OSI Awards Nearly $400,000 to Baltimore Community Fellows for Work with Disadvantaged Groups

BALTIMORE—A former shipyard welder mentoring at-risk middle school students and a community activist overseeing a hip-hop recording studio for teens in a tough neighborhood are two of the eight people selected as fellows in the Baltimore Community Fellowship Program.

Each of this year’s fellows will receive $48,750 to work full-time for 18 months implementing creative strategies to assist marginalized or disadvantaged communities in Baltimore City. Their work will focus on pervasive problems in the city’s underserved communities.

The Class of 2005 fellows will take on a wide variety of projects, including re-establishing a theater program at the former Lake Clifton High School and setting up “free stores” to provide no-cost items in low-income communities. One fellow, the wife of a murder victim, will work with families of other murder victims and families of prison inmates to cultivate new leaders to work to abolish the death penalty.

“The Baltimore Community Fellowship Program has identified a dynamic group of individuals who will bring new energy and ideas to Baltimore to address the needs of underserved communities,” said OSI-Baltimore Director Diana Morris. “These social entrepreneurs don’t just question the status quo but lay the groundwork for a more just, opportunity-rich city.”

Fellow Bernard Fayall, who worked as a welder in a Baltimore shipyard for more than 30 years, has spent much of his time recently volunteering to help young people at Garrison Middle School in West Baltimore. Based in the school basement, the organization Fayall started provides a safe haven for students and seeks to find mentors to guide students outside their classrooms.

“I’m trying to deal with these kids who come at risk socially and academically and make them feel better about themselves,” says Fayall, 51. “My goal is to connect them all with mentors and begin to deal with some of the problems they have.”

Fellow Michelle Blue has spent countless hours in recent years working with teenagers and young adults in the Harwood community, where she grew up. She will use her fellowship to nurture the Follow Your Dreams recording studio she set up in a small community center on Boone Street. Young people from the neighborhood can use the studio to record music and express their feelings about their lives and their community, which has been hard hit by violence and drugs.

“We’re creating alternatives to getting involved in a life of negativity,” says Blue, 33. “And there’s nothing that connects with them as much as music. It’s their language. They eat and sleep their music, and we’re tapping into that.”

Fellow Michelle DeBruin, a teacher with an alternative high school program in Hampden, will take students out of the city on wilderness trips to West Virginia to develop leadership and independence. She will also work with the students to develop public art projects such as mosaics and benches in Hampden and other areas in Baltimore. She will work with students at the Community Learning for Life Program, an alternative school that emphasizes independent learning and internships.

“My goals are for these students to take responsibility for themselves and ultimately become positive influence in their community,” says DeBruin, 25.

Another fellow, Najib Jammal, a Spanish teacher at Frederick Douglass High School, will help students develop several community gardens in the city. Students will raise produce and sell it in local farmers’ markets and, potentially, in a student-run mobile market.

Jammal’s work will focus on the Douglass High School community, and those at Baltimore Freedom Academy, Graceland Park-O’Donnell Heights Elementary School and Southside Academy.

This is the eighth consecutive year that the 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 disadvantaged.

Open Society Institute-Baltimore launched the Baltimore Community Fellowships in 1998. This year’s new class brings the total number of fellows to 78. The program now receives support from OSI-Baltimore and several other nonprofit groups and individuals.

More than 220 Baltimore residents applied for this year’s fellowships. A six-person committee selected the eight finalists after an extensive process, including site visits and interviews.

Along with OSI-Baltimore, the Baltimore Community Fellowships receive support from the Cohen Opportunity Fund, the Gloria B. and Herbert M. Katzenberg Charitable Fund, the Hoffberger Foundation, the Foundation for Maryland’s Future, the Commonweal Foundation, and Alison and Arnold Richman.

2005 Baltimore Community Fellows

Peter Babcox – Teacher
Peter will work with the Remington-Guardian Angel Partnership to organize a variety of hands-on, creative, out-of-school projects for young children in the Remington community.

Michelle Blue – Advocate
Michelle will establish Follow Your Dreams Records, with a low-cost professional recording studio, as a tool to give young people in the Harwood community a voice to advocate for social change.

Michelle DeBruin – Teacher
Michelle will lead multi-day wilderness expeditions and facilitate the creation of public art and special events to promote self-exploration for students in the Community Learning for Life Program in Hampden.

Bernard Fayall – Welder
Bernard will provide mentoring services and activities to Garrison Middle School students who are at risk of social or academic failure.

Najib Jammal – Teacher
Najib will develop an urban gardening and business training project that allows students at Frederick Douglass High School, Baltimore Freedom Academy, Southside Academy, and Graceland Park–O’Donnell Heights Elementary School to address public health and nutrition in their school communities. The project aims to empower youth to create change through a network of urban gardening organizations throughout Baltimore City.

Bonnita Spikes – Organizer
Bonnita will work with the families of murder victims and prisoners convicted of murder to identify and cultivate new leaders and voices for the abolition of the death penalty.

Matt Warfield – Data Processor
Matt will establish a network of free stores that will promote reuse by providing donated and salvaged items available at no charge to residents of low-income and other communities.

Christina Youngston – Volunteer Services Manager
Christina has established Unchained Talent, a theater arts program at the former Lake Clifton High School, which hones students’ natural talents, includes students in leadership roles and engages people from the arts and local community to support and guide the students’ development.