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Around Maryland

Once-segregated West Baltimore elementary school transforming into tribute for Justice Thurgood Marshall
February 2, 2023 -

A once-segregated elementary school in west Baltimore is in the process of transforming into Justice Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center. The aging structure in the Upton neighborhood will soon become a place with various cultural activities and programs. The 150-year-old building is getting a makeover to honor the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who attended the school in 1914. Dr. Alvin Hathaway, who has spent his life serving his church and community and after years of pastoring the Reverend, is directing his efforts into community revitalization. The two-story building has been abandoned since the 1990s and most recently withstood a fire that nearly destroyed it.

Read More: CBS News Baltimore
No lease extension, but O’s and Moore tout partnership
February 2, 2023 -

The Baltimore Orioles and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced a joint commitment to what they called a “multi-decade, public-private partnership” to revitalize the Camden Yards sports complex. The statement from the team and the state’s new governor came Wednesday, the deadline for the Orioles to exercise a one-time, five-year extension to their lease at Camden Yards. The team was not planning to exercise that option, according to a person with knowledge of the decision. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the club hadn’t announced its decision.

 

Read More: WTOP News
Community outreach program hopes to get more Black men to go to the doctor
February 2, 2023 -

For most of his adult life, 55-year-old Alton Graves did not have a doctor he saw regularly. He sought medical care only when the need was dire. “The emergency room was my doctor,” he said. Graves found himself in such a situation a couple of years ago, when he developed a staph infection in an unhealed wound on his leg that eventually spread to his spine. Though he was in severe pain with a high fever, Graves still didn’t want to seek care. He says his neighbor at the time noticed he “didn’t look right,” and told the building’s security guard to call 911.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
After years of fighting, renovations begin inside one Baltimore City elementary school
February 2, 2023 -

In the coming months, Tayla McCray — a fifth grade student who attends Furley Elementary School in Baltimore City — will watch her soon-to-be old school transform into a new place. But McCray said she wants to remember the “great times,” like when she and her dad dressed up for the father-daughter dance. She’s excited for her peers, because she’s already continuing her educational journey by attending middle school next year. “I hope all of the future Furley Foxes [the school’s mascot], have the same rich experience,” she said. Baltimore City officials, public school leaders, and community members gathered in the Frankford neighborhood to celebrate the start of the Furley Elementary School construction on Monday morning.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
With more vendors in place, Lexington Market marks grand opening with ribbon-cutting and bell-ringing
February 1, 2023 -

As a teenager, Robin Holmes and her best friend would catch the bus from Mervo High School to Lexington Market to grab an after-school snack. On Tuesday, her stall in the new Lexington Market building sold snacks to Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller. Miller and Gov. Wes Moore joined state and city officials Tuesday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the new market, which has been serving customers since a soft opening in October. More than 20 vendors — about half of the market’s capacity — are now open inside the 60,000-square-foot market building, including Deddle’s Donuts, the first brick-and-mortar location for Holmes, a Baltimore native who spent five years tooling around the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area in a pink food truck before joining Lexington’s vendor lineup.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Study: Md. will need massive investment in low-income housing retrofits to meet aggressive climate goals
February 1, 2023 -

As Maryland moves tentatively toward meeting aggressive goals over the next several years to combat climate change, the state will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit homes and apartment buildings occupied by low- and middle-income residents. That’s the conclusion of a report issued this month by a coalition of national and state-based environmental groups. If the state doesn’t make the necessary investments to convert the homes of its poorest residents away from fossil fuels, Maryland will fall well short of its climate goals, the study found — and could accelerate a public health crisis in low-income dwellings.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Educators craft, promote Black studies as other states limit how it’s taught
February 1, 2023 -

The 15 students in Damien Ford’s class at the Baltimore School for the Arts were glued to the clip of the late Toni Morrison artfully discussing the “white gaze” — the assumption that a reader is white and writing from a Black perspective. None of the teens had been born when the 1998 interview with broadcast journalist Charlie Rose aired, but the author’s words still resonated with them .“I think she ate him up,” said Sydney Tugnor, a 15-year-old sophomore in the African American Literature class. “She wasn’t aggressive or rude. She said what she had to say and he didn’t say anything back.”

Read More: The Baltimore Banner
Parent to college savings plan board: ‘This is not a technical error’
February 1, 2023 -

An unofficial spokesman for account holders of Maryland 529, the state’s troubled college tuition payment fund, told the agency board Monday that its recent explanation about problems with the program to the Maryland General Assembly fell short of being completely accurate. Brian Savoie, one of more than 30,000 account holders in the Maryland Prepaid College Trust, told the board that errors in their account balances were not merely an “earnings calculation issue,” as described to lawmakers, but the result of a board-approved policy change in June 2021 to pay additional “earnings” to accounts and then a subsequent reversal.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Empowerment Through Aviation: How one woman’s love of flight became a passion shared by Baltimore girls
February 1, 2023 -

Brigitte Jacobson was comfortable in the sky. The wind beneath her metal wings as she soared between clouds brought her peace. She didn’t expect to become a lover of planes, yet it became one of the biggest catalysts in her life – and even in death. After Brigitte passed away in 2019, her friends and family founded Empowerment Through Aviation as a tribute to her memory. The program mentors Baltimore girls and young women with the skills they need to become pilots and aims to diversify the aviation industry.

Read More: Baltimore Fishbowl
A homeless man eats breakfast on the street on Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Baltimore City to stop accepting new applications for rental assistance, as eviction crisis looms
January 31, 2023 -

The city of Baltimore on Friday will stop accepting applications for rental assistance from people facing eviction, the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success announced Monday. The announcement comes as the city exhausts its share of an unprecedented $46 billion in emergency rental assistance funds doled out by the federal government during the pandemic and as evictions tick back up toward pre-pandemic levels.

Read More: The Baltimore Banner

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