Archive

The Choice Program at UMBC, an OSI-Baltimore grantee, has partnered with Starbucks on a new outlet near Johns Hopkins Hospital in East Baltimore that features an “Opportunity Café,” an in-store job training program with a classroom built right into the coffee shop. The idea is to teach people in the surrounding East Baltimore community basic life […]

Read the great profile in the Christian Science Monitor of OSI-Baltimore advisory board member, Joe Jones, founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF). In the piece, published in the Monitor’s “People Making a Difference” section, Jones talks about his struggles growing up – his absent father, his heroin addiction and multiple incarcerations […]

In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, “MSDE school discipline proposal fails students,” the Maryland Coalition to Reform School Discipline claims that, while the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) acknowledges that African American students and those with disabilities are disproportionately suspended throughout the state, their proposed solution to the State Board of Education does nothing […]

In an op-ed recently published in the Baltimore Sun, Scott Nolen, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Drug Addiction Treatment program responds to Governor Hogan declaring Maryland in a “state of emergency” over the opioid crisis. “If this were a hurricane or a flash flood, we would not be blaming victims for their predicament or arguing about whether […]

Mayor Catherine Pugh released her administration’s transition report in which her team not only lays out a vision for Baltimore City that focuses on improving transportation, strengthening the school system, increasing small and minority-owned businesses, and improving the health and quality of all neighborhoods, but also gives special recognition to “stakeholders such as the Open […]

This week Justice Policy Institute, an OSI-Baltimore grantee, released “Raising the Age: Shifting to a Safer and More Effective Juvenile Justice System,” which shows promising results from states that have raised the age of those who can be absorbed into the juvenile justice system. According to the report, in the past 10 years, half of the […]

This week, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency in response to the exploding opioid overdose crisis, pledging an additional $10 million for substance use resources. While it’s not yet clear how this extra funding will be used, OSI-Baltimore welcomed the news. “It is great to see the Governor putting more funding into […]

This week’s Baltimore City Paper profiles the Baltimore chapter of Soccer Without Borders (SWB), an international sports program that uses soccer to engage underserved immigrant communities that was brought to Baltimore City by 2011 OSI-Baltimore Fellow, Jill Pardini. In Baltimore, SWB is an after school and summer sports program that includes “soccer, homework help, dinner […]