 2019, she started Transform-A-Nation (TAN). The faith-based nonprofit headquartered in the Montford neighborhood of Baltimore offers a slew of comprehensive services including one-on-one and group counseling for children and adults, after-school programs for inner-city kids, help with supportive employment, parenting skills, nutrition advice, and even a special support group for those on kidney dialysis, many of whom are senior citizens raising their grandchildren. Recently, TAN acquired a 15-passenger vehicle to take to the streets and identify individuals who might be struggling with addiction or in crisis.

“I didn’t want to just stop at offering mental health services,” says Braswell. “I wanted to reach whole families and have services to support them, too. If we can reach a client, and in doing so can reach a family, that’s how we get a healed community.”

Now that she has the confidence to know her voice matters, Braswell speaks with fierceness and force, barely pausing between sentences—there are too many lives at stake, too many people in pain, too much work to be done for her to take a break.

TAN has delivered care to more than 200 clients this past year and Braswell hopes that the organization will continue to grow.

“We might not have a thousand clients but that’s because we are taking our time with each one of them,” she says. “I am on a mission to bring healing everywhere I go.”

Andy Cook was made in Baltimore. (Well technically Towson but he grew up hanging out in, and inspired by, the city.) But what led him to take a job as the executive director of Made In Baltimore, a Baltimore Development Corporation program that supports local makers and manufacturers, was a winding road.

A job at the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability brought him back to his hometown. He was tasked with fostering a variety of green businesses that all had one thing in common—they needed industrial-zoned land to operate. Cook created a database of both vacant industrial land and industrial buildings that met—and eventually exceeded—the needs of the green business community, which led to the question: Now that we know where all these properties are, what do we do with them?

“I started talking to makers around town and was like, ‘How can the city help connect you with available real estate now that we’ve gotten this database created?’”

The answer from many of them was, they needed more customers before they could occupy the space. In other words, they needed to grow their businesses.

“How do we shine a light on these companies to help promote them and help them get a bigger audience so that they can grow and become those tenants that are addressing vacancy blight?” Cook wondered. That’s how Made In Baltimore was born in 2018.

First there were pop-ups (with an estimated 3,000 shoppers each season), workshops, business certifications, and now a temporary brick-and-mortar spot on York Road inside HEX Superette in Govans.

Cook works daily to promote and support Baltimore-based makers and manufacturers and push the “Buy Local” movement in the city. So far, Made In Baltimore has supported over 300 product-based businesses through retail, business development programs, and media campaigns including look books and social media accounts. Their annual retail concepts have generated over $200,000 in sales revenue for local makers.

Cook’s ultimate goal is to make buying local such a fully ingrained consumer habit that his program becomes obsolete.

“Before Made In Baltimore came around, nobody was really talking about Baltimore’s maker economy or the maker scene,” says Cook. “Now buying local is in the conversation. We see institutions wanting to do it, we see the public wanting to do it, and we see retailers wanting to do it. We have successfully managed to get that idea into the public consciousness in a way that wasn’t there before.”

Seth Franz can vividly recall his first foray into the world of volunteerism. He was a pre-teen at the time and helped distribute food to the homeless in a Salvation Army van. That experience made a positive impression and provided him a lifetime vantage point for service and contribution.

As a young professional, Franz attended the typical networking events. Everyone showed up in office attire and passed out business cards. Franz liked the initial interaction among peers who wanted to climb the leadership ladder. But he also wanted more—deeper connections, opportunities to bond and give back to the community.

Returning to his volunteerism roots, Franz envisioned something more informal, more fun. In February 2014, he founded Volunteering Untapped (VU) to create the experience he was looking for. What began as a movement of 10 has grown to more than 100 participants showing up to contribute to their community.

“This program was created to give young professionals the opportunity for inspiring, rewarding, and impactful experiences that will help forge a passion for future volunteering—both with our organization and on their own,” says Franz, who by day is co-founder and director of operations for Hone Health, an online telemedicine clinic. “Volunteering Untapped was born out of the realization that young professionals in Baltimore want to give back to their community, but simply don’t know the best way to get involved. We solve that problem.”

Here’s how it works. On the second Saturday of each month, volunteers assemble to help out a different nonprofit in Baltimore. That way, says Franz, participants can better understand Baltimore’s nonprofit landscape and the problems the city faces. Ideally, they will use the experience to launch themselves into deeper engagement with the city. VU has grown to be a reliable resource for Baltimore and its nonprofits with beneficiaries including Kennedy Krieger Institute, the Baltimore Tree Trust, and the Franciscan Center. After the volunteers spend part of the day working, they head out to a neighborhood bar or restaurant for an after-party.

“Seth is a special person who has poured his heart and soul into VU,” says longtime volunteer Taylor Smith. “And it really shows in the program.”

In just shy of 10 years, VU has built a community of more than 6,000 volunteers of all ages in Baltimore who have performed more than 35,000 hours of community service. The organization also has expanded its reach with new chapters opening in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Austin, Texas.

“Through our events, Volunteering Untapped has engaged thousands of people in Baltimore to do everything from building homes to planting trees to feeding the homeless,” says Franz. “For many of these people, we are the first volunteer experience they’ve had in a long time or ever. We accomplish many things through our events, and the most important is serving as a springboard that launches our volunteers into a long life of civic engagement. Our events are a pebble dropped into the pond of each volunteer and we take pride in watching the ripples.”

And while the benefits to the nonprofits they serve are obvious, it does lead to an intriguing question—who benefits more, the charitable organization or the volunteers themselves?

Research is showing that it’s overwhelmingly both.

According to Psychology Today, participants often feel a greater sense of community, contribution, camaraderie, and a sense of purpose through volunteering. Volunteers are happier and healthier than non-volunteers. In fact, later in life, volunteering is even more beneficial for one’s health than exercising and eating well. Older people who volunteer remain physically functional longer, have more robust psychological well-being, and live longer. However, older people who volunteer are almost always people who volunteered earlier in life. Health and longevity gains from volunteering come from establishing meaningful volunteer roles before you retire and continuing to volunteer once you arrive in your post-retirement years.

The very nature of volunteering means choosing to work without being paid for it. As a result, volunteers are most successful when they spend their time on issues they feel strongly about. If you are greatly concerned about the treatment and well-being of animals, for example, volunteering at an animal shelter will help you address a social problem that is meaningful to you.

“If you aren’t currently volunteering—three out of four of us aren’t—there are many online resources to help you find an opportunity,” says Dawn Carr, MGS, PhD, who studies factors that bolster older adults’ ability to remain healthy and active as long as possible. “Committing even as little as one hour a week can have a profound benefit on your own life, and the organizations that rely on such help will be able to thrive….You’ll get more back than you ever imagined.”

Franz has seen firsthand the benefits of volunteering and the bonds it can create. He says he’s had volunteers who have met and married or found new jobs as a result of their service. Other volunteers also attest to the personal benefit and value of giving back.

Mental health advocate Melony Hill benefited from the resources provided from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and offered to be a volunteer. She has since been trained to present on behalf of the organization, sharing her story at schools and the like throughout the region and advocating for mental health awareness on Capitol Hill.

“I had such an amazing experience with NAMI that I said, ‘I have to get more involved,’” says Hill. “It’s a place where I can be of value to the organization and to my people [who struggle with mental health].”

Hill has since started her own company called Stronger Than My Struggles and published nine books to share her story and help end the stigma attached to mental illness.

“I have witnessed firsthand individuals approaching our volunteers and telling them that by sharing their story they saved that individual’s life,” says Kerry Graves, executive director of NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore. That sort of feedback is pretty common, she adds. Graves says that, from what she’s heard, NAMI volunteers are directly responsible for more students in schools seeking counseling services, more police officers meeting community members in crisis with empathy rather than handcuffs, more patients in inpatient settings feeling hopeful about the road ahead, and more family members learning how to support their struggling loved ones.

“Our volunteers are changing lives, changing communities,” says Graves. “And that is priceless.”

Gilda Gordon, a retiree, is another volunteer who agrees she’s not sure who benefits the most—the organizations she serves or herself. Gordon volunteers at Weekend Backpacks, a group that bags food to be delivered to schools for children in need. But it’s her work at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital (MWPH) that truly fulfills her. She and a friend volunteer twice a week at MWPH where they are “cuddlers” who spend time with ill and distressed infants. Touch is therapeautic for us all, no matter our age. This service helps when parents aren’t always physically available to constantly be with their newborn at such a vulnerable time.

“It’s such a wonderful experience,” Gordon says. “I think we enjoy it more than [the infants] do. When you pick them up and they look at you, you know you’re giving them the life they need. I’d love to take all those babies home, but my husband says no,” she says with a laugh.

It’s no surprise that Gordon and others get a lift out of their volunteer experience. WebMD states that for the 26 percent of adults in the United States who volunteer, one of the biggest benefits is that the more you do it, the happier you become. In fact, studies show that people who start with lower levels of well-being may get an even bigger boost in happiness from volunteering.

Franz sees this joy play out routinely at VU and invites any and all to sign up to volunteer through his organization.

“We love Baltimore,” Franz says, “and we exist to help create a better Baltimore. We think that the best way to accomplish that is to build the best volunteer experience possible. When the volunteers are taken care of, they take care of the nonprofits we serve. When [they’re] inspired by the impact they are having, they want to come back to volunteer with us or with our partner nonprofits, and they are more deeply connected to Baltimore.”

When Daniel Trahey first arrived in Baltimore from rural Michigan in the late 1990s, the Detroit-native and Peabody Conservatory freshman was shocked to discover that none of his classmates were from the city.

“Like nobody,” says the 45-year-old tuba player. “I was just a naïve kid, wanting to get more acquainted here, to find more gigs, to know what churches to call.”

Slowly, Trahey started to connect the dots. During undergrad, he landed a job at the Baltimore School for the Arts’ TWIGS after-school program, and there, he learned that while superb music programs did exist sporadically all through the city’s public school system, there was no formal framework to shepherd these budding musicians throughout their education, leading students to give up their instruments, find them late, or never come to them in the first place.

“The problem is there’s not a lot of throughlines for our kids, so if someone starts violin in kindergarten, it’s really hard for the city to take them up through 12th grade,” says Trahey. “We wanted to create that.”

In 2007, he and fellow Peabody professor Elijah Wirth co-founded Tuned-In at the Peabody Preparatory. Inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema music education program, the year-round program creates an integrated and intensive track for musically inclined city school students, pre-K through grade 12. It provides everything from private lessons, ensemble practices, and classes like composition and digital audio to tutoring, academic counseling, and financial coverage for instruments, auditions, and college visits—all for free, from enrollment through graduation.

“This is methodical, and it’s small, so there’s the time, energy, and money being spent to really make a difference,” says Trahey, who credits close collaboration with local schoolteachers to help make their programming possible, as well as the generosity of both Peabody’s parent university, Johns Hopkins, and local and national donors. “The resources were there—we just needed to pull them together.”

Several students also participate in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids, which Trahey co-founded with Marin Alsop in 2008, but Tuned-In is not a track program toward becoming the next Yo-Yo Ma. The students focus not just on orchestra but on jazz band and improvisational music. Even then, the staff encourages their other extracurricular activities, like dance or sports teams. At the end of the day, the goal is to get every one of them a full scholarship to at least two schools of their choice, whether they plan to major in music, medicine, or political science.

