OSI Baltimore Sign Up Information

Order Your FREE Party at the Mailbox by SATURDAY at 5pm!

Deadline for Youth Activist Fellowship Applications June 15

In partnership with Open Society Foundations' Global Youth Exchange Program, OSI will award up to two Youth Activist Fellowships to young people ages 18 to 30 undertaking work that impacts marginalized communities in Baltimore City. Fellowship awards are in the amount of $60,000 for a term of 18 months. The deadline for applicants to apply for the Fellowship is Monday, June 15. See full details on how to apply, FAQs, and a message from 2018 OSI Fellow Fred Watkins on our website.

Talk about the Maryland Primary with State Elections officials

Deadline for Youth Activist Fellowship Applications June 15

The deadline for applicants to apply for OSI''s new Youth Activist Fellowship is this Monday, June 15. This Fellowship is open to people ages 18 to 30 undertaking work that impacts marginalized communities in Baltimore City. Fellowship awards are in the amount of $60,000 for a term of 18 months. The application can be completed online, even on a smart phone. See full details on how to apply, FAQs, and a message from 2018 OSI Fellow Fred Watkins on our website and share widely with anyone in your network who might be interested.

OSI hosts two more Blueprint for Baltimore Forums

Don't miss OSI-Baltimore's upcoming Blueprint for Baltimore forums: On March 18th with City Council President candidates and on April 14th with Mayoral candidates, telling stories of their biggest failures, co-sponsored with Stoop Storytelling. Links to register for both events here: https://www.osibaltimore.org/upcoming-events/.

Sign up to Receive Your Party at the Mailbox Package!

OSI-Baltimore is collaborating with Baltimore Votes and Black Girls Vote on a project to get Baltimoreans excited about voting. We''re sending over 2,000 boxes across the city with: Custom t-shirts designed by students at MICA A coloring book to get kids hyped about voting Snacks from local companies Information about voting and the census and more! We only have a limited number so sign up for your free box today!

New PSA Encourages Baltimore Residents to Vote by Mail

This week, new commercials that OSI created in collaboration with the Baltimore Votes coalition start airing on local TV and radio stations. The 30-second TV spot features Erricka Bridgeford of Baltimore Ceasefire, Marin Alsop of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Thomas Scalea, chief physician at University of Maryland's Shock Trauma Center, music by Dan Deacon, posters by students at the Globe Collection and Press at MICA, and appearances by many other Baltimore residents. Check it out and vote!

Hear the Mayoral Candidates from their Actual Stoops!

Join OSI-Baltimore and Stoop Storytelling for The Blueprint for Baltimore VIRTUAL Stoop Mayoral Show, a civic event featuring the 2020 mayoral candidates remotely sharing true, personal tales stories from their actual stoops (or decks, porches, or living rooms) on the theme of Overcoming Adversity-pivotal losses, disappointments, or setbacks-and how they came back from them.

Baltimore's citizens have spoken through the Blueprint for Baltimore survey (learn more at osibaltimore.org/blueprint). We need a mayor with resilience, creativity, and the ability to collaborate to provide safety, equality, and opportunity for all citizens. As the candidates share tales about how they've dealt with disappointment and defeat in their own lives, we'll learn how they'll help Baltimore revive and thrive.

No slogans, sloganeering, or spin - just true, personal tales shared among neighbors.

Hosted by Stoop Storytelling founders Laura Wexler and Jessica Henkin from the Creative Alliance stage, with musical performances by Caleb Stine and Dizzy Spellz.

If you haven''t already, see our interviews with City Council President candidates and watch the recording of our Feb. 5th Blueprint for Baltimore Mayoral Forum at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.

Meet the 2020 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows!

OSI's Community Fellowships Network, launched in 1997, now includes 220 Fellows, including the founders of some of Baltimore's more impactful organizations, including B-360, Community Law in Action, Youth Empowered Society (YES), Thread, Gather, Bikemore, Wide Angle Youth Media, and many others.

This year's Fellows were chosen from among more than 150 applicants after a rigorous selection process that included detailed project proposals and budgets, identification of collaborators, a site visit, and multiple interviews, including an in-depth conversation with the Selection Committee. The committee included OSI Advisory Board members Veronica Cool, Andre Davis, and Nupur Parekh Flynn, along with 1999 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow David Miller, Carol Dunston Reckling, and Kevin Lindamood.

2020 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows (click on names to see full profiles and photos)

Tehya Jenae Faulk* - Tehya is establishing Orphan We, which will use digital spaces to collect and archive stories of people on the edge of society - primarily those with intersectional identities.

