NPower, Inc.
$100,000 / 2020 / Workforce Development
In 2016, with support from the Abell Foundation and others, NPower replicated its IT training program for low-income young adults in Baltimore. NPower’s core training program provides students with 16 weeks of hands-on classroom instruction in hardware and software. The academic portion focuses on teaching fundamental IT skills, including networking, cloud computing, coding and service management. Following the classroom instruction, students earn their CompTIA certification and have the option to take additional certificate exams. NPower participants then enter a seven-week paid internship, working four days per week, while one day is spent in professional development activities in the classroom. In the coming year, NPower plans to enroll 150 low-income young adults into training, graduating 135 and placing 122 into employment.
Rose Street Community Center
$300,000 / 2020 / Workforce Development
Since February 2000, with support from the Abell Foundation, the Rose Street Community Center (Rose Street) has offered small weekly stipends (no more than $10 a day) to community residents in exchange for participation in daily community cleanups or gang mediation meetings. Last year, Rose Street served more than 120 people per week. Nearly 20% of those served each week (an average of 22 people) reside in Rose Street’s six transitional houses. Those residing in the houses participate daily in community cleanups. Once they have secured employment, Rose Street staff assists them in obtaining permanent housing. Over half of those served each week (approximately 70 people) are high-risk youth ages 15 to 24. Rose Street holds morning meetings with the youth where the youth identify and de-escalate disputes. Rose Street also connects the youth to programs and services available in the community.
Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, Inc.
$35,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
In 2019, Del. Lorig Charkoudian (District 20) introduced legislation in the Maryland General Assembly to limit hospital debt lawsuits for patients owing less than $5000, along with other medical debt lawsuit reforms. The bill did not pass in the abridged session, in part due to concerns that a prohibition may result in unintended consequences for Maryland’s cost-of-care model.
With this grant support, Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition will oversee an econometric research study by health economists at Boston University to calculate the likely effects of a cap on hospital lawsuits at different thresholds. The study’s findings will inform future legislation on medical debt lawsuits in Maryland.
An End to Ignorance, Inc.
$50,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
In March 2020, An End to Ignorance launched a food rescue and distribution effort in Baltimore in response to rising levels of food insecurity at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. Started as a small, neighborhood-based food relief effort in Greenmount West, the program has grown rapidly and now distributes 500-600 twenty-pound boxes of food and household goods through a network of community-based partners throughout the city. This grant provides general operating support for An End to Ignorance.
B-360 STEM Education Program, Fiscally Sponsored by Fusion Partnerships, Inc.
$20,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
B-360 STEM Education is a youth development program that utilizes dirt bike culture to equip youth and young adults with the skills and confidence to pursue STEM opportunities in school and beyond, while also promoting public safety through appropriate dirt bike riding practices. Youth learn and apply engineering theory to build and repair their own dirt bike. This grant provides B-360 with general operating support.