“So they can say, hey, I got into [a historically Black college], and I also got into Juilliard,” says Trahey. “We’re not looking to produce classical musicians, or blues musicians, or whatever it may be—we want to help students find their voice.”

Trahey knows first hand what music can provide a young person. A big part of his job is not just teaching but listening to his students. Amidst the murder of Freddie Gray, for example, they opted to remove “Ode to Joy” from their repertoire and focused on writing their own music.

Those moments have stuck with him over the last 15 years, a reminder to not “get bigger and better, but deeper,” as he puts it, with the ripple effects of Tuned-In being felt in the upper echelons of the music world. More and more Peabody, Oberlin, and Yale students now hail from Baltimore. As do performers from the National Symphony to Broadway. Several of the program’s 150 alumni have returned to join the staff at Tuned-In, too.

“My students, and their families, have taught me how to live a better life,” says Trahey. “They have taught me what community means. And they’ve even helped me become a little bit wiser.”

Many young people with questions about reproductive and sexual health have few places to get real answers. Dr. Jenell Coleman, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology for Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the director of one of the organization’s largest women’s health clinics, saw the impact of this firsthand while working with young women in clinical settings.

To meet young people where they are—online and on social media—Coleman teamed up with Saumya Sao, a clinical researcher at Hopkins and an advocate for equitable access to sexual and reproductive health education. The resulting Violet Project, launched in October 2021, is an online platform offering young people approachable answers to their questions alongside resources like free STI testing, menstrual and contraceptive products, and a direct line to health care professionals. (To donate menstrual products to the cause, visit the org’s website.)

Here, they talk about the need for this resource, the importance of peer education, and the organization’s future.

What inspired the creation of The Violet Project?

Dr. Jenell Coleman: Some of my favorite populations to work with are adolescent girls and young adult women. But in clinical encounters I hear all these myths and misconceptions—mind-blowing things where I’m left wondering, where did they get this information from? I wondered, how can I do more to teach them about their reproductive and sexual selves besides just the interaction that I have with them in the exam room? I wanted to develop a website to reach, primarily, adolescent girls. When Saumya and I started working together it turned into The Violet Project.

Saumya Sao: We started brainstorming ideas on how we could make a one-stop-shop digital health platform. We did a review of how adolescents are getting access to sexual and reproductive health information, and we realized that there wasn’t anything out there that really displayed information in a way that was digestible, but also that had enough information. One thing that’s really unique about our educational content is it’s very comprehensive, but it’s very interactive.

Why is sexual reproductive health care education so important for young people?

JC: I take care of women throughout their entire reproductive life span. Some of the conditions and ailments are preventable and they’ve probably happened when they’re an adolescent or young adult. Part of the reason I wanted to target this population was to provide a foundation of accurate knowledge and empower them to learn about being a sexual being in this world.

SS: Especially in our current political landscape, attacks on sex-ed are increasing by the day. So creating resources to make sure that adolescents don’t lose what access they have, and to create innovative ways for them to get more access, is really important.

What inspired the project’s name?

SS: We were looking at a list of flowers to get some inspiration on design and the last flower on the list was violet. And I realized Violet could be the name of a person, it could be a color scheme. So we created this concept sketch with Violet the character leading folks through the website, saying “Congratulations for making the first step in your sexual reproductive health journey.” It’s grown to include a lot of other characters with different sexual orientations and gender identities on different sections of the website. It just blossomed from that one original idea.

“In clinical encounters I hear all these myths and misconceptions, mind-blowing things where I’m left wondering, where did they get this information from?”

How has The Violet Project evolved and grown?

JC: Violet has gone through many iterations as we continue to address the needs of the community. One example is at the OB-GYN clinic, we often offer a sanitary napkin at the end of a visit. During one encounter when I asked the patient if she wanted a sanitary napkin she asked if she could have the whole package, which probably had 30 or 40. I was a little shocked, because even though I did this for a living, I didn’t realize that there were people that may not have access to sanitary supplies. Addressing period poverty was something that was born out of the clinical care piece.

Why is peer education an important part of the Violet platform?

SS: We really wanted to engage youth in the community in this project because we knew we needed their buy-in, we needed sustainability, and we wanted youth to drive the direction of the website. Today we have 90 peer educators ages 18-24 who give educational demos and distribute free Violet packs in nine clinical settings. Providers have noted that they’ll know when a Violet volunteer has already seen a patient because it tends to open up a door for a really good conversation that might not happen otherwise.

What is your vision for the project’s future?

SS: Our mission has always been to make sexual reproductive health care and education more accessible to youth throughout Maryland. Now that we are very well-established in Maryland, we’re asking ourselves how we can get this resource out to more folks who need it in other geographic locations.

JC: Our work is informed by clinical care and research, and part of our goal with Violet is to disseminate all the knowledge so that it can permeate into other communities. Not only is The Violet Project sustainable, it’s scalable as well.

Towson-raised professional skateboarder Joey Jett, 25—who rose to national acclaim when he was only seven—found a sense of freedom and belonging in the sport. Today, he’s sharing that with future generations. In addition to creating his own skate-inspired streetwear line, JETT Brand Clothing, he helped to organize fundraising efforts to launch Jake’s Skate Park at Rash Field. Opened last year, the park was built in honor of a five-year-old skateboarder named Jake Owen who was killed by a distracted driver. At Jake’s Skate Park, Jett offers free lessons to children 12 and under as part of an event called Boards and Breakfast.  Here, Jett talks about his journey.

When I was six, I thought my neighbor was the coolest person ever. He was five years older than me, and he was always on a skateboard, so, eventually, I grabbed my own. At first, I was bad at skating—probably way worse than the average person who first steps on a skateboard. But it pretty much became my life. Within an eight-month period, I became the youngest skateboarder to do a backflip, was invited to the Dew Tour, and won about 50 contests in a row.

At 10 years old, I quit. When I first started skating, it felt natural. But once I joined the competition circuit, there was more pressure. People were predicting that I would become the next Tony Hawk. But all I really wanted to do was be a normal kid. What I first loved about skateboarding was the freedom that it brings—the creativity, the fun, the adrenaline.

Five years later, I moved to Calvert County. I knew one person at my new high school, my stepbrother, who told everyone I was a professional skateboarder. Here I was, 4 foot 7, with buck teeth. I had nothing to lose, and so I kind of went along with it. Soon, other skaters started coming up to me, inviting me to skate with them. I was terrified because I hadn’t done it in five years. I basically lost everything I knew when I was younger. I was at a beginner level—couldn’t even do one trick—but they accepted me.

From there, we skated every day. I filmed a couple videos in high school. Filming with my friends got me back to the real reason I fell in love with skateboarding in the first place. There was no contest, it was just about creating new tricks and having the freedom to be able to do whatever you want without being judged. I sent one to Mike Vallely, who was my favorite professional skater when I was starting out. He said, ‘I really liked this video. You should meet me on tour.’

From there, I ended up going to Japan, Denmark, Greece, Italy—all around the world—and then, Mike named me pro. I did that for three years and then I started my own clothing line, JETT Brand, and now that’s what I do.

I also helped raise money for the opening of Jake’s Skate Park at Rash Field. At the time, I had just finished touring the world for about three years. I was planning a really big art show in Baltimore, and Jake’s family approached me and said, ‘We would love to do this show with you. Would you mind helping us raise funds for a skate park?’ I really wanted to help make it happen, for them and for Baltimore. I felt like we needed a skate park.

We did the art show and ended up selling out and raising $35,000. When opening day came around, it was cool to see everyone there. I wouldn’t trade the feeling of seeing that community blossom for anything.

When you’re a kid, skate parks can be intimidating. I decided to create Boards and Breakfast at Jake’s Skate Park just for them. I picked up skateboarding at such a young age, and never really had a teacher, I just learned it in my own way. So now, teaching kids is very natural for me. I know exactly how to work with them. To see them with big smiles, and such excitement for skateboarding, makes me get excited, too. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not really into gatekeeping. I’m here to teach people new skills and help them be creative, because I know what that’s done in my own life.

If I can help inspire one kid, or help them be creative, then that’s good enough for me.

Long before the days of Shazam, Kayenecha Daugherty was unstoppable when it came to discovering new music.

“I still remember hearing ‘My Heart Belongs to You’ by [D.C.-based R&B artist] Frankie for the first time, and it just perfectly captured everything I felt,” she says. “Finding out the artist and song name took a few calls to the cable company, but I wasn’t giving up.”

Her love for the music scene only deepened at Morgan State University where she majored in telecommunications. But after almost 20 years in the industry—including six years at the Grammys bringing professional development to music makers and more than 15 years running her own entertainment company, Gypsy Soul—Daugherty began to feel like artists were taken for granted.

“As a society, we cherish art without really considering the artist,” she says. “We don’t value or invest in the professional development and resources they need to create the art we consume and love.”

She couldn’t shake the conviction that musicians—and all artists for that matter—are too important to not support. In 2015, Daugherty launched her nonprofit, Creative Nomads, with the goal of providing arts entrepreneurs access to professional development, resources, and networking.

“Think of all the genius we’re missing because of those who have simply never picked up a paintbrush. Or all the wonderful artists who just don’t have the time, money, or space to express their creativity,” she says. “Communities need equal access to art experiences, and artists need resources. That’s what Creative Nomads is all about.”

Her organization also provides education and programming for youth and families that need it the most. Creative Nomads’ Where Art Starts (WAS) program has served more than 4,000 students and families, bringing fun creative activities to schools and community centers. This encompasses everything from African drumming to special events, like their epic “May the Fourth” party, which challenged the idea that Black families don’t enjoy sci-fi.

“Art can and should be used as a community-and relationship-building tool to strengthen Baltimore. It feels crucial for me to encourage folks to invest in artists and invest in places like Creative Nomads that are working hard to make sure everyone has access to the arts.”

Shelonda Stokes, 51, grew up poor in Baltimore City. Her childhood was transient, as she was raised by her mom and attended three different elementary schools. Her dad died from drug activity. Life wasn’t easy. But when she was 14 years old, she landed her first job, as a custodian responsible for cleaning at Harborplace.

As she worked, she admired everything downtown had to offer. And she was determined to make something of herself.

“Isn’t it serendipitous?” says Stokes, today the president of Downtown Partnership of Baltimore (DPOB).

After graduating from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Stokes earned a degree in electrical engineering from Morgan State University and began her career at Hewlett Packard, working on a $10 million government contract. She then co-founded greiBO, a boutique advertising and communications firm, which she still co-owns today.

She was on the board of DPOB and, in 2019, she became its first minority chair. When the president announced he was leaving in January 2020, she stepped up to serve as interim president. Then COVID-19 hit. Far from wearying her on her new post, “That’s when I literally fell in love with this organization,” she says. During the pandemic, DPOB was an “essential” business.

In addition to keeping her staff safely working, Stokes initiated important programs like Curbside Baltimore in support of local restaurants and retailers. She put herself forward for the presidency and was selected by the board, beginning the job in June 2020.

