Archive

Today, members of the 2016 cohort of OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows gathered to hear from two current fellows, Deborah Ramsey and LaMarr Shields. Ramsey, whose program, Unified Efforts, focuses on out-of-school time violence and bullying prevention, brought two of her students, LaMontez and Tayshawn,” to the gathering. LaMontez said Unified Efforts was his second home, and […]

Recently, as part of the Nikki Perlow Foundation’s Forest of Hope project, artist and 2004 OSI Community Fellow Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen led a group of more than 1,000 people who created an outdoor art installation honoring those in recovery from addiction. Teams of people led by people in recovery painted the trunks of 52 trees at […]

Unified Efforts, the program started by 2016 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, Deborah Ramsey, will hold several violence reduction and bullying prevention activities with K-12 students as part of the organizations “24/7 Bullying Prevention Awareness Campaign.” As part of her fellowship, Ramsey, who is a retired police officer, established the Penn North Violence Prevention Youth Center in […]

Recently, 2014 OSI Community Fellow, Van Brooks, was named Director of The Governor’s Office of Service and Volunteerism. Brooks, who founded Safe Alternative Foundation for Education Inc (SAFE) to help young people from the Franklin Square neighborhood by promoting education and life skills, will continue to lead the foundation while in this new position. Brooks […]

On November 9, Baltimore Green Space will host “Fantastic Forest Forum” from 9am-2:30 pm at the Vollmer Center at Cylburn Arboretum. The day will include TED Talk-style information sessions on the importance of forest patches as well as a panel on policy. Baltimore Green Space was started by 2007 OSI Community Fellow, Miriam Avins to […]

Last week, Tara Huffman, director of OSI’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, took part in a panel discussion hosted by the Innocence Project, “Innocence Denied: Exploring the Intersection of Race, Bail and Guilty Pleas” at the Congressional Black Caucus. The panel, which also included Rodney Roberts, an exoneree and founder of the Rodney Roberts Foundation; Adam […]

This month’s Baltimore Magazine features a great piece on the Baltimore Youth Kinetic Energy Collective or BYKE, which was started by 2015 OSI Community Fellow, Chavi Rhodes. Rhodes and co-founder Alphonso Blackstone wanted to create a safe space for young cyclists that also gave them an opportunity to learn bicycle mechanics, practice respectful safe ridership […]

On Thursday, September 21, Tara Huffman, director of OSI’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program, will be part of a panel discussion, “Innocence Denied: Exploring the Intersection of Race, Bail and Guilty Pleas” at the Congressional Black Caucus. Huffman oversees the work of the Coalition for a Safe and Just Maryland, which works toward an alternative […]

This week, Sarah Evans, senior program officer with the Open Society Public Health Program, published an op-ed “If Philly is serious about saving drug users’ lives, it will open a supervised injection site” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Supervised injection sites (or facilities — SIFs) are monitored spaces where people receive medical supervision and care while […]