Baltimore Community Rowing
Reach High Baltimore, a project of Baltimore Community Rowing, was founded in 2011 to bring the sport of rowing to Baltimore City middle and high school students. The program provides programming year-round and serves about 125 students a year. This grant supports the program’s efforts to increase enrollment from the neighborhoods closest to the Baltimore Rowing Center, by funding a second bus route, which will provide transportation to students living in Cherry Hill and Westport.
Advocates for Children and Youth
Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY) is an independent organization dedicated to promoting the interests of children and families in Maryland through research, policy development, community outreach, media relations, and government relations. ACY is one of the leading champions of policies in Maryland that advance the interests of children across a broad range of issues, including education, child welfare, juvenile justice, and health care. This grant supports ACY’s child welfare program, which focuses on the needs of foster and homeless youth in Maryland.
The Work First Foundation
With funding from the Abell Foundation, in 2009, America Works (through its nonprofit Work First Foundation) launched the Baltimore Ex-Offender Reentry Employment Program. The program provides a two-week-long job-readiness workshop for cohorts of six to seven ex-offenders. The program targets ex-offenders under 40 years of age, and those who have been recently released from prison or jail. To date,1,318 ex-offenders have graduated from the two-week training course, with 804 being placed into jobs (a 61% job placement rate). Participants earned an average of $9.39 at placement, with 65 percent remaining employed for six months or more. Since June 2017, the Baltimore City court system has been referring low-income individuals to the program as they await trial, rather than jailing them because they cannot afford to pay bail. To date, 305 pretrial defendants have enrolled into the program. Of those, 227 have gone to trial, with 78 percent experiencing a positive outcome.
Whitelock Community Farm, Fiscally Sponsored by Fusion Partnerships, Inc.
Whitelock Community Farm, over its 10 year history, has harvested over 40,000 pounds of organic produce. Distribution sites include a Reservoir Hill farm stand, neighborhood mobile market sites, community supported agriculture (CSA) program, a city wide farmers market and local restaurants. This grant provided support for infrastructure upgrades will allow the Farm to maximize food production, minimize food waste, expand outreach to youth in the community, and increase sales.
Vehicles for Change, Inc.
Since 1999, the Abell Foundation has supported Vehicles for Change (VFC) in making low-cost cars available to low-income job seekers in Baltimore City. In 2015, with funding from Abell, VFC launched an automotive technician repair program. VFC hires men and women who have been recently released from prison or who have been granted work release (usually in small cohorts of seven to eight people). All program applicants have successfully completed the 600-hour Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) Auto Maintenance and Light Repair training program while incarcerated. At VFC, they receive three to five months of paid work experience, earning $9 an hour. The on-the-job experience is designed to build the trainees’ resumes and overcome any reservations that employers have about hiring returning citizens. All trainees must pass at least four ASE certification tests. The program is working: of the 150 trainees who enrolled since the beginning of the program, 13 are still in training, 131 wer placed into full-time employment and only six have not completed because they were on work release and had to return to prison. All of the 131 graduates have been placed into employment, with an average starting hourly wage of $16 per hour. Funding from Abell will support the training and job placement of 56 to 60 Baltimore residents.