As Stokes describes it, the mission of DPOB is to be the keepers of the downtown area—doing everything from keeping it safe and clean to providing marketing and economic development.

During her tenure, DPOB’s revenues have more than doubled; the State of Maryland has agreed to relocate 12 of its agencies to Baltimore’s Central Business District, which comes with a $50 million allocation; and she created the BOOST program, which stands for Black-Owned and Operated Storefront Tenancy.

BOOST helps both Black businesses as well as downtown, which has seen increased vacancy. With the program, business owners who have been in business for at least a year can apply. Those selected not only receive $50,000 that they use can toward their buildout, site improvement, operations, and lease, but are given legal advice and free training in financing, marketing, and merchandising.

The program is so successful that DPOB has been invited to speak in Vancouver at the International Downtown Association, Congressman Kweisi Mfume invited Stokes to speak about it to the National Small Business Administration, and it’s been covered by Black Enterprise as well as Ebony magazines.

“My vision for downtown Baltimore is a thriving ecosystem of people, art, and culture where creativity flourishes, and diversity is celebrated. An urban center rich with amenities, businesses, theaters, restaurants, sports, and entertainment within a walkable footprint. And where every place, from streets to alleys, is transformed into galleries and meeting spaces that ignite our growing population,” says Stokes. “That’s where I want to live and work.”

It makes perfect sense that James Evans’ life is filled with dogs. Guapo, a German Shepherd, and Rocky, an American Akita, occupy a lot of space in his Rodgers Forge home with their (big) personalities, (big) beds, (big) crates, and (big) appetites.

“I’ve been an insane dog lover and pet lover for as long as I can remember,” says Evans, the founder and chief executive officer of Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity (CARE), who grew up in Park Heights and attended Baltimore School for the Arts.

And while it seems Evans was destined for a career that involved animals, his schooling drew him into a more creative field, landing a job at illume, a marketing
and communications firm, where he produced design work for Timberland, Safe Streets Baltimore, Kennedy Krieger Institute, and the NAACP, among many others. After the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) asked his team to put together a spay/neuter campaign post-Hurricane Katrina, the lightbulb moment came when he started noticing systematic inequity in pet ownership.

“There were no people of color that were part of the system,” says Evans. “No one of color leading national animal welfare organizations, animal control policies, or shelters.”

This was especially concerning since “animal control then and now targets brown and Black communities.”

The marketing campaign he did in New Orleans led to HSUS creating Pets for Life, a spay/neuter program that also supplies pet food, vaccinations, and other animal resources for pet owners in underserved communities. Thanks to grants and donors, Pets for Life has performed more than 100,000 free spay/neuter surgeries.

Evans and his team—mostly made up of people of color—felt proud of the program that they had played such a large role in creating, but ultimately HSUS decided to run the program internally.

Life returned to normal for Evans until 2019 when a woman named Chetana Mirle reached out. She explained that she was the program director for The Life of Riley, a group that advances animal welfare by investing in diverse leadership and community-driven solutions. “And she said, ‘You know, there are a great many people in animal welfare who said I should speak to you because I’m interested in finding someone who can bring more BIPOC people to the field.’”

Mirle told Evans she’d often find herself in rooms without any other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) colleagues and she started wondering why that was. Evans empathized but figured that was the extent of the call.

“I wasn’t upset with her,” he says. “I was upset with the idea that we keep talking about inclusion, but no one was really doing anything about it, which is what I told her.”

Mirle took the conversation to heart and told Evans she understood it required money—and a plan. “Write up a proposal,” she told him. Evans and his wife, Jennifer, formerly an art director and creative producer, now chief operating officer at CARE, got to work.

“We were laughing our asses off,” says Evans at the freedom of creating a dream proposal with no restrictions. “We want to have research, we want to have a narrative department, we want to do all these amazing things to retell the story [of Black pet ownership] and bring all these BIPOC people to this incredibly white and biased field.”

They figured it would cost somewhere in the half a million-dollar range. They put their dreams into an email and hit send.

Much to their surprise Mirle—and the foundation she works for—said yes.

CARE became a BIPOC-led organization that amplifies brown, Black, and other marginalized voices, with a focus not just on the pet, but on their owners. Most animal welfare groups are focused solely on animal neglect or cruelty, which makes up a very small percentage of pet problems. Evans says it’s because they don’t want to focus on the biggest challenge of animal ownership, which is poverty. And that poverty should not be a deterrent to pet ownership. Quite the contrary—pet ownership is known to alleviate stress, which is particularly needed in under-resourced communities.

“They’re good for us, they’re good in every possible way. And their good far outweighs the cost that comes with them,” says Evans. “But when you’re talking about truly marginalized communities, cost becomes a barrier.”

So CARE goes where the need is—raising funds for preventative veterinary care and assisting other organizations that serve those communities. That’s just one part of what CARE, the first national animal welfare organization of color in the United States, focuses on.

“Everything that’s involved with animal welfare is almost entirely white,” says Evans. “All the policies around animal control, animal protection, spay/neuter laws, breed specific legislation, home insurance—all of these animal welfare policies negatively affect brown and Black people, especially in marginalized communities.”

For example, Evans says the homeowner’s insurance in his Towson neighborhood allows him to keep his German Shepherd, Guapo, but Guapo wouldn’t be permitted in the neighborhood where Evans grew up because there are breed restrictions tied to certain areas. Code specific policies like that are steeped in prejudice and bias, he says.

CARE has an Environmental Justice and Policy arm led by policy expert Akisha Townsend Eaton who is working on these very issues. “We’re creating a space where passionate animal owners and practitioners and advocates, dog trainers, groomers, all of these folks are welcome into this space without fear that they’re going to be judged just for their physical presence,” says Evans.

He also references pet retail—a $100 billion industry. People of color don’t even own one percent of that field, says Evans. The same goes for veterinarians. There are 60,000 small animal veterinarians—and, according to Evans, less than two percent are Black. So CARE has a scholarship to fund Black veterinarians attending school.

“This year, we raised $130,000 for Tuskegee students, [a historically black college and university] with the most Black veterinary students enrolled in the country.”

Evans is a talker. He loves to pontificate about weighty topics. He’ll talk racism and the caste system, collective power, skin color, reciprocity, the roots of slavery, and white dominant spaces. As a Black man, despite everything he’s experienced and witnessed, he’s not bitter—it’s just fueled him to do more.

“CARE is not just a nonprofit—we are a nonprofit that starts nonprofits,” says Evans. They’ve funded over 15 new organizations—many existing in some of the most underserved communities in the United States. Evans says that is how he measures the success of CARE—by watching people who are commonly rejected from the system come into their own. “They blossom inside of this protective unit that we’ve created. We’ve got unbelievably brilliant folks with tattoos on their necks and long earrings or hoops and we engage with them, and they can be their full selves. These are people that cannot get shelter jobs, cannot get jobs
cleaning up poop, cleaning kennels, but now they’re executive directors of their own organizations.”

Mary Ippoliti-Smith, a member of the executive leadership team for Maddie’s Fund, a foundation that has awarded over $265 million in grants, including many of Evans’ missions, sees that firsthand.

“CARE has provided a safe and thriving haven for passionate activists and deep thinkers focused on better outcomes for people and pets,” she says. “The organization is unique in that they are not attempting to do the work best done by those directly impacted by inequities. They are, however, creating resources and opportunities for marginalized people to rebuild their own communities.”

Ippoliti-Smith says it’s impossible to overstate what a significant impact CARE has had. “CARE has indelibly changed the face of the animal welfare industry by bringing diverse voices to this sector and advocating for a more inclusive path to pet adoption,” she continues.

Alexandre Contreras, the founder and president of PetTrio Charity in south Florida, is what’s called a proximate leader, a term used for leadership that reflects the identity of the people they serve. He has a gregarious spirit and a passion for animals that he shows by working as a vet tech, speaking to Miami Dade public school students about careers in veterinary medicine, and constantly thinking how to better improve the pet industry. That includes inventing the KlipTrio, a 3-in-1 pet nail clipper. CARE was his first investor, and because of them he was able to hire lawyers to have his product patented.

Through his charity, also supported by CARE, Contreras has been able to help people who can’t afford treatment for their pets. Recently that included someone who came into the vet clinic where he works. Seeing the reaction of pet owners in real time was life affirming.

“This is what philanthropy feels like,” says Contreras, who has made it his mission to help as many folks as he can, “doing something and wanting nothing in return. It’s so soothing to the soul.”

Many of the people now emerging as leaders in the animal welfare arena look like the same people Evans grew up with who were often simply judged by their appearances, something Evans has experienced himself as a Black man.

Time and time again it’s been proven “you can’t show up at work as your full brown, urban, whatever self,” says Evans. “And so, we’re creating a space where people can speak in the accent of their choice, they can be their whole selves, and they can help animals because animals don’t care.” He pauses. “And that is the beautiful part of it. There’s no animal starving on the street that cares whether or not a woman with big earrings and long fingernails is the one who is feeding them.”

When Patrice Hutton, 37, was a student in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, part of the program included teaching creative writing at various middle and elementary schools near the Homewood campus. As she traveled between schools, she noticed a real disparity between what was being taught at the more privileged Roland Park Elementary/Middle School and the under-financed Barclay School just a few blocks away.

She also noticed that schools in general were moving away from creative writing as they were forced to keep up with the No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasizes core curriculum subjects like math and science over the arts. Given that writing had provided such a strong outlet in her own life, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

In 2008, thanks largely to a grant from Open Society Institute–Baltimore, she created Writers in Baltimore Schools (WBS), an in-class program where students can express themselves through creative writing, from fiction to poetry to nonfiction. The program, which reaches approximately 140 students a year, has expanded over the years, and now includes writers’ workshops, mini retreats, and “write-ins,” as well as a summer camp.

The students also create zines, anthologies, and share some of their poetry on the back page of indie newspaper, the Baltimore Beat. We sat down with Hutton to discuss what she’s built.

Why do you think writing is so important for young people, particularly young people from underserved communities?
I think teaching students that their voice matters, that what they have to say is important, and that they can use their voice to advocate for themselves in their community is a building block of all other things. Something we talked about a lot in the beginning was, how can we use Writers in Baltimore Schools to teach students to access systems? Because, for more privileged, more resourced kids, it’s like, of course, you know you can email your college counselor or professor. But when you grow up as one of 38 kids in a Baltimore City school class, you’re just not used to being able to have that kind of access. We want kids to know that they can ask grown-ups for stuff and use their voices to speak up.

So much of WBS is allowing kids to see themselves as creators, as artists.
Yeah. And something we do is have the students write an Artist’s Statement. And that’s based on some research we read, which said that in low income school settings, if you give kids a chance to sort of affirm that they are artists, they are going to see themselves as artists [going forward]. Creative writing classes are notoriously emotionally fraught.

Are the students encouraged to critique each other?
In terms of peer editing and peer feedback, we build it gently. Different teachers use different terms like “glows and grows” or “compliment sandwiches,” that is, pointing out ways that your piece shines first and then ways to, you know, improve it. So in that case, they’re learning social skills as well as these writing skills.

