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Come
Join Us as We Celebrate 20 Years - 1988 to 2008
It seems like only yesterday but in reality it's
been twenty years since New Song began it's mission
of loving God and loving its neighbors here in
Sandtown. Please join us as we celebrate God's
goodness at
New Song Community Church on Sunday, May 4,
2008. The day's schedule of events is as follows:
For more information contact Patty Prasada-Rao at
410-728-2090 x25 or
ppr@nsum.org.
Up and Down Again in Sandtown - by Marta Hummel, The
Examiner
BALTIMORE - Terrorists hijacked the phrase
“religious radical.” But Baltimore needs a lot more
of true religious radicals to pull itself from the
mire of murderous streets and heroin and perpetually
low expectations plaguing it since the 1950s when
its population started to decline...read
more. (If the article is no
longer available,
click here)
New Song
Urban Ministries Leadership Transition
We are happy to announce that Antoine Bennett and
Patty Prasada-Rao are taking over the
leadership of New Song Urban Ministries as of April
2, 2007!
Read about in our March 2007 Newsletter.
Annie E. Casey
Foundation honors New Song Urban Ministries
"SEVEN MARYLAND
ORGANIZATIONS HONORED FOR FAMILY-STRENGTHENING WORK
Awards from the Annie E. Casey Foundation total $3.5
million
Baltimore – Seven
organizations – innovators that strengthen low-income
families and communities in Maryland – will receive
unrestricted awards of $500,000 each, paid over five
or more years, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation as
part of FAMILIES COUNT – MARYLAND. The recipients are
being recognized for their effectiveness in helping
families acquire the confidence, capacity and
opportunities they need to succeed. FAMILIES COUNT –
MARYLAND embraces a simple principle: Children do well
when their families do well, and families do better
when they live in supportive communities. “We will
change the future of our most at-risk children only
when we change the present for their parents,” says
Douglas W. Nelson, president of the Casey Foundation.
From Western Maryland to central Baltimore, in
communities on the Eastern Shore and near the nation’s
capital, the honorees have found ways for low-income
families to own homes by using sweat equity and have
helped immigrant workers advocate for their rights.
They have rebuilt an inner-city core, house by house,
and have brought families together to overcome the
isolation of Appalachia. They have created art
programs and educational opportunities that help
children thrive.
The FAMILIES COUNT –
MARYLAND honorees are:
...New Song Urban
Ministries, Baltimore. New Song works side-by-side
with residents of
Sandtown in West Baltimore to
rebuild hope and restore opportunity through housing,
education and job development. Sandtown’s children
thrive in a pre-school, K-8 school and performing arts
programs. Other programs support home ownership and
workplace success for parents...
This year marks the
Casey Foundation’s tenth anniversary in Maryland. We
can think of no better way to celebrate the occasion
than by recognizing the outstanding work these and
countless other organizations are doing throughout the
state to give children what they need most – strong,
capable and economically successful families,” says
Nelson. The Foundation announces the honorees during
National Family Week (November 21 – 27) to draw
attention