Baltimore Development Corporation
For Baltimore to both attract Opportunity Zone investments and ensure such investments benefit community residents and businesses, the Opportunity Zone Coordinator provides a valuable resource and competitive advantage to connect Opportunity Zone investors with projects and to connect projects to critical financing. Baltimore has been nationally recognized as one of the first cities to have a designated point person for the Opportunity Zone program. The grant covers the second year of the Coordinator’s salary.
Baltimore Development Corporation
Baltimore is one of five US cities participating in the International Urban Cooperation City-to-City program, a global initiative funded by the European Union. This program is a component of a long-term EU strategy to foster sustainable urban development in cooperation with the public and private sectors. Baltimore has been paired with Turin, Italy, and the two cities will meet to advance discussions in four areas of mutual concern. Funding from Abell will support travel expenses associated with the Baltimore delegation’s fall 2019 trip to Turin.
Baltimore City Health Department
The Baltimore City Health Department’s Family Planning Access Project, a component of B’More for Healthy Babies, provides counseling about, and access to, effective family planning methods. Founded in 2016 with funding from the Abell Foundation, the project has focused on increasing access to Long Acting Reversible Contraception. The next phase of the project will focus on counseling women about contraceptive options and using a new “family planning toolkit” designed to engage women in conversations about their life goals, reproductive health needs, and family planning options. This grant provides two years of support for implementation of the Family Planning Access Project.
Art with a Heart
Each year, 70 Art with a Heart teachers and assistants provide 14,500 engaging, educational, and interactive visual arts classes to vulnerable Baltimore children, youth, and adults in schools, group homes, shelters, community centers, recreation centers, senior facilities, and hospitals. Funding from the Abell Foundaiton will support HeARTworks, a workforce development program that uses art as a vehicle to teach job skills; HeARTwares, Art with a Heart’s social enterprise/retail store that sells HeARTworks participants’ artwork; and arts integration, Art with a Heart’s engaging visual arts programs that supplement academic curricula in 19 Baltimore elementary/middle schools.
The Ingenuity Project
The Abell Foundation launched The Ingenuity Project in 1994. Today, Ingenuity prepares and launches the next diverse generation of nationally competitive STEM leaders in Baltimore City, serving 750 students in grades 6-12. This grant will enable Ingenuity to expand and improve access to students of color and students living in concentrated poverty by opening a fourth middle school program at James McHenry School in West Baltimore and through the provision of tailored support and enrichment opportunities. Ingenuity will continue to serve as the exemplary accelerated math and science program that prepares Baltimore City students for selective colleges and STEM careers with its signature Practicum Research experience.