Banner Neighborhoods Community Corporation
$35,000 / 2019 / Community Development
Banner Neighborhoods provides low-income senior and disabled homeowners with home repairs, handicap modifications and tasks that involve climbing ladders or require heavy lifting. Relieving homeowners of the cost and difficulty of completing home repairs and maintenance enables them to age in place and retain their community ties and social networks. The exterior house improvements, and in some cases tree and vine removal in yards, are critical to keeping senior’s home compliant with code, avoiding environmental citations and municipal fines that unpaid can lead to tax sale and loss of a home.
Baltimore Robotics League, fiscally sponsored by the Fund for Educational Excellence
$75,000 / 2019 / Education
In its sixth year, the Baltimore City Robotics League will continue to expand the STEM pipeline by sponsoring at least 90 FIRST Lego, Jr. FIRST Lego, VEX IQ, and VEX extracurricular robotics teams for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Directed by a City Schools Robotics Coordinator, The League provides intensive training/equipment for coaches; sponsors and provides fees for local, state and national robotics tournaments; and will launch a summer camp for the first time in 2020. The League expects to send 8 City teams to the World VEX Competition and the US Open Championships.
Baltimore Kids Chess League, Inc.
$85,000 / 2019 / Education
Sponsored by the Abell Foundation and Baltimore City Public Schools since 2004, Baltimore Kids Chess offers an academic extracurricular program that serves more than 750 children from kindergarten to 12th grade in 40 schools. Teams practice weekly under the auspices of trained chess coaches and compete in novice, local, state and national chess tournaments sponsored by the United States Chess Federation. Baltimore City chess players have gained acclaim for City Schools as a powerhouse; three Kids Chess League teams are expected to advance to the 2020 USCF Nationals.
Baltimore Green Space
$55,000 / 2019 / Community Development
Baltimore Green Space (BGS) is Baltimore’s environmental land trust. It promotes vibrant neighborhoods and a healthy environment through land preservation, research, and community advocacy. This grant provides support for BGS staff efforts to coordinate forest care education to at least 300 Baltimore City residents through workshops and continue to study the value of forest patches for storm water management, heat island effects, wildlife, and climate resilience.
ACLU Foundation of Maryland, Inc.
$80,000 / 2019 / Education
In spring 2020, the Maryland Legislature will tackle the aggressive “Blueprint” educational policy and school funding formula recommendations from The Kirwan Commission. This session promises to be a once in a generation opportunity to reapply an equitable statewide educational funding formula, particularly for those children living in concentrated poverty. The ACLU has been critical to maintaining educational funding over the last three decades, and will use its core strategies of advocating to policy-makers and school systems, informing and engaging parents, students and community groups, and for the first time in over a decade, litigating. The goals are to pass a new state funding formula with additional dollars for schools with high concentrated poverty, and to pass the $2.2 billion bill for School Construction.
