Vehicles for Change, Inc.
$120,000 / 2020 / Workforce Development
Since 1999, the Abell Foundation has supported Vehicles for Change in making low-cost cars available to low-income job seekers in Baltimore City. With funding from Abell, VfC plans to award 40 repaired and Maryland-inspected cars to Baltimore City residents referred by the following sponsoring agencies: Center for Urban Families, Humanim, Living Classrooms, JOTF’s Project Jumpstart, and the Biotechnical Institute of Maryland.
WYPR-Your Public Radio Corporation
$12,000 / 2020 / Environment
Baltimore and Maryland face critically important and increasingly difficult environmental issues and public health challenges while news organization coverage has shrunk dramatically over the last decade. WYPR, Baltimore’s local radio station, offers “The Environment in Focus,” a weekly program providing listeners with engaging and informative stories about the environment and environmental issues, from COVID and climate change, sea level rise, and endangered species to relevant federal rulings, state policy analysis and city actions. This grant pays the full production costs of the weekly radio program.
Youth Empowered Society, Fiscally Sponsored by Maryland Philanthropy Network
$100,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
The YES drop-in center serves homeless youth ages 14 – 25, providing counseling, peer support, connections to resources, and a safe place for youth to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, laundry facilities, and access to phones and computers, among other things. YES staff and partner agencies provide employment counseling and job placement support; housing assistance; case management; assistance accessing public benefits; access to health care; legal services; and leadership development opportunities. This grant will support the construction and relocation costs associated with the YES Center’s move to a new, larger building that will better meet the needs of the youth it serves.
B’More Clubhouse, Inc.
$30,000 / 2020 / Health and Human Services
B’more Clubhouse is certified as a psychiatric rehabilitation program. It operates like a community center, where members have the opportunity to build a structure and support system that helps them obtain employment, further education, and affordable housing. As Clubhouse members, program participants contribute to the decision-making and implementation of all Clubhouse operations. This grant supports B’more Clubhouse’s general operations.
Baltimore City Health Department, Fiscally Sponsored by Baltimore Civic Fund
$250,000 / 2020 / Workforce Development
The Baltimore City Health Department, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED), Baltimore Corps, Jhipiego, and Healthcare Access Maryland, is launching a $12.4 million initiative to control the transmission of COVID-19 through contact tracing and public health education outreach. The initiative will hire 300 unemployed Baltimore residents and train them as contact tracers and community health workers, who will work for up to eight months, earning $38,000 a year plus benefits. Those trained will build Baltimore’s public health infrastructure, helping to coordinate care for residents needing assistance. With support from MOED, those trained will be placed into unsubsized employment.
