South Baltimore Learning Center
South Baltimore Learning Center (SBLC) has provided adult education services for nearly three decades, serving over 700 adult students each year. Two years ago, with funding from the Abell Foundation, SBLC established an office and classroom at the Regional Skills Training Center in Park Heights. Working with sector skills training programs, SBLC provided 60 students with remedial instruction in math and reading. On average, students gained 2.5 levels in reading and 4.0 levels in math. These gains were achieved over an average of 30 hours of instruction. With continued funding from Abell, SBLC will serve 115 students, with the goal of 76 students gaining 3.0 levels in reading and 4.0 levels in math.
Job Opportunities Task Force
In January 2006, in partnership with the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC), Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF) launched Project JumpStart, a pre-apprenticeship construction program designed to provide low-income Baltimore City residents with 13 weeks of pre-apprenticeship training. Since its inception, Project Jumpstart has served over 1,000 Baltimore residents, almost all of whom are African-American men (96%) with a criminal record (75%). With funding from the Abell Foundation, Project Jumpstart plans to serve 145 new students and maintain its 75% job placement rate.
Civic Works, Inc.
The Center for Sustainable Careers (CSC) has built a multi-tiered green career “pathway out of poverty” by training and placing Baltimore City residents in the brownfields remediation and residential energy-efficiency industries. Across its programs, CSC has maintained an average job placement rate of 93%. Since 2014, 81% of graduates have remained employed for at least one year. Among the 125 participants served in the past year, most had a significant history of arrest and conviction and most were formerly incarcerated. Over the next year, with funding from the Abell Foundation, CSC will train 135 Baltimore City residents for entry-level positions as well as 24 incumbent workers.
Citywide Youth Development / Center for Urban Families, Inc.
Citywide Youth Development is a nonprofit organization that teaches young people in Baltimore entrepreneurial skills. With funding from the Abell Foundation, Citywide Youth Development will renovate a 10,000 square foot building on North Avenue to establish the EMAGE (Entrepreneurs Making and Growing Enterprises) Center. The goal of the Center is to use entrepreneurship and manufacturing as a crime prevention, poverty eradication, and community revitalization strategy. The Center for Urban Families serves as the fiscal agent for the grant.
CASH Campaign of Maryland
The Baltimore CASH Campaign—Creating Assets, Savings, and Hope—was launched in 2001 to increase access to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a powerful work incentive and poverty-alleviation tool, lifting more families out of poverty than any other federal aid program. Now a program of the CASH Campaign of Maryland, Baltimore CASH plans to serve 10,000 Baltimore residents by operating 15 to 20 free tax preparation sites, continuing its efforts to build high volume sites that can provide quality tax preparation, and asset development services.