Some of these kids are dealing with trauma at home and in their neighborhoods. How have you seen that manifest in the work?
You sort of get kids across the spectrum—kids who want to use writing as an outlet and kids who want it as an escape. And something we’ve been thoughtful about is making sure that each lesson can be approached from both angles, because we never want to force a kid to write about their trauma, but we do want to give them the space for that. For some kids, existing in that fantasy world, that’s what they want to be doing. In some cases, very intense things have come up, where I’m glad that we have this safe space. But if something really concerning comes up, we’ll elevate it to the classroom teacher because they know the kid better than we do.

Tell us about the sleepaway camp.
It started in 2012. It’s now held at Washington College in Chestertown. It’s really nice. The kids are getting that real college experience and the parents are often very sweetly grateful for that. But the kids, I mean, their reactions are the things that sustain me in the moments of work exhaustion, because I’ll think back to a kid who would say, “This is the best week.” Or, when we ask the kids, “What would you change about this?” they want it to change from one to two weeks, which we will hopefully do someday. One quote from a student that we use a lot [in promotional material] is, “At this camp I found my forever family.”

Can you share some of the Writers in Baltimore Schools success stories?
One of our alums, Bryonna Reed, graduated from Davidson College in the spring of 2020 and now she’s the new development director of the Baltimore Abortion Fund. Another one, Jamesha Caldwell, just finished her first year of law school at Penn State Dickinson. This girl got like 10 law school acceptances and this summer she’s interning for Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on Capitol Hill. We have another kid, one from the very first workshop, who has become really big in the Baltimore drag scene. He’s performing all over. We have alumni doing some really cool stuff.

Since Franklyn Baker became president and CEO of United Way of Central Maryland (UW) in 2016, the pandemic and inflation have only increased community need for life’s basics: housing, food, decent schools, and fair wage jobs.

Thus, Baker has doubled down on things like homelessness prevention and educational equity initiatives. UW also added two new family centers, in Poppleton and Columbia, building on its success with its first site in Brooklyn/Curtis Bay. Baker explains that the centers “provide affordable and accessible childcare—something that is a national problem. These centers offer enriching early childhood education and an array of supportive services for children and their families in high-need communities.”

Baker is photographed, above, at the new Poppleton playground. Designed to be age appropriate for pre-kindergarten to kindergarten users, the center playgrounds aren’t just fun; they are interactive outdoor classrooms and safe places where kids can do what they do best—play.

Since joining UW, Baker has overseen a shift at the organization to more of this type of direct service, starting with the decision to move its HQ from downtown to Montgomery Park. Baker says he is focused on amplifying the voices of community leaders and residents.

He’s also ensuring UW is as diverse as its constituents. He notes that for the last two years, UW has had a majority BIPOC staff, the board is now 48 percent BIPOC (up from 19 percent in 2016), and UW has increased funding to BIPOC-led organizations.

“I’m most proud of increasing the diversity of our staff and board and ensuring equitable investment and distribution of United Way funding in services, support, and resources,” says Baker. “Our approach respects and values people from all walks of life and fuels our vision of a community where one’s background doesn’t predict their future.”

Adam Rosenberg first came to Baltimore to interview as a law clerk for the city state’s attorney’s office. Although he set his sights on working in narcotics, the job on offer was in sex offenses. (At the time, the city was on the forefront of child abuse advocacy with its own specific sex offense unit in the police department and one of the country’s first child advocacy centers.) After nearly a decade working as a prosecutor and trying cases on everything from internet crimes to church sexual abuse, Rosenberg applied his expertise to the nonprofit world, becoming executive director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center in 2008.

In January 2019, the center joined forces with LifeBridge Health to become The Jill Fox Center for Hope, where Rosenberg, 53, is executive director and also acts as vice president for Violence Prevention & Intervention. The Center for Hope includes comprehensive support services for child abuse, domestic violence, and community violence as well as elder justice for survivors, caregivers, and communities. To date, the center serves more than 5,000 clients a year.

Why did you want to be a prosecutor?
At Cardozo School of Law, Barry Scheck [part of O.J. Simpson’s defense “Dream Team”] was one of my professors. I was involved in the criminal law clinic at Cardozo. Prosecution, law and order—not the show—just resonated with me the most. This is tough stuff.

What appealed to you about this type of work?
When I started working at the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, I loved the notion of being able to use the law not just to help people help themselves but also to get back to well again. We’re giving them a path forward that someone is going to fight for them.

Talk to me about some of your day-to-day work and how you view your role.
Part of my job is shouldering the burden of how we intervene in violence. I meet with stakeholders, I try to meet with politicians and thought leaders, I talk about it. I’ve made it a point to make sure we have these discussions about children who have been impacted by violence. Just like we’ve done with cancer and AIDS—we have to talk about it. We have to be able to do the same thing when it comes to domestic violence and child abuse and take action—that’s a real part of my role here, to make sure this remains a part of people’s consciousness and that they are aware of The Center for Hope and how they can help break the cycle of violence.

What are you proudest of in terms of your accomplishments?
I am proud of having been part of a team to pass significant laws, including the Child Victims Act [of 2023], which eliminated the lookback window [a set period when a victim of abuse can file a claim] and enabled survivors to get civil and criminal justice for past abuse. I am proud of the fact that we’ve raised awareness of violence and have a building to support it and [a partnership] with a health system dedicated to it.

Is there something that we, as ordinary citizens, can do to break the cycle of abuse?
We have a responsibility to protect children and to keep children safe from harm and abuse—it’s not a child’s responsibility to protect themselves nor is it their responsibility to report their own abuse. When we look at catastrophic failures of society in protecting children from the Boy Scouts to the Archdiocese to private schools—it’s up to the adults who should have done a better job at protecting the kids.

What we have made a pillar of our work is being sure that adults know that not only do they have a responsibility to do this, but that they must report it if they have reason to believe it occurred. Also, most importantly, these organizations have a responsibility to know how to keep those kids safe, to have the right policies, the right procedures, the right training in place so that we prevent abuse from happening at all.

Was there something in your upbringing that fortified you to do this kind of work?
I was brought up in a good healthy Jewish Reform household, there was summer camp and temple—these are the root of who I am. And, frankly, it goes back to what Rabbi Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Most organizations and agencies  doling out grant money require funding recipients to spend dollars in well-delineated ways—and to document every move. But that’s not how Jamye Wooten, the founder and chief executive officer of CLLCTIVLY, does business. Instead, he’s part of a growing group of social entrepreneurs in Baltimore bucking traditional business practices by working to make opportunities more equitable, accessible, and humane throughout the city’s Black communities.

His work—and that of others—is turning Baltimore into a model city, and Maryland a model state, for Black-led entrepreneurship nationwide. Across the United States, Black-owned businesses account for only three percent of the country’s total businesses and just one percent of the total gross revenue, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. Yet, by comparison, Black adults make up 12.4 percent of the country’s population.

In Baltimore, however, where 61 percent of residents identify as Black, 47 percent of the city’s small businesses, or about 23,600, have Black owners, according to a report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. And across Maryland, more than 200,000 of the state’s 580,000 small businesses are minority-owned, giving Maryland the highest rate of per-capita minority business ownership in the U.S., that same report finds.

Despite some degree of gains, plenty of challenges exist for Black entrepreneurs.

“Funding is one of the biggest obstacles,” says Wooten, whose organization, CLLCTIVLY, has awarded more than $1 million to Black-led organizations seeking to ignite social change and improve life for communities. Since it launched in 2019, CLLCTIVLY has funded several small businesses, solopreneurs, and grassroots initiatives.

One of the first was the Tendea Family, an organization created in 2015 by students at Morgan State University, Elijah Miles and Iheanyi Nwosu Jr., who noticed the tremendous need for basics like food and books across many Baltimore neighborhoods. The need was so great, Miles and Nwosu say, that they named their organization after the Swahili slang word for “hustle”—an appropriate moniker for a group hustling to improve circumstances in under-resourced communities.

“The Tendea Family does amazing work on the ground for our city—they are doing stuff that matters, stuff that really makes a difference,” Wooten says about the organization that hosts regular neighborhood cleanups, food and grocery drives, Black history workshops, and men’s networking sessions.

Another grant recipient, Dominiece Clifton, runs the movement clinic Move and Still, which offers free dance and yoga classes to participants looking to lower stress and heal from trauma and burnout, which can run rampant in urban centers with high poverty rates like Baltimore. One of Clifton’s goals is to bolster the Black presence in the wellness industry: “It is estimated that 70 percent of the wellness industry is white, approximately 13 percent Hispanic, and only 10 percent Black,” her website reads. By creating workshops and programs tailored to the needs of individuals in Baltimore, Clifton hopes to diversify the wellness movement. A yearlong, monthly stipend of $2,000—the result of CLLCTIVLY’s We Got Your Back award, voted on by local community members—helps fund Clifton’s endeavors.

“Having residents elect winners is critical because we don’t want to fund outsiders—we want to fund organizations and individuals who are already embedded within and working directly with community members,” Wooten says. Winners like Clifton receive the stipend with “no strings attached,” meaning they can use the money however they want. “Often, grant money comes with an obligation to spend it in a certain way,” explains Wooten.

Himself a West Baltimore native, Wooten’s father and sister, both entrepreneurs, died young, in their 50s. “I attribute their deaths, in part, to the stress that comes with running a business. With ‘no-strings-attached,’ funding recipients can use the grant to pay their mortgage, cover other living expenses, take a wellness class, or do whatever they deem necessary,” Wooten adds. “The dollars are unrestricted.”

Putting money in the hands of Black entrepreneurs—and trusting them to spend it as they see fit—makes sense, given the Senate committee’s finding that access to capital and credit remains the greatest impediment to the growth of minority-run businesses in Maryland. Among minority groups, Black entrepreneurs face the largest hurdle.

“While there is a credit gap between minority- and non-minority-owned firms, the gap is most pronounced for Black borrowers [58 percent reported credit availability challenges, compared to 32 percent of white borrowers],” the Senate report reads.

As Wooten continues to raise money for and fund Black-led social change initiatives, he’s not the only Baltimore entrepreneur working to close the credit gap and support humanitarian ventures.

Darius Graham serves as a program director at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, leading the funding of more than $30 million annually to organizations working to improve housing, health care, food access, and education across Charm City.

Graham grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, “a kid who always had my needs met but saw other kids and members of my extended family who were lacking,” he says. “It didn’t seem fair.” Graham made his way to law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and later worked as a corporate bankruptcy junior attorney in Washington, D.C.

“Although I enjoyed the fast-paced, high-pressure nature of the job, I wasn’t passionate about the bankruptcy code and gravitated toward the pro bono assignments,” he says. “I decided, at that point, to make a career move to do something more meaningful.”

He took a position at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to help transition a student-run club into a full-fledged program, the Social Innovation Lab (SIL), of the institution—one focused on bridging a gap between the university and Baltimore. As the founding director of SIL, Graham grew the program into a remarkable success. His goal? To help budding, humanitarian-focused entrepreneurs in Baltimore, both within and outside of JHU, grow and scale their ideas into sustainable, mission-driven businesses.

