Nearly $400,000 in Baltimore Community Fellowships Awarded to Eight City Residents to Work with Underserved Groups

EDITORS’ NOTE: Names and projects of the new Community Fellows can be found at the end of this release.

BALTIMORE—A prominent chef training former inmates and a bicycle mechanic helping to provide affordable transportation for city residents are two of the eight people selected as fellows in the OSI-Baltimore Community Fellowships program.

Each of this year’s fellows will receive $48,750 to work full-time for 18 months implementing creative strategies to assist marginalized communities in Baltimore City. Their work will focus on pervasive problems in the city’s underserved communities. This year’s new class brings the total number of Baltimore Community Fellows to 86—the great majority of whom are still actively working in the city.

The Class of 2006 fellows will take on a wide variety of projects, including a youth poetry reading and writing initiative in southwest Baltimore, outreach to and training of the city’s growing refugee population, and a pilot initiative to build parental involvement at Thurgood Marshall Middle School. One fellow, a historian, will use a storehouse of African-American cultural and historical artifacts to engage and motivate disruptive students at Garrison Middle School, to build their self-respect and improve their academic performance.

“This class of fellows comes from diverse backgrounds and has wide-ranging interests, but each has a realistic vision for improving Baltimore,” said OSI-Baltimore Director Diana Morris. “Their projects will make an important difference in communities across the city during the 18 months of their fellowships and beyond.”

Fellow Galen Sampson, who worked recently as the executive chef at the exclusive Harbor Court Hotel, is establishing a culinary training program that will teach cooking skills to ex-prisoners, formerly drug-dependent individuals and homeless people. The “Chefs in the Making” program will operate out of a new Hampden restaurant Sampson has opened. Sampson is launching the program to provide opportunities to the many Baltimore residents with criminal records or drug abuse histories that make it hard to find good jobs.

“I got tired of seeing an endless cycle of watching people who had friends and family members with criminal records and who had absolutely no opportunity to advance out of the lower levels of the workplace,” Sampson says. After his trainees complete a one-year training program, Sampson, 42, will work to place them in jobs. “I will do everything I can to vouch for them, to give them that step up that they need to succeed,” he says.

Fellow Beth Wacks, 30, is an experienced bicycle mechanic who will work with other members of the Velocipede Bike Project and the community to rebuild bikes. The goal is to provide affordable transportation to city residents, while refurbishing bikes that otherwise may be abandoned. The cooperative bike project is operating out of a donated midtown space on West Lanvale Street, where people can barter their time in exchange for bikes.

“In terms of its size, Baltimore is a very bike-able city,” says Wacks. “We can really help get more people transportation if we pump out a lot of affordable bikes.”

Helen Keith, a community activist and daycare provider, will use her fellowship to expose youngsters in southwest Baltimore to the joy of poetry, something she first experienced through an elementary school teacher who often quoted Kipling to his students. She will lead an after-school program, “Promoting Children’s Voices,” for 5th-8th graders, giving them a chance to read poetry and write their own. Poetry “slams” will give the students a chance to “compete” against others, and their poetry will be displayed in creative ways around the community. The program will use poetry to encourage self-expression and teach good English skills.

“I’m hoping this experience builds the children’s ability to deal with their day-to-day struggles,” Keith says of her budding poets. “It can give the children a more positive outlook, and it’s another way to get themselves heard.”

This is the ninth consecutive year that the Baltimore Community Fellowships program has offered grants to as many as 10 area residents annually to design and undertake projects to help make life better for Baltimore’s underserved and marginalized community members.

Open Society Institute-Baltimore launched the Baltimore Community Fellowships in 1998. The program now receives support from OSI-Baltimore and several other foundations and individuals including the Cohen Opportunity Fund, the Gloria B. and Herbert M. Katzenberg Charitable Fund, The Hoffberger Foundation, The Foundation for Maryland’s Future, The Commonwealth Foundation, and Arnold and Alison Richman.

More than 200 Baltimore residents applied for this year’s fellowships. A five-person committee selected the eight finalists after an extensive process, including peer reviews, site visits and interviews.

2006 Baltimore Community Fellows

Luisa C. Bieri de Rios – Teacher and Artist

Luisa will establish Por la Avenida (On the Avenue) as an intergenerational arts program in which newly arrived and older immigrant community members from the ethnically diverse Highlandtown community of east Baltimore will use their cultural traditions and experiences to perform and make art.

Tonya Featherston – Principal

Tonya will establish the Restorative Schools Project to help teachers and administrators to shift from traditional punishment-based disciplinary techniques to problem-solving methods that build confidence in children and create community. Tonya will work with City Springs, Collington Square and Hampstead Hill Academy.

Helen Keith – Daycare Provider

Through Promoting Children’s Voices, Helen will use poetry to help children from the ages of eight to thirteen sharpen their thinking, reading, writing and communication skills. Helen will work in the Washington Village and Pigtown communities of southwest Baltimore.

Kenya Lee – Parent Advocate

Kenya will establish Parents with Power to help parents with children in Baltimore City schools feel confident and comfortable when engaged with the school system so that they can become more helpfully involved to encourage and support their children’s education. She will begin her work in Thurgood Marshall Middle School.

Aisling McGuckin – Nurse

Aisling will establish the Community Health Workers Program to train leaders of the refugee community so that they improve refugees’ access to health-related services.

Philip J. Merrill – Historian

Philip will create The Great Room at Garrison Middle School—a storehouse of African-American cultural and historical artifacts—to engage and motivate 21 African-American males in the Rising Scholars program in building self-respect, confidence and the desire to improve their academic performance.

Galen Sampson – Executive Chef

Galen will establish Chefs in the Making, using his deli and restaurant in Hampden, as a year-long culinary arts apprenticeship program for individuals in transition from addiction, homelessness, and/or the criminal justice system.

Beth Wacks – Master Bicycle Mechanic

Beth will work at Velocipede, a midtown bicycle recycling cooperative where people donate their time in exchange for bikes, advice and tool use, in order to encourage individuals to use the bicycle as affordable and efficient transportation, build a vibrant local bike culture, and make Baltimore more bike-friendly—all with the goal of creating a healthier urban environment.

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