Elizabeth Finne - Through the Parole Hearing Preparation Project, Elizabeth will work to systematize parole hearing preparation by developing appropriate and effective materials, by empowering inmates and their family members to make their best case for parole release, and by engaging and guiding volunteers to support people in parole hearing preparation. 

Ateira Griffin - Through Building Our Nation's Daughters (BOND), Ateira will encourage healthy two-generation relationships, economic mobility, and educational achievement by providing single mothers and their daughters in grades 5 to 12, with mentoring, counseling, education, and career support.

James Henderson Sr. - James will establish Pathways to College and Entrepreneurship as an innovative, multi-layered education program designed to expose underserved Baltimore youth to college readiness and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Isaiah Johnson - Isaiah will establish The Greenmount East Leadership Project to connect community youth to positive role models who will assist them with developing life skills, healthy coping skills and sound decision-making skills.

Bree Jones - Bree is working to establish Parity, an equitable housing development company that is building a collective of motivated individuals who are cooperatively reviving West Baltimore neighborhoods through homeownership, civic engagement, and development without displacement.

Monica Lapenta - Monica will establish Be a Chef for a Day (BaCFaD) Mobile Teaching Kitchen and Training Kitchen to engage North Baltimore youth ages 14 to 21 in culinary education and job training by making fresh meals for people in need.

Wayne Paige* - Wayne will establish The Beautiful Baltimore Project to support the educational and social development needs of McElderry Park's young people, incorporating the goals and passions of participants,

Troy Staton - In partnership with various healthcare providers and other partner organizations, Troy will establish More Than a Shop as a network of barbershops and beauty salons that will bring healthcare, job training, and mental health resources to communities throughout Baltimore City.

Atiya Wells - Atiya will establish Baltimore Living in Sustainable Simplicity (BLISS) Meadows, which will provide the Frankford community access to fresh food and a connection to nature.

Darius Wilmore - Darius will establish The Short Kuts Narrative Therapy Initiative as an innovative social impact project utilizing the creative process of therapeutic storytelling. The process is designed to aid in the healing of generational, personal, familial, professional, and environmental trauma.

E.V. Yost - E.V. will establish The Queer Crisis Response Unit (QCRU), an emergency services alternative designed to reduce the collateral consequences of criminalization experienced by the TLGBQIA+ survivors of interpersonal and systemic violence in Baltimore City.

* Youth Activist Community Fellows

DON''T MISS THIS!

Join OSI and the Pratt for a discussion with Erica Green, Tawanda Jones, Brandon Soderberg, and Baynard Woods, moderated by Senator Jill Carter. We will discuss overlapping themes in Five Days and I Got a Monster, including whose stories are valued in the public discourse, the role and responsibility of the press, the narrative of a city, and the pursuit of justice. West Wednesday will be honored during the program. Info and registration.

LAST CHANCE: Get your Party at the Mailbox box NOW!

OSI''s 2019 Impact Report details organizational changes

In 2019, OSI-Baltimore saw some of the most significant changes in its history, including a leadership transition, strengthened connection to national work, and renewed investment in Baltimore, which prepared us well to meet the challenges of 2020 and beyond. Read OSI''s 2019 Impact Report to learn about our 2019 work and our ongoing commitment to advancing human rights and progressive change, amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, and moving towards a stronger, more just city and country.

OSI Director, Board Member, Fellow join Scott transition team

City Council President and Democratic Nominee for Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott announced nine co-chairs for his Transition Team, including OSI Director Danielle Torain, Advisory Board member Alicia Wilson, and 2018 Community Fellow Brittany Young. Read more.

OSI mourns the loss of two local giants in activist community

This month, Baltimore lost two of its most powerful activist voices in Betty Robinson and William Miller, Sr. In the 1960s, Robinson was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later came to Baltimore, where she was a 2003 OSI Community Fellow, an organizer with Standing Up for Racial Justice, and a mentor to a generation of local leaders. Read Dr. Lawrence Brown''s moving tribute on OSI''s website. William Miller, Sr. was a founding member of longtime OSI partner Bmore POWER and a champion of Baltimore's peer-led harm reduction movement. Read Scott Nolen''s personal tribute on the OSI website.

See the OSI-funded "Joy" exhibit at Motor House

There is still time to see "Joy," an exhibit of Kianna Wilson''s photographs of Baltimore-area activists, including OSI Director Danielle Torain, in places that bring them joy. Motor House conceived of the project as a way to mark the fifth anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising earlier this year. It was one of 10 community-based projects that OSI supported to mark the anniversary. Read more about the project (including a link to get free tickets) and other Uprising anniversary projects OSI is supporting here.

