Grants Awarded to Help Baltimore Families and Children

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has award­ed grants to 18 local non­prof­its through its 2013 Bal­ti­more Direct Ser­vices Grants (BDSG) pro­gram. The select­ed orga­ni­za­tions will receive a com­bined $325,000 to pro­vide sum­mer activ­i­ties and pro­grams for hun­dreds of dis­ad­van­taged city youths.

The BDSG pro­gram began in 1995 and has sup­port­ed a wide range of inno­v­a­tive ideas and prac­tices for chil­dren and fam­i­lies through­out the city. The 2013 grants will give youth oppor­tu­ni­ties to get prac­ti­cal work expe­ri­ence, par­tic­i­pate in aca­d­e­m­ic and cul­tur­al enrich­ment and devel­op life and lead­er­ship skills. Many of the pro­grams are geared toward par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren, such as those who are home­less or aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly at risk.

“The pro­grams select­ed this year abound with won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for city youth to con­tin­ue learn­ing dur­ing the sum­mer and even dis­cov­er new skills that will serve them well through­out their lives,” said Sophie Dage­nais, direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s Bal­ti­more Civic Site. ​“We’re thrilled to sup­port activ­i­ties that help chil­dren and fam­i­lies thrive.”

The 2013 BDSG recipients:

• Access Art ($20,000)
  The five-week Youth­light Sum­mer Arts and Media Pro­gram will teach young peo­ple tra­di­tion­al dark­room and dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, mosaics, paint­ing, draw­ing and silk screen­ing. The 25 ele­men­tary and mid­dle school stu­dents who par­tic­i­pate will design and con­struct a mosa­ic to be dis­played in South­west Baltimore’s Mor­rell Park Memo­r­i­al Garden.
   
• Alter­na­tive Direc­tions Inc. ($20,000)
  The Bal­ti­more Con­nec­tors Pro­gram, a nine-week sum­mer expe­ri­ence that match­es chil­dren of incar­cer­at­ed par­ents with com­mu­ni­ty men­tors, will serve 30 youths, ages 6–17, citywide.
   
• Druid Heights Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment ($15,000)
  The eight-week Druid Heights Edu­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al Enrich­ment Sum­mer Fun Camp will offer aca­d­e­m­ic and cul­tur­al enrich­ment, as well as recre­ation­al activ­i­ties, to 60 youths from the Druid Heights and Upton neighborhoods.
   
• Full Gospel Fel­low­ship Church ($20,000)
  The three-month PSY Sum­mer Pro­gram will offer 50 South­ern Park Heights stu­dents in grades K‑8 access to aca­d­e­m­ic, recre­ation­al and enrich­ment activities.
   
• Fusion Part­ner­ship – Lib­er­ty Rec and Tech Cen­ter ($19,783)
  In the Lib­er­ty Rec and Tech Cen­ter After­noon Arts Camp, 300 ele­men­tary and mid­dle school stu­dents from the Howard Park and For­est Park neigh­bor­hoods will expe­ri­ence per­form­ing and visu­al arts enrich­ment activ­i­ties, in addi­tion to read­ing instruc­tion and edu­ca­tion­al trips.
   
• Greater Home­wood Com­mu­ni­ty Cor­po­ra­tion ($10,000)
  Youth attend­ing the three-week By Peace­ful Means (The Naw­al Rajeh Peace Camp) will engage in arts activ­i­ties, devel­op medi­a­tion and con­flict-res­o­lu­tion skills and par­tic­i­pate in trips and recre­ation. The pro­gram will serve 40 youths from the city’s John­ston Square neighborhood.
   
• Junior Achieve­ment ($10,000)
  For six weeks, Junior Achievement’s Mary­land Sum­mer Expe­ri­ence will give work-readi­ness train­ing and finan­cial edu­ca­tion to 70 mid­dle and high school stu­dents who are home­less, in addi­tion to help­ing them devel­op their entre­pre­neur­ship skills.
   
