United Way of Central Maryland, Inc.
The United Way’s Homelessness Prevention Program works to identify and quickly stabilize families when they enter crisis – then provide coaching and support to help them increase their income and become more self-sufficient. This grant helped launch a new program site at James McHenry Elementary/Middle School that serves 20 families a year and assists students in avoiding disruptive school transfers. The project is in collaboration with the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Success for All Foundation, Inc.
The JHU-affiliated Success for All Foundation is launching its successful Tutoring with Lightning Squad (or Lightning Squad) reading intervention hoping to serve 800 children in up to 15 City Elementary Schools in 2019-20.Tutoring with the Lightning Squad is a small group, web-based reading intervention for struggling readers in first through third grade. Lighting Squad trained tutors provide daily 30-minute tutoring sessions to groups of four children with the support of the on-line Sesame Street literacy program. It is expected that participants will complete 25 tutoring sessions as a minimum and gain a minimum of 2 months of reading growth.
STEM Champions of Baltimore / Fund for Educational Excellence
Like many of Abell’s afterschool academic sports programs, STEM Champions of Maryland trains teacher coaches to prepare middle & high school students for the National Science Olympiad Tournament each Spring. Providing robust curricula and materials for each of the 18 Olympiad activities, STEM Champions also brings STEM professionals and volunteers to work with teachers in the afterschool practices. This year, STEM Champions expects 36 school teams and 650 students to prepare for and enter the City Science Olympiad, with 15 teams advancing to the State Competition, and hopefully to Nationals.
St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, Inc.
Launched in 2014, St. Vincent de Paul’s Front Door program provides short-term rent subsidies coupled with housing search assistance, intensive case management, and employment support to homeless families in Baltimore City. Over the past five years, the program has placed over 250 families into privately owned housing, and almost all remained housed one year after exiting the program. St. Vincent de Paul tailors services to the needs of each family to ensure that the families achieve stability and are able to remain housed. While the housing costs are covered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Abell Foundation grant funds pay for furniture, moving costs, and miscellaneous costs associated with eliminating barriers to employment.
St. Francis Neighborhood Center
The St. Francis Neighborhood Center has served the Reservoir Hill neighborhood since 1963 with after-school and summer programming for community youth. This grant will further support the renovation and expansion of their 125-year-old three-story town home at 2405 Linden Avenue with a new 12,000 sq. ft. facility (including five classrooms, a study hall and library, a café and kitchen, two meeting rooms, a multi-purpose room, an art studio, and an expanded computer lab.) The $5.5 million expansion is anticipated to be complete in Fall 2020.