Association for the Public Defender of Maryland
The Association for the Public Defender of Maryland was created to support the activities of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (OPD), an independent state agency that provides legal representation to indigent defendants throughout the state. This grant provides matching funds for two americorp volunteers who will be placed at OPD in Baltimore City to support pretrial reform efforts and expansion of the OPD social work program.
Alternative Directions, Inc.
Alternative Directions, Inc. (ADI) has over 30 years of experience with prisoner re-entry services and pro se civil legal services. This grant will provide matching funds for ADI’s Civil Legal Program which provides free legal assistance to individuals in prison or recently released from prison. These pro-se services focus primarily on family and domestic legal issues and expungements.
Adopt a Block, Inc.
The Compassion Commission program teaches 300 young people ages 11 to 25 to look beyond their lives and be a positive influence to low-income inner-city children and adults. This is achieved through a weeklong series of activities focused in East Baltimore that provides an experience that fosters leadership, promotes volunteerism, and develops an interest in the welfare of others. Adopt A Block will acquire, renovate, and donate a formerly vacant Baltimore City home to a family led by a resident leader in the community in East Baltimore.
Adopt a Block, Inc.
Adopt a Block distributes over 300,000 pounds of food a year to more than 45 shelters, soup kitchens, pantries and partnering agencies in Baltimore City. Adopt A Block has weekly scheduled pickups with corporate partners and secures items that are donated by individuals, typically within a 24-48 hour turnaround window. A box truck will be purchased to facilitate the collection and distribution of items to partners and individuals served by the organization.
Improving Education, fiscally sponsored by Strong City Baltimore
Founded in 2015 by Jarrod Bolte, a former Baltimore City Schools teacher and administrator, Improving Education set out to change the way schools work to improve outcomes for children. Improving Education will focus on up to 20 elementary schools using a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) to assist teachers, administrators, and community providers in redesigning instructional and support mechanisms to improve early literacy outcomes for students from K through second grade. Working with 125 reading teachers and 3,500 students, Improving Education’s literacy protocols have become a cornerstone for school innovation and early literacy instructional design in City Schools. Improving Education expects to increase the number of students in grades K-2 meeting grade level reading proficiency by 20 percentage points from the beginning to end of year.