Archive

Technology is revolutionizing the nation. But in Baltimore and elsewhere, many recent Latino immigrants are disconnected from the Internet and do not have computers at home.

The Baltimore United Viewfinders is a youth-led arts program teaching young people in East Baltimore to use photography, video and other digital media to address local social justice issues.

A star football player at Loyola Blakefield High School, Van Brooks was just 16 when he broke his neck during a game and woke up at Shock Trauma, paralyzed from the neck down. Undeterred, he eventually founded Safe Alternatives Foundation for Education (SAFE).

As an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University, Patrice Hutton taught creative writing in a city school where she saw first-hand the dearth of creative writing in classrooms in low-income neighborhoods. So in 2008, she started the after-school program Writers in Baltimore Schools.

Ashley Minner, a 2008 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, developed the Native American After School Art Program at the Baltimore American Indian Center, focusing on Baltimore’s Native American youth population.

Lara Law, 2011 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, supported a group of youth leaders in the city to establish a comprehensive drop-in resource center for homeless youth.

Every year in the United States, some 68 billion pounds of food goes to waste. Here in Maryland, urban farmer and 2012 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow Arthur Morgan has devised a way to salvage some of our region’s contribution to that waste—and get healthful foods in the hands of those who need it.

Akil Rahim believes that three-year-olds are all scientists in the making. His project, The George Washington Carver DISCO STEAM Inventurers, helps low-income parents develop and nurture in their preschool-aged children a lifelong interest in science, technology, engineering, art and math.

Working in a twice-forgotten piece of land called the Filbert Street Garden and with neighborhood schools, Jason Reed and willing gardeners transformed the lot while educating students and residents and bringing the community together.

Soccer Without Borders is more than just a tutoring, mentoring, cultural-awareness and youth development program that uses organized soccer to help refugees adjust to life in Baltimore, do well in and out of school, and stay physically and emotionally fit. It is a haven and community-builder for a disparate group of boys and their families.