From Prison Cells to PhD, Inc
From Prison Cells to PhD was created in 2016 to help people with criminal convictions obtain employment and/or postsecondary education (PSE). Clients receive workforce development training, career readiness skills, college application/readiness assistance, and 1-2 years or more of mentoring. Funding from the Abell Foundation will support its Prison to Professional (P2P) program providing these services to individuals recently released from the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC). P2P will serve 80 individuals in several cohorts over the next year virtually and if restrictions allow at some point in-person. Components of the P2P Program include the following: (1) An 8-week workshop; and (2) Ten months of case management which includes weekly peer mentoring, executive coaching, and tutoring.
Food & Water Watch
In light of two decades of water rate hikes and in the face of the public health and economic crises unleashed by COVID-19, more than ever Baltimore City residents need a comprehensive water affordability program to prevent water shut offs. Food & Water Watch will advocate for timely implementation of the Water Accountability and Equity Act signed into law in January 2020. The program bases bills on household income and is designed intentionally to help vulnerable populations and communities of color who are disproportionately affected by the rising cost of water service.
Farm Alliance of Baltimore, Inc.
Farm Alliance of Baltimore will continue to offer a Double Dollars program to incentivize households receiving federal food benefits to spend their dollars on fruits and vegetables at local farm stands, community centers, the Civic Works’ mobile market, and the Waverly Market stall. The target population for this project is low income adults and children who live in Healthy Food Priority Areas, or areas with high food insecurity, and who remain at a significant disadvantage as they have unequal access to resources, especially healthy nutritious food.
Drink at The Well – Hon’s Honey Social Enterprise
Drink at the Well operates a drop-in center that serves vulnerable women in the Curtis Bay community in South Baltimore. The center offers case management, mentoring, financial literacy education, food, clothing and flexible financial assistance in a community that has few resources. In 2018, Drink at the Well launched a social enterprise known as Hon’s Honey, which sells locally-sourced honey and honey-based skin care products and provides employment opportunities for women in The Well’s mentoring program. This grant provides operating support for Hon’s Honey.
Carnegie Institution for Science
BioEYES is a week-long, hands-on biology unit delivered by Carnegie Institution science outreach educators and co-teaching by City Schools science teachers using live fish as subjects. The program meets the Common Core science standards, and it demonstrates—and prepares teachers for—a student-centered lab approach to science instruction. BioEYES allows Baltimore City 8th grade students and teachers access to the world of high caliber, Nobel Prize-level science. In a recent study (Shuda, Butler, Farber, and Vary, 2015), the authors found significant gains in students’ knowledge and attitudes towards science as a result of BioEYES.
It is expected that up to 2,500 8th grade students and 45 science teachers will experience BioEYES in the 2020/2021 school year via online or in person instruction with a goal to produce 8 new Master Teachers.