Through his work at SIL, Graham helped Brittany Young build B360, which uses dirt-bike culture to teach STEM topics in education. He supported the Mera Kitchen Collective, which gave away more than 150,000 meals during the coronavirus pandemic and runs a restaurant in a Calvert Street rowhouse. The program also helped to assist Adeola Ajani and Chidera Egbuche in launching Fem Equity, which teaches Black women and other under-represented individuals to advocate for themselves and achieve equity and success in their careers—among other examples.

With SIL up and running fostering social entrepreneurism in Baltimore, Graham shifted to his current role with the Weinberg Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the city—and country.

According to 2021 data from the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, 15.3 percent of households in Baltimore City live below the poverty line. But, zooming in further, the data also shows many city neighborhoods where 20-48 percent of households live in poverty.

“A priority is to look for and fund organizations providing direct services to people experiencing poverty—organizations with data to demonstrate the impact and number of people served; with strong, stable financials and leadership; and with great connections and engagement with the communities and populations served.”

But the foundation doesn’t only fund large organizations. “One of my favorite initiatives is the Baltimore City Community Grants program, which funds smaller grassroots efforts,” Graham shares. Since the program launched in 2018, the Weinberg Foundation has awarded more than $1 million across 88 grants to smaller groups working to improve the city’s housing, health care, jobs, and education.

Grassroots social initiatives can make a real difference, but the key to success, Graham believes, is collaboration. “I think of changemaking and social entrepreneurship as a team sport that involves partnering with other organizations and never going it alone,” he says.

Wooten agrees and says that’s why he founded CLLCTIVLY in the first place.

“After Freddie Gray’s death in 2015, I saw individuals and organizations working to change the city for the better, but they were working in silos,” he shares. “I established CLLCTIVLY to end the fragmentation and duplication of efforts.” CLLCTIVLY’S cohort of youth-focused
organizations, for example, works as a team. “A program with a commercial kitchen, or a van, or some other asset can let members of the cohort know they can borrow and use these items for the greater benefit of the kids,” Wooten explains.

Because that’s what social entrepreneurship is largely about—the greater good. “A social entrepreneur is anyone starting a venture that is meant to have a social impact,” Graham says. “It doesn’t have to be large-scale—it can be a neighborhood cleanup of a park or, really, any initiative to improve the world in some way.”

Social entrepreneurship involves refusing to accept the status quo. For instance, when Adeola Ajani, fresh out of Towson University with a finance degree, realized she made 40 percent less than her male counterpart as a junior analyst at Morgan Stanley, she didn’t just keep working with her head down. She negotiated a promotion before leaving her position to launch Fem Equity (with support from SIL) and help other Black women earn equal pay.

“Through our work at SIL, my co-founder and I interviewed more than 100 people, and everyone kept echoing my story of not having the knowledge or the tools to scale their careers and salary,” Ajani says. “We couldn’t ignore the need and decided to go for it.”

Today, Fem Equity is a membership-based platform that provides tools and support to more than 50 under-represented women, equipping them to make informed decisions that lead to career success and financial security. Members go through a digital curriculum that, for starters, helps them define what work-life harmony means to them personally and identify their intrinsic strengths and values.

Running Fem Equity “is exhausting and really hard work, but I couldn’t not do it,” says Ajani, reiterating the sentiments of Wooten, Graham, and the many others using their entrepreneurial skills to make Baltimore a more equitable, just place to live and work. “There’s momentum building, and I’m optimistic,” Wooten says, but the pathway to a more democratic, fair society requires a new kind of business approach—one that is less about competition and making money than about collaboration and helping those in need.

For inspiration, Wooten turns to the civil rights pioneer and preacher Ella Baker, who toiled behind-the-scenes with such notable leaders as Martin Luther King Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois.

“Ella Baker understood that the work is not top-down and hierarchical,” Wooten says. “The work has to be decentralized. It has to focus on human relationships and trust.”

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Editor’s Note: After this issue went to press, Darius Graham moved on from his position with the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. Later this month, he will step into the role of Managing Director, Community Investment with Greater Washington Community Foundation. 

When Kim Lane was 20 years old, a friend living in Baltimore sent her a copy of the City Paper. Lane knew that Baltimore was where she needed to be. So she packed up her ’82 Honda Civic, and with $700 in her pocket, drove to this fair city from New York and never looked back.

Lane, who had already been working for nonprofits, started at Maryland Citizen Action. By the time she was 28, she was the executive director of the Washington Village-Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council, a community development organization.

Although she would go on to work at other nonprofits, Pigtown was always in her heart. Five years ago, she returned when Pigtown Main Street was looking for an interim director. She went on to become permanent executive director.

“It felt like coming home,” she says. Pigtown Main Street, Lane explains, is an economic and community development nonprofit organization. “We do everything from working with businesses, supporting them in every way possible, to attracting businesses,” she says. “Pigtown is a diverse place.”

The group is intentional, though, to make sure that all the new businesses meet the community’s needs. For example, a local barbershop offers sliding scale or free haircuts to single parents for their kids. That helps the community. But so does having breweries like Wico Street Beer Co., that draw people from outside the area, ultimately helping Pigtown with its goal to increase homeownership.

“I think of myself as a facilitator and a fundraiser. When I say ‘we,’ it doesn’t only mean Pigtown Main Street; it means everybody we work with—hundreds of volunteers, community associations, business owners, homeowners, and property owners,” says Lane. “I love being able to do a lot of small things that have a big impact. My work here is not a job. I truly love it. It’s a life for me.”

David Marshall had two dreams in life: to become an opera singer and to be a father. He achieved both, though his journey to fatherhood wasn’t as straightforward as his career in music. When Marshall decided he wanted to become a parent, there was no clear path to do so as a single gay man. In 2021, he founded a nonprofit called Journey to Josiah, named after his son whom he adopted in 2017. Focused on education and outreach, the organization’s mission is to increase the rates of adoptions and the fostering of children around the world.

When did you adopt your son? What was that day like?
Our “Gotcha Day” was April 3, 2017. That’s the day I got him. He was 2 weeks old. I adopted him through an agency called Adoptions Together in Calverton, Maryland. I got the call, and I raced down to Prince George’s County. He was wide awake, this little thing looking at me and I was looking at him, crying. It was instant love.

You started the adoption process two years before that, right? Why does adoption take so long?
I went to an information meeting in 2015. Next is the home study process. It’s a very intense process where you have a social worker come to your home to learn about you. They are not coming to see if there are dust balls in the corner, they want to know who you are. I completed my home study in roughly six months. Then the social worker has 90 days to submit their full report. That’s when you are formally a part of the process. I was invited to [adopt] as part of the domestic infant program where I was then waiting.

What do prospective parents do while they’re waiting for their child?
During the process the agency offers classes. For instance, you’re learning the history of adoption. If you are looking to adopt a child outside of your race, then there are classes on raising children of different cultures and ethnicities. Because it’s so important. They always want to make sure that the children, no matter who they’re raised by, are still very connected to who they are.

You say that there’s a lot of misinformation out there, such as that it’s illegal to adopt as a gay couple. Is that true, or was it at one point?
Yes, in some states it was illegal until fairly recently. And in certain countries now it still is. There was a time in the early days of adoption, they were looking for heterosexual couples. And quite honestly, most of the time, they were looking for white heterosexual couples. So it has evolved.

Yet there are still certain hurdles to overcome, such as being single, right? Are there certain agencies that won’t adopt to single people?
Ultimately, it’s the birth parent who picks who they want their child to be parented by. However, getting to that place [requires finding] an agency that’s willing to work with you, because we find that agencies project a lot of their own biases. You have agencies that will make the claim that you’re going to be harder to place as a single person or as a gay person or as a gay couple. We get into issues not of legality, but discrimination.

Do you think that’s changing?
When we think about the generation that is now going to be placing children for adoption, we’re talking about Millennials and below. For them, the whole LGBTQIA+ community is normal. This is what they grew up seeing and accepting. Gay marriage is normal for them. So a lot of the work that I am doing is helping families to find those agencies that are going to be accepting of them. Because the birth families are fine. I met Josiah’s birth parents before he was born. They were completely fine with who I am. His birth dad is actually the first person who picked me. It just tears down that whole stigma of, “Oh, he’s a gay man, a father would not want [that].” No, Josiah’s birth father could not have cared less about any of that.

When did you form your organization, Journey to Josiah, and why?
My organization is two years old. I started this in my basement during the pandemic. The majority of my clients are from the LGBTQ community, but I’ve had every family structure and, unlike agencies, I don’t discriminate. The end goal is to match you with the agency, but I also give you all of the tools to understand the process.  When people call me, they have told me stories about how they have had doors shut in their faces. I’ve had people who have been discriminated against who have called me to say, “Can you help me?” Believe it or not the most shocking one was in San Francisco. That client was rejected by six agencies for being single and gay.

What does the future look like for Journey to Josiah?
I want to do more than just talk about how to become a parent, I want to be an advocate and a change agent. My experience has confirmed to me that there’s something necessary about this work. When you listen to that still voice inside and you know that it’s God, you have to follow it.

Pediatric medical equipment is significantly more expensive than any other type of equipment, says Jason Herring, executive director of Equipment Connections for Children (ECFC), which provides adaptive equipment to young people living with disabilities at no cost. For example, you can get an adult walker from Walgreens for about $40. A similar device sized for a child goes for about $1,500 without accessories.

Insurance also poses many complications and delays in applying for equipment. Herring says this is a typical scenario: Insurance covers a wheelchair for a child who may not be able to walk but won’t cover things like a gait trainer and other therapeutic equipment that could potentially give the child mobility. Even with insurance, co-pays can be expensive, and there are other barriers.

Herring says it isn’t his job to judge if someone requires help paying for a device or not. “If you say you need help, we’re here to help you,” he says.

Sometimes families don’t know exactly what equipment is the right fit, so they can borrow a piece for a few months to ensure it’s what is best before they commit to keeping the item.

Herring is always looking for innovative and creative ways to serve families and has obtained funder and donor partnerships to expand the organization, which launched in 2009. He took on his role in 2019, and in 2020, he partnered with the Howard County Loan Closet, a government program that provides medical equipment to disabled people, allowing ECFC to drastically decrease expenses and serve more children throughout the state.

During the pandemic, Herring created a process to ensure everything was sanitized and families were still able to access equipment in a safe manner.

Last year ECFC gave out more than 1,000 pieces of equipment and served about 600 families, saving them a collective $800,000.

Learning from the kids is the best part of his job, Herring says.

“I’ve lived with mobility issues myself, things that came on later in life,” he shares. “The children, especially those with chronic issues, are the most resilient humans I’ve ever met. They accept reality and are ready to chug along with life. I’m constantly inspired by them.”

Michael Gosse was told pursuing a career in electrical engineering was not for blind people. Luckily, he didn’t listen.

Despite graduating from Lehigh University with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, finding his first job took a long time. Employers told Gosse they “didn’t want to take the risk” of hiring a blind electrician. But disability doesn’t define a person, Gosse says. It doesn’t negate an individual’s drive, interests, experience, and skills.

Now the president and CEO of Blind Industries & Services of Maryland (BISM), a nonprofit providing career and training resources, he focuses on sharing that message and ensuring Marylanders who are blind have fair employment opportunities.

BISM’s task is a large one. The unemployment rate for blind people is about 70 percent, Gosse says. Much of that has to do with perception about the capabilities of blind people, but employable skills can also be a factor.