• Mor­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty – Beat the Streets ($20,000)
  Beat the Streets Wrestling Pro­gram of Bal­ti­more, a rig­or­ous res­i­den­tial pro­gram serv­ing 80 youths, com­bines ama­teur wrestling with sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math edu­ca­tion through guid­ed research, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and tutoring.
   
• Out­ward Bound Chesa­peake Bay ($20,000)
  Suc­cess­ful High School Tran­si­tions will take 16 low-income youths on a 10-day, cur­ricu­lum-based sum­mer expe­di­tion that includes about a week of back­pack­ing and one day each of rock climb­ing, indi­vid­ual reflec­tion time and com­mu­ni­ty service.
   
• Parks & Peo­ple ($20,000)
  The six-week SuperKids Camp aims to help ele­men­tary stu­dents in Bal­ti­more City pub­lic schools improve or main­tain their aca­d­e­m­ic skills dur­ing the sum­mer. The pro­gram will serve 825 ris­ing first‑, sec­ond- and third-grade stu­dents enrolled in the city school system.
   
• Paul’s Place ($20,000)
  The Paul’s Place Ele­men­tary School Sum­mer Camp will serve 40 South­west Bal­ti­more youths with aca­d­e­m­ic enrich­ment, recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties and edu­ca­tion­al trips dur­ing eight weeks.
   
• Rob’s Bar­ber­shop Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion ($20,000)
  The five-week Mind­ful Men­tors Plant­i­ng Seeds pro­gram aims to pre­vent sum­mer learn­ing loss while also keep­ing aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly at-risk stu­dent-ath­letes phys­i­cal­ly active. This pro­gram will serve 30 stu­dents from the city’s Square Elementary/​Middle School.
   
• Saint Ignatius Loy­ola Acad­e­my ($20,000)
  The Saint Ignatius Loy­ola Acad­e­my Sum­mer Term is designed to pre­vent sum­mer learn­ing loss for 70 Bal­ti­more City stu­dents. The two-week, tuition-free res­i­den­tial sum­mer camp and four weeks of class­room instruc­tion also aim to broad­en the life expe­ri­ences and well-being of the youths.
   
• St. Fran­cis Neigh­bor­hood Cen­ter ($20,000)
  The Pow­er Project’s Sum­mer of Ser­vice Excur­sion will pro­vide 30 dis­ad­van­taged Reser­voir Hill youths (ages 5–18) with home­work help, tutor­ing, arts enrich­ment, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and life skills sem­i­nars and men­tor­ing in an inten­sive eight-week program.
   
• St. Veron­i­ca Roman Catholic Con­gre­ga­tion ($20,000)
  The six-week St. Veron­i­ca Sum­mer Enrich­ment Acad­e­my will serve stu­dents from Cher­ry Hill/​Patapsco Ele­men­tary-Mid­dle School with aca­d­e­m­ic enrich­ment activ­i­ties to improve grade-lev­el reading.
   
• Urban Alliance Inc. ($20,000)
  Forty at-risk high school seniors will work as paid interns and receive for­mal train­ing and men­tor­ship for six weeks through Sum­mer Work Expe­ri­ence, a com­po­nent of the Urban Alliance’s High School Intern­ship Program.
   
• Vil­lage Learn­ing Place ($10,217)
  The Let’s Invest in Neigh­bor­hood Kids Sum­mer pro­gram is designed to pre­vent sum­mer learn­ing loss for 100 at-risk stu­dents from pre‑K through eighth grade. The six-week pro­gram also pro­motes pos­i­tive social devel­op­ment and engages fam­i­ly and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in programming.
   
• Women in Tran­si­tion ($20,000)
  The Sum­mer Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Train­ing Pro­gram will teach 20 city youths about food-han­dling fun­da­men­tals, food prepa­ra­tion, cus­tomer ser­vice, basic account­ing and lit­er­a­cy over the course of an eight-week paid intern­ship. The pro­gram is geared toward young women (ages 18–21) in fos­ter care.