OSI Supports Community Projects Marking the Fifth Anniversary of the Baltimore Uprising

OSI is supporting 13 community-based events and projects marking the fifth anniversary of the death of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Uprising in 2015. Although some of these projects have been delayed or moved online due to COVID-19, all will continue.

Baltimore residents'' priorities sharply at odds with city budget

"OSI is pleased to see a robust discussion about the city budget and the extent to which it reflects or does not reflect the priorities of Baltimore residents," says Danielle Torain, director of OSI-Baltimore. "I hope the Blueprint for Baltimore data can be a useful tool to guide those discussions."
Read more

Baltimore marks Juneteenth on Friday

This Friday, June 19th, a wide range of local organizations will hold events and campaigns to mark Juneteenth, the oldest national commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. But as OSI grantees Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF), Out for Justice (OFJ) and the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), explain on the Facebook post for their Juneteenth and Father's Day Bail Out, the legacy of that date is complicated:

"On June 19, 1865, two and a half years *after* the Emancipation Proclamation, Union soldiers landed in Galveston, TX with news that slavery had ended and slaves were to be set free. While the formal institution of Black enslavement was "abolished," it was quickly replaced with another: incarceration. This system quickly morphed into the mass incarceration of Black men and women, many of whom are incarcerated due to unaffordable bails."

Read more about the Juneteenth and Father''s Day Bail Out and other local events commemorating Juneteenth here.

OSF Invests $1 Million in Baltimore COVID-19 Relief Efforts

The Open Society Foundations will provide $1 million in direct financial and other emergency support for workers in Baltimore who have been hit hard by COVID-19 and are at greatest risk of falling into extreme hardship, including those who are unemployed and the formerly incarcerated.

Will the surge in activism result in more votes?

"If the people protesting this spring can carry their momentum into the voting booth," they write, "we just might see historic change and progress again come November."

Read more

OSI joins Baltimore Data Week Thursday and Friday

This week is Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance''s (BNIA) Baltimore Data Week - moved online and expanded from BNIA''s annual Data Day. OSI will participate in two discussions:

On Thursday, July 23rd at 5pm, OSI Director of Strategic Communications Evan Serpick will moderate a conversation on "Using Resident Data to Address Neighborhood Concerns," which will focus on the Blueprint for Baltimore project and how communities can use the data to create change.  

On Friday, July 24th at 10am, OSI Director Danielle Torain will participate in a conversation on "Using Data to Support and Invest in Baltimore," where participants will "learn how philanthropy and investors use data to shape how they collaborate, prioritize their grant making, and advance racial equity during the current pandemic and beyond."

Get all the information, including links to register for these events here.

OSI mourns the loss of tireless advocate and 2012 Community Fellow Avis Ransom

OSI-Baltimore sadly notes the passing of Avis Ransom, a 2002 Community Fellow, whose program, Income and Equality for All, sought to engage low wage and unemployed citizens in the process of creating and implementing innovative workforce solutions including worker cooperatives to increase their economic stability.

An anti-racism consultant and workshop facilitator for Baltimore Racial Justice Action, Avis was also board member for the Job Opportunities Task Force, the Baltimore Algebra Project, and Baltimore Workforce Investment Board, and a member of the Coordinating Committee for the Baltimore Black Worker Center. She was, by all accounts, a force - both as a mentor and as a member of her communities - who influenced, touched, and inspired many, including OSI-Baltimore Director Danielle Torain.

"For me, and for so many, Avis was a teacher and mentor, a fierce champion and protector, a way-maker, spirit guide and tireless advocate for a racially just and liberated future," said Torain. "Avis' transition is such a profound loss for our community and for Baltimore. But I am certain that she rests in peace knowing that she's made such a deep and lasting impression on countless people, young and old. We will all continue to carry her legacy, vision, and teachings with pride, determination, and the same perseverance and commitment that she modeled till the very end. Avis, from the bottom of my heart, thank you."

Read our full tribute, including remembrances from other OSI Fellows.

COVID-19 Information and Resources

Baltimore residents, like people around the world are adapting to new realities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. OSI-Baltimore is focused on supporting the people of Baltimore - particularly marginalized communities who are among those most at-risk. OSI has gathered many important COVID-19-related links on its COVID-19 Information and Resources page, including health, education, housing, workforce, community organizations, arts resources and much more. Please check out these resources and if you have suggestions for additions, email evan.serpick@opensocietyfoundations.org.

Blueprint for Baltimore Events Cancelled, Replaced with Candidate Interviews

The Blueprint for Baltimore City Council President Forum that was scheduled for March 18th and the Stoop Mayoral Forum scheduled for April 14th have been cancelled. Instead, OSI and media sponsor Real News Network are setting up remote interviews with candidates using questions based on the Blueprint survey that were prepared for the forums.