“Blindness comes about in various stages of life. Some people are born blind, some go blind later in life, gradually or suddenly,” Gosse says. “A lot of people just don’t get the training they need to live life as a blind person. So BISM attacks all aspects of employment for blind people.”

The organization hires people in manufacturing, management, and executive leadership. It has its own manufacturing plant in Baltimore that produces paper pads, copy paper, sanitation supplies, trash bags, and the Army’s physical fitness jackets. It also has a Baltimore-based training program to teach blind people the daily skills of life, from living independently to job readiness. Participants live in area apartments, use city transportation, and shop locally.

Area employers also can turn to BISM for skilled workers as well as resources about integrating a blind person into their workforce. Gosse is committed to uplifting any person seeking a path forward in their career within BISM; an internal training department ensures every job within the organization is accessible, which is challenging but vital.

Accessibility is not the only issue facing would-be workers with a disability. Another challenge is that some businesses think of hiring superficially—to fulfill a corporate mission or “be a good soul”—not because the person is capable and willing to work. So says Ami Taubenfeld, co-founder and executive director of Itineris, which provides job training and supports employment opportunities for adults on the autism spectrum.

According to Taubenfeld, employers need to expand their hiring to bring an array of people with a variety of gifts and talents into the workplace. Itineris not only helps with such matchmaking, as it were, it also is expanding into residential services under Taubenfeld’s leadership.

Another challenge is that some businesses think of hiring superficially—to fulfill a corporate mission or “be a good soul”—not because the person is capable and willing to work.

The transition to adulthood can be particularly difficult. A young person with autism has a tremendous support system when they’re in school, Taubenfeld explains. They have social workers, guidance counselors, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, social skills classes, one-to-one support, and more. When a person exits school, those services disappear and are much harder to access as they are not covered by insurance or general funding.

“They have to apply into the adult world to see if they qualify for Developmental Disabilities Administration services or vocational rehab services,” Taubenfeld says. “Many people with autism do not qualify.”

This is where Itineris comes in. The organization places workers at businesses across Baltimore, from small locally owned companies to larger operations like Texas Roadhouse and Johns Hopkins University. Yet community building remains one of the group’s greatest challenges.

“We know what we have in front of us,” Taubenfeld says. “We know we have individuals with tremendous talents, and then we have to match that person to an employer, and that takes training and education on the employer’s part.”

Many potential employers might think hiring an adult with autism will require more work for them, and that’s not true, Taubenfeld says. Everyone has accommodations in the office; some people like whiteboards, or a standing desk, or an extra monitor, for example. For adults on the autism spectrum, changes may include bringing in a lamp or adjusting a desk so the person isn’t sitting with their back to the door, or providing a visual schedule. The key to “getting the elephant out of the room,” as Taubenfeld puts it, is workplace education.

Taubenfeld’s own education began in 1995 when her third child, Annie, was diagnosed with autism.  “It was a day that changed my life forever,” she says. “Annie’s two older brothers are neurotypical, and I didn’t know what autism was at the time.”

Taubenfeld worked hard to make sure Annie was always in the right school, with the right environment and support. There’s not a “perfect” anything, she says, but they went through several schools to locate the best possible match.

When Annie turned 18, Taubenfeld joined a group of parents and professionals who were part of an Autism Society chapter researching best practices for adults on the spectrum. They spent three years researching disability agencies across the country, asking questions such as: What is your client to staff ratio? What are your activities like? What percentage of your people are employed? What does the day look like? How experienced are your staff with autism and what training do you provide? They found that the programs with the most success were those that were dedicated strictly to supporting the entire spectrum of people with autism, as opposed to a multidisability agency.

In 2010, Taubenfeld co-launched Itineris, her own dedicated organization, under the mentorship and support of the successful ones identified. She’s been empowering adults with autism to achieve their career and independent living goals ever since. New organizations like Itineris join a rich history of local organizations that have led the way in disability work for many years.

The Hearing and Speech Agency of Baltimore, or HASA, has existed since 1926. It was founded to support the deaf and hard of hearing, but has expanded to include many other types of communication differences used by people with autism and other neurodiversity.

It’s an expansion CEO Erin Lamb is proud of. “I have a curiosity about people, and connections, and what makes them tick,” Lamb says. “My personal mission is to develop the listening skills of different communities so we can create a world where everybody can understand and be understood.”

Lamb prefers the word ally over advocate. To her, advocate implies helping elevate someone else’s voice, but many of the communities HASA works with don’t need their voices amplified. They just need the world to listen and react, she says.

In the world of invisible disabilities, the burden is placed on the individual to advocate and ask for what they need, she explains. For example, a deaf consumer must connect with a venue to request an interpreter at a show.

“Imagine if every time someone in a wheelchair wanted to go someplace, they had to ask for a ramp to be put out,” she says.

Lamb’s daughter is autistic, and her education plan dictates she must tell her educators when she would benefit from a break. But sometimes she communicates her needs nonverbally through behaviors or facial expressions and Lamb wants teachers to recognize that fact. Indeed, she urges all people to pay attention and think differently about access, not just in the classroom, but in the workplace, the community, and in their homes to create a truly inclusive environment for individuals with hearing loss, who are autistic, who use sign language, and more.

“Let’s dismantle some of the burden we place on the individual to advocate for themselves,” she says. Breaking stigma is important, but HASA also faces operational obstacles. Obtaining public and private funding and removing barriers to care are constant challenges, Lamb says. Take hearing aids, for example. They are expensive but, “They’re not a sexy thing to donate money to,” she notes, adding that despite humans having two ears, Medicaid will only cover one device for an adult in Maryland.

The social and emotional benefits of having access to your hearing are astounding, Lamb continues, explaining that hearing loss is the number one modifiable risk factor for dementia. HASA partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to ensure both community groups know the importance of audiological exams and treatment. But
initiatives like this and others cost money. Lamb says there is an extreme demand for the organization’s programs focused on prevention,treatment, and advocacy.

“We’re busting at the seams,” she says. “We have limited staff. There are pipeline issues related to all of the disciplines that we employ at HASA. We’re balancing those issues with the increasing demand for our services. We need to figure out creative ways to serve, grow, and have another 97 years in front of us.”

Ronza Othman, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, can empathize with organizational challenges.

While navigating systems during the pandemic was a strain for everyone, there were challenges unique to the blind community and, as the leader of the oldest and largest nationwide organization of blind Americans, Othman and the Federation needed to find ways to step up.

When vaccines for the coronavirus first came out, for example, appointment websites were not compatible with the computer technology blind people use. A phone call rarely made it to a person. Even if one could secure an appointment, many clinics were not reachable by public transportation. So the federation opened their own vaccine clinic in partnership with the Maryland Department of Disabilities.

A lot of federation members were let go or furloughed from their jobs during the pandemic, too. Applying for unemployment was a mess for everybody, but even more difficult for people using assistive technology, as the government’s system was not compatible with it.

“Not only did you have to apply for unemployment, you had to re-certify every week, but our folks couldn’t get in once,” Othman remembers. “So we did a lot of case work directly with the Department of Labor to find alternative ways for people to submit applications and recertifications.”

During the pandemic, doctors offices and hospitals forbade patients from bringing another person, which meant blind people couldn’t bring someone to assist them in filling out medical forms. The federation had to do a lot of advocacy to get facilities to understand that an interpreter is a reasonable accommodation to which an individual is entitled when they are disabled.

The federation works with local organizations and businesses as well as government entities to ensure accessibility and opportunity. The goal is that the blind are speaking for themselves, Othman says, adding the majority of staff and volunteers within the organization are blind.

“Our lived experience informs what we do,” she says. “It’s very difficult as a person who is blind or low-vision to be interacting with the world, because the sighted world creates, establishes, and perpetuates stereotypes and barriers to our full participation in society.”

“Let’s dismantle some of the burden we place on the individual to advocate for themselves.”

And it’s not just a matter of educating corporations, government entities, and the public about including and engaging the blind community, the federation also aims to educate the blind community about what’s possible and available—and to encourage them to speak up when there are barriers in their way.

These Baltimore-area advocates push for positive change every day. Have they seen any progress?

Gosse says progress is slow because the blind population is not large, so the number of people interacting with a blind person is small. Thus, perspective change is happening slowly. Still, getting the word out about BISM will result in progress, Gosse says. The group aims to partner with area organizations and companies to create new job opportunities for people who are blind.

Taubenfeld also is optimistic about future inclusion and equity in the workplace. She says Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X expect to be in a workplace that provides opportunities for diversity, and neurodiversity is part of that advocacy.

Othman is a civil rights lawyer, and her skills and approach are useful in her work with the Federation for the Blind. She says her job has challenges, but the victories—be they helping a blind person become a more productive member of the workforce, helping to resolve a public misunderstanding about the blind, or educating people about discriminatory and harmful behavior—make it all worthwhile.

“It’s about restorative justice,” she says. “And seeing the world improve one case at a time.”

10/7: Every Step Counts Autism Walk and 5K Run
Choose between a 5K run, 4K walk, or 1K stroll around the beautiful Centennial Lake and have the chance to win prizes. You don’t want to miss out on the event village, packed with inflatables, circus performers, bubble artists, and refreshments. Proceeds benefit the Howard County Autism Society, working to bring together those with autism as well as their family and friends. Centennial Park, Ellicott City. $25–$35.

10/8: Robert I. Damie Race for Our Kids
Run, jog, or walk your way through either a 10K, 5K, or family walk this October. All race courses will take you throughout Druid Hill Park and around the zoo. Competitors will receive a shirt and a medal. Make sure to save some of your energy, because participants will also receive a free ticket to the zoo! All proceeds from the race will go to the Herman & Walter Samuelson Children’s Hospital at Sinai, Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics Save-A-Limb Fund, Center for Hope, and The Family Tree. The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, 1 Safari Pl. $15 –$45. 

10/21: Night to Remember Gala
You’re not going to want to miss out on this black-tie event. Start the night off with a bite to eat (appetizers and sweet treats are included with your ticket price) and then head to the silent auction to scope out some items. End your night on the dance floor, but make sure you don’t miss the (yet to be named) guest speaker. All proceeds go toward BOSSIE Social Enterprises, a seed nonprofit that supports thousands of Marylanders through youth mentoring, minority health initiatives, family/human services, and an entrepreneurial/workforce development accelerator program. 5503 Reisterstown Rd. 8:30p.m. $75.

10/21: Casey Cares Rock ‘N’ Roll Bash
Experience a night packed with rock ‘n’ roll at Rams Head Live, featuring the biggest AC/DC tribute band, High Voltage, and a special surprise band that will be announced soon. Ticket proceeds go toward Casey Cares, an organization that provides services for critically ill children and their families. Ram’s Head Live 20 Market Pl. 6:30p.m.–11:30p.m. 

10/28: Believe in Tomorrow Children’s Foundation Port to Fort 6K
Get in the Halloween spirit and dash your way through historic Fort McHenry on this family- friendly 6K. You will have the chance to win prizes and T-shirts, and afterward, party it up at the best post-race party in the state featuring music, food, contests, and even trick-or-treating. Entry fees will benefit the Believe In Tomorrow Children’s Foundation, which provides hospital and housing services to critically ill children and their families. 1215 E. Fort Ave. 8:30a.m. $20 –$30. 

10/28: Walk to End Alzheimer’s
Walk your way toward a cure for Alzheimer’s and dementia. This walk is open to people of all ages, families, and (well behaved) dogs. All participants will receive a flower in a color that correlates to their relationship with the disease, and if you meet the donation criteria, you will receive a T-shirt. While there is no entry fee, participants are encouraged to fundraise. All proceeds benefit the Alzheimer’s Association which works to find a cure for Alzheimer’s and dementiarelated diseases. 118 Shawan Rd., Hunt Valley. 8 a.m.

10/28: Night at the Grove
Celebrate with the 29th Street Community Center at the Peabody Heights Brewery as part of its annual fundraiser. Start off your night with delicious food and
drink, but make sure to save some time to tear up the dance floor. The 29th Street Community Center works to empower and support individuals by creating welcoming, safe, and accessible spaces and programs to amplify the voices of individuals in Baltimore. Peabody Heights Brewery, 401 E. 30th St. 6 p.m.–9 p.m.

11/1: 11th Annual Men’s Basketball Tip-Off Game
Head out to this event to hear O’s legend Cal Ripken Jr., along with some of the greatest coaches in basketball history, talk all things college basketball. Attendees will receive lunch before the panel starts. Proceeds will go toward the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, which helps America’s most underserved and distressed communities and supports and advocates for children. 700 Aliceanna St. 11:30a.m.

11/4: Shelley’s House Glitz & Glam Roaring Twenties Casino Night Gala
Wear your best to travel back in time 100 years to a night of glitz and glamour at this 1920s themed gala. Test your luck at the casino table or dance the night away to jazzy tunes from the era. Whatever you do, don’t miss out on the mouth-watering delicacies, inspired by the ’20s. Proceeds will go toward Shelley’s House, a charity that provides support and services to veterans and homeless and underserved youth. 10431 Twin Rivers Rd., Columbia. 6p.m.–9p.m. $75. 

11/11: Le Diner Bleu
Dress your best at this black-tie optional event (with a splash of “Bleu” required) where you will get the chance to dance the night away after a luxurious dinner. The event is held at a secret location, and will feature a silent auction and entertainment, including a special performance from Grammy- and Oscar-winning artist Regina Bell. Proceeds will benefit the CADE Foundation, an organization that works to help families overcome infertility. Secret Location. $150 –$250. 

September 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) jazz teacher Ed Hrybyk met one of his students face-to-face.

Quinn, an incoming freshman at BSA and a saxophone player, asked his dad to drive him to Wyman Park Dell so he could safely practice outside with other musicians. In a time where being a student meant suffering through long days on Zoom and self-paced study, Quinn finally was able to play for his teacher and receive live feedback.

“Unless [the students] get real playing experience, what are they really going to learn?” says Hrybyk, a bass player. “They’re going to be hindered.”

This wasn’t Hrybyk’s first foray into outdoor music making. In April 2020, he began hosting intimate porch concerts to bring live music to Baltimore’s neighborhoods while also helping out artists who had previously made their living off of paying gigs at indoor venues.

He noticed, however, that there was no place for a larger group to get together. Prior to the pandemic, there had been a handful of jam sessions open to musicians looking to hone their craft, but they were all held indoors, mostly bars. Hrybyk’s solution: a jam session, open to the public both to listen and to play along, held at a different Baltimore park every week.

“All of a sudden, folks were able to safely be outside and enjoy music, and they were also being introduced to outdoor spaces they might not have ever known,” says Sam Novak, a frequent audience member at these jazz jams.

Connecting Baltimoreans to local music and green spaces proved so successful, Hrybyk decided to continue it even after COVID-19 restrictions lifted. And he’s now added a sponsorship element so organizations or individuals can support the musicians while raising awareness for a cause.

During the height of the pandemic, Novak’s sister lost her partner to COVID-19, and with restrictions high, they feared they wouldn’t be able to have a proper memorial for him. Hrybyk allowed the family to sponsor a jazz jam, which not only brought people out to spend time together, but also felt like a fitting celebration
of her partner’s life.

“It was a really beautiful moment of friends and family from all over the place, but also folks from Baltimore who wanted to enjoy jazz, showing up and honoring, grieving, and celebrating in a way that felt really exciting and different than a regular funeral,” says Novak.

Since then, Hrybyk also has used sponsored jams to gather resources for the Dot Project, a Baltimore nonprofit that provides access to menstrual care, and to raise awareness for local organizations like the No Boundaries Coalition.

As the jam session is held in a different location each week, Hrybyk and various musicians from around the area act as an improvisational traveling band, providing entertainment to their neighbors who live near the parks. It’s free to join in and play or just watch, and it’s only a few hours long, making it a perfect outing for young people and families.

“You don’t have to go downtown. You don’t have to find parking. It’s right in your backyard,” Hrybyk said. “I’m literally bringing music to the community.”

Back in 2018, Stephanie Persichitti was bartending in Baltimore—but art was on her mind. She had recently launched Stephanie’s Strings to share her string art with the world, and there was a lot to consider: To form an LLC or not? How much to post on Instagram? Where around town could she sell her work?

Like a true millennial, she got a group chat going with some fellow maker friends. Right away, Persichitti found relief in sharing resources, tips, and connections. Surely there are other small business owners with the same challenges, who could benefit from a sense of community, she thought.

On a whim, she made an Instagram account, Makers of Maryland, added creatives of all kinds (from photographers to knitters), and began promoting her friends’ work.

Five years later, what began as an anonymous Instagram account is a thriving community of local makers. The group continues to share and support each other online, but they’re also building a strong in-person presence. They have regular pop-up shops, often at The Avenue at White Marsh, where anywhere from 50 to 100 makers take turns working the shop for a few hours a month. There they can not only connect with their peers but interact with customers in a way that isn’t possible at online shops like Etsy.

“Stephanie is a go-getter with a limitless amount of talent, energy, and vision,” says Benjamin Charlick, co-owner of The Weird Emporium. “She developed this vibrant organization as a space for all Maryland creatives, no matter the passion.”

For Persichitti, 2023 is all about expansion; she’s looking forward to ramping up vendor events, meet-ups, pop-ups, and styled shoots. She’s intent on finding even more ways to help creatives be self-sufficient, like bringing in small business CPAs and graphic designers who can help with branding.

“My goal is to facilitate community and support Maryland makers,” says Persichitti. “If I can save someone time or share a connection, that’s amazing—it’s all about consistently bringing valuable information and opportunities to people who are living out their creative dreams from childhood.”

Richard “Rick” Bernstein, 66, spent most of his career managing money, not vegetables. About six years ago, the devout Christian left his job as an investment manager (and one of the early partners at Brown Advisory) “to become a gardener” full-time at First Fruits Farm, the nonprofit he began. The farm grows food solely for those with food insecurity on 281 acres in northern Baltimore County. It donates a million pounds of potatoes, almost 700,000 pounds of green beans and sweet corn, 100,000 pounds of tomatoes, and 4,000 dozen eggs annually, partnering with the Maryland Food Bank, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Catholic Charities USA, and dozens of other food banks, pantries, churches, and schools. To accomplish this, volunteers—from schools, churches, and businesses—come every year to the farm to harvest, help, and learn about agricultural life.

You left a career in investment management. How did you become a farmer?
The beginning, 25 years ago, starts with my family moving out here, having a garden on a third of an acre. Then we moved to the farm that became First Fruits Farm—there were several transitions along the way. Our church got involved [distributing food to those in need]. It was an acre, and then it went to two acres, and then four acres, and then eight acres. And then my pastor was like, “Time out, you’re killing me. This is too much, you know, you need to be a separate nonprofit.” So, we became a nonprofit in 2004. Today we have nine full-time and several part-time staff that run production. Last year we had about 16,000 volunteers that came here. We have about 60 or so what I call “regular” volunteers. Those are the men and women that make the place go.

How much and what kind of food do you grow?
Most years, we grow about 2 to 2 1/2 million pounds of produce. The big six are potatoes, sweet corn, snap beans, cabbage, zucchini, and tomatoes. And then it drops down from those big six to smaller quantities of peppers, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkins, and things like that. But it’s designed, after many years of working with the food banks, to be food that people like to eat, that’s versatile, travels well, and can keep for a while unrefrigerated.

So potatoes instead of, say, micro-cilantro?
In the early days, we did grow a lot of lettuces, and then what we found was that by the time it got to, you know, Manna Bible Baptist Church in Pimlico, within several days they were telling me they had to throw it all out, which was awful. So, we stopped. Now with the stuff that we send them, you know, green beans, if they’re kept in a cool dark place they can have them for the better part of three or four days. So that’s how what we call “the menu” developed.

You only have nine full-time employees and are run largely by volunteers. How does the process work?
For many, many years, the drill was we’d get thousands of people out here for two or three hours, harvest mass quantities of fill-in-the-blank, put it in these big totes that hold anywhere between 500 to 1,000 pounds depending on the density of the vegetable, and then ship it to the food banks or to places like big churches in West Virginia. And then people would do the packing and packaging themselves. When COVID hit, everything changed. [Those places] said, “Hey, we can’t have people in the warehouse. You can’t send us anything other than finished product; you’ll have to do all the bagging and the boxing.” So that was an enormous unscheduled expense, over $100,000 that we didn’t plan on. That was tough; we had to figure out how to do it. We didn’t have a building. [One was completed in 2023.] We’d be outside at night with all these Calvert Hall kids with headlights shining in the parking lot, bagging 25,000 pounds of green beans.

It seems like the farm is doing a lot more than growing corn and tomatoes. Does it still have that larger purpose for you?
The farm needs to be serving more. There are so many needs. And part of it is building community, real Christian community. So how do we bring people from all different communities together? What’s so beautiful about the farm is it is a platform for people of varying backgrounds to get together for a short period of time, two to three hours, to do something in common together, and it’s going to bless other people. Hopefully some good things come. It takes time. We don’t want to be perceived as if we have all the answers. And so we’ve tried to position the farm as a resource for you, if it works for you. [My wife] Carol said to me, “God is always doing a new thing. And maybe you need to be more attuned when He wants you to focus on something different this season. It’s not your place. It’s His farm. You’re just the steward.”

On an early spring visit to Power52 headquarters in Howard County, Cherie Brooks offers me a tour of the nonprofit organization she co-founded in 2015, which is dedicated to training at-risk individuals for careers in the clean energy industry.

We pass framed articles and photos on the walls of Power52 graduates, of Brooks and co-founder Ray Lewis in business suits, of staff and students out in the community. We peek into a classroom where a few students are working on computers. With wraparound services that include résumé building, headshots, career coaching, and financial literacy, students leave Power52 empowered to succeed.

“It’s a quiet day today,” says Brooks, dressed in jeans, Uggs, and a bright pink cardigan. We step into a studio where the “Testimonial Tuesdays” and “Solar Sidebar” episodes, which can be viewed on Power52Official’s YouTube channel, are recorded by students and staff. Then we settle into her office to talk about solar.

Chatting with Brooks in her office, where stacks of paper mix with photos of her children—three, plus a nephew who lives with the family and works at Power52—and one of her dog, feels like catching up with an old friend. She is lively in conversation, all bright eyes, warm smile, and infectious enthusiasm. We’re interrupted by a call from her daughter’s pediatrician. “Excuse me for just a second,” she says, then gets a call from her son’s school. With family business quickly tended to, we get back to the matter at hand. No one multi-tasks like a working mom. But she gets right down to business.

“The core of our curriculum is entry level construction, but our sweet spot is solar PV installation,” says Brooks, referring to the process of setting up a solar photovoltaic (PV) system to generate electricity from sunlight. She says that PV installation “offers numerous benefits, including reduced electricity bills, decreased reliance on fossil fuels, and environmental sustainability.”

It’s also a great career path. Power52 Energy Institute’s 16-week training program totals 320 hours taught in cohorts—groups of roughly 20 students, mostly male. Upon graduation, attendees are career ready. Power52 boasts an employment rate of 81 percent with an average starting wage of $18.50 per hour. And the training translates to college credits through newly established partnerships with Pittsburgh Technical College, Howard County Community College, and Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. Once a student graduates from the Energy Institute, they are qualified for the Power Pathways program, which offers additional training and stackable credentials.

Power52’s graduates are much needed in today’s workforce. The solar industry is one of the fastest-growing employment sectors in the United States. In Maryland alone, the Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019 (HB1158), which aims for a 50-percent renewable energy goal by 2030, will bring 20,000 jobs to the state. That number will grow with a goal of 100 percent renewable energy statewide by 2040.

Further, the Justice40 Initiative, established by President Joe Biden in January 2021, will send 40 percent of all federal climate funding to disadvantaged communities—those overburdened by environmental pollution and outdated infrastructure—to focus on everything from investments in clean energy and efficiency to training and workforce development. Power52 is perfectly positioned to ride this surging wave of interest in renewable energy.

But Brooks had the vision for community transformation through clean energy development long before these federal and state programs were formed. It was in 2015, after the uprising resulting from the death of Freddie Gray, that Power52’s foundation was laid. Raised in West Baltimore, Brooks felt the impact of Gray’s death, and the riots, deeply.

“Growing up in the trenches, inserted in the mayhem, life can go either way,” she explains. As a teenager, Brooks experienced that mayhem, with the loss of three girlfriends, all to gun violence, and others who became addicted to drugs. “You go to a party and end up ducking and dodging bullets. That’s just how it was.”

Brooks was determined her own journey would be different. “I held onto a steadfast belief I was meant to serve the people, to make a difference in their lives through some sort of ministry,” she says. “To make it out, unscathed, that’s a really big deal. The Lord saw fit to bless me in that way, so I need to pull someone else up, by any means necessary.”

At the time of the uprising, Brooks, who had a background in radio, real estate, and the telecom industry, was working in the solar industry with her then-husband, Rob Wallace (the couple divorced in 2020). She hosted “Solar Summits,” bringing awareness of renewable energy innovations to nonprofits. “Clean and renewable energy was still in its infancy,” she says. “There was a significant demand for skilled workers in the burgeoning field.” And she knew a workforce could be developed in Baltimore communities.

“There was an untapped pool of talented individuals who had the potential to thrive,” she says, “if only they were given the right training and opportunity to showcase their abilities.”

To her it was clear: Creating jobs in the clean energy sector could provide needed relief for the city. “I needed to get the opportunity to individuals from these marginalized communities,” she says. “They’re looking for careers that can be fast-tracked. How do we do this?”

Knowing she and Wallace needed a strong advocacy partner, Brooks reached out to NFL Hall of Famer Lewis, who had recently retired from the Ravens. “I knew he was passionate about creating opportunities in the city,” she says. “The timing was perfect.”

By September 2015, Power52 Foundation—named for Lewis’ number and 52 weeks of the year because, says Brooks, “People need jobs every day, every week, all year”—was approved with nonprofit status, and Brooks named CEO.

Lewis and Wallace developed a for-profit solar venture, the profits of which would support the foundation. With Lewis’ support, Brooks’ vision quickly gained attention. “We positioned ourselves well and brought the right players onboard,” Brooks says.

A 2017 partnership with Living Classrooms Foundation’s POWER House created immediate impact. With funding from the Ravens and Under Armour, POWER House (formerly the Carmelo Anthony Center), included an indoor training field and adult education center. The solar-powered community center, or Resiliency Hub, the first of its kind in the country, would serve as a safe space for the public housing community during power outages and weather-related emergencies.

“We started our first training sessions at POWER House,” Brooks says of the program that became the Power52 Energy Institute. “With Living Classrooms taking the lead, we found our footing and received two grants”—the first, from the Institute for Sustainable Communities; the second from the State of Maryland’s Higher Education Commission, which invited Power52 Energy Institute to apply for designation as the first private career school in the state.

The process was daunting. “Imagine an application this thick,” Brooks says, holding her thumb and index finger a couple of inches apart. “I stared at it with a tear rolling down my cheek, feeling defeated—how can I get this done? But it was our chance to be the first. It set a fire in me. I thought, ‘I can do this; I’m built for this.’”

The application was approved. “With grant funding and a new designation, we were off to the races,” Brooks recalls.

After the POWER House grant was complete, Power52’s structure evolved. The foundation became independent of Lewis and Wallace’s for-profit venture. Though neither man is engaged in operations, Lewis continues to support Power52 through public advocacy and its annual golf outing, LIVE! On the Green, which he co-chairs. More changes were necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw POWER House close and the foundation move to remote instruction.

Today, 80 percent of training takes place online, with the remaining 20 percent—hands-on building instruction—in person at Power52 headquarters. To date, more than 200 participants have graduated from Power52 Energy Institute, benefiting not only from learning a new trade, but soft skills to carry them forward.

“We have Professional Tuesdays, where we hold 30-minute career-building workshops,” says Power52’s junior operations manager, Lorielle Moore. “How to prepare a résumé, how to answer difficult questions, nonverbal cues and gestures, how to deal with a difficult co-worker. We leave it open to discussion as well. Our students come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives, and we don’t want them to lose their uniqueness.”

Some students, looking to learn a new trade, find Power52 on their own. Others are led there for a second chance through relationships with parole officers and judges, while others discover the opportunity through community engagement. Whatever the route, Brooks is ready to meet them.

“Ms. Brooks is very hands on. If we are out in the community doing outreach, she will go around finding people and bring them to me for information,” says Moore. “She’s kind, she trusts her staff, and she’s here at Power52 every day, ready to give 1,000 percent,” she continues. “She fights for Power52, and fights for the individuals we serve.”

Brooks not only fights for the program’s participants, she also holds them—and her staff and herself—to high standards. “The culture here at Power52 is based on authenticity,” Brooks says. “Being resilient. Being true.” Her goal? To deliver on every promise made to the institute’s students. “We put everything in place for you to get there; now the onus is on you, the student…you do your part. We are not going to fall short on our part, period.”

She continues, “What drives us is the results, the impact. The change we see.”

Power52 alumnus Rainey Stewart, 43, confirms that Brooks’ word is her bond. After a 15-year career in the biotech industry, Stewart, father of three young children, was unemployed and homeless in the summer of 2018. Working part-time in construction, he discovered Power52 doing promotion in a Baltimore park while playing basketball with his brother. He decided to give it a try and signed up and took the test the next day.

A graduate of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Stewart was confident he had the skills to succeed, but nervous. “It was my last hope,” he says. “They called and welcomed me to the program and I just thought, ‘This is awesome.’”

Stewart found that Brooks, and the program, delivered on every promise, and then some. “While in the program I was offered an internship with Pivot Energy. Power52 has a policy of providing a stipend to students with internships lasting up to four weeks,” he explains, “but mine was a three-month internship. I couldn’t afford to leave my construction job, stay in the program, and keep the internship. So I went to Cherie…and was offered a paid position at Power52 until Pivot hired me. Without their resources, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in today,” he says. “I’m eternally grateful.”

Since completing Power52’s training in 2019, Stewart has been with Pivot Energy for four years. He helped bring solar power to Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., and is now an analyst in project development. He’s working to make his department more efficient and has helped create a pipeline between Power52 and Pivot Energy. “I’m an example of how it works,” he says.

While not a religious organization, the power behind Power52’s mission is all about faith. The granddaughter of a bishop, Brooks says, “I’m a church girl, I like to say ‘GPK’—GrandPreacher’s Kid,” she says. Her family church, McKinney’s Memorial Holiness Church in Sandtown, was built by her grandfather. It stands just a few paces from the site of Freddie Gray’s passing. That GPK upbringing guides Brooks’ purpose.

“There’s not a thing I can’t do,” she says, “but it’s not me, it’s the Lord. Being in prayer and having faith in what you can’t see, that’s everything for me,” she continues. “Every day when I wake up, I ask the Lord to order my steps, to give me wisdom. And that’s what I give all of my success to.”

Whether steered by divine guidance or her own momentum, Brooks’ steps have steadily increased Power52’s reach. “It’s all about bringing people from disinvested communities an opportunity for livelihood, for a better quality of life,” says Pradnya Haldipur, vice president of development and communications for the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC). “Cherie is always homing in on what’s the best way to get this done, to get the results we want.”

Haldipur first met Brooks in 2022, when Brooks was a guest speaker at an ISC board meeting. “Cherie has amazing energy, she’s thoughtful and ambitious, and lacks ego,” Haldipur continues. “It’s like she has that thought in her head at all times: ‘What opportunity can we create?’”

“If I had one word to describe Cherie, it would be ‘Powerhouse,’” says Stacey Grant, a program navigator with Justice40 Accelerator (or J40 Accelerator), an organization that was founded in response to President Biden’s Justice40 executive order. J40 Accelerator partners with workforce and community development concerns like Power52, guiding them through complex federal grants and other philanthropic funding opportunities.

Generous with both community and technical expertise, “Cherie is an amazing leader,” Grant continues. “She raises questions, frames solutions…she’s willing to democratize what she knows with her peers.”

What’s unique about Brooks, ISC’s Haldipur says, is her humility. “I have rarely come across someone like her who works at making it not about her.” She continues, “This is what we need. More powerful women, more women of color like Cherie, who are going to push forward, and do it because they’re looking to make their corner of the universe better. And her corner of the universe has gotten better through her effort.”

For Brooks, the beauty in the work is bearing witness to human transformation.

“Many individuals come to us with a skewed or jaded perception, not ready to trust, especially our students who are returning citizens [from the adjudication system]. We have hard conversations. It’s our job to remove the barriers,” she says. “We reside on the front lines of environmental justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion—we’re right there. It’s just part of our DNA at Power52.”

“Ultimately, Cherie has been a boon to the city of Baltimore,” says ISC’s Haldipur. “She’s not going to be satisfied until she’s helped as many people as she can.”

Providing a platform for human transformation is hard, tiring, emotional work, but Brooks wouldn’t have it any other way. “My mother says ever since I could talk, I would say ‘I can do it, Mommy, I can do it.’ I always wanted more. At a family reunion, I was voted In Charge of Being in Charge,’” she laughs. “But as our staff says, ‘If not us, then who?’ We love what we do. I really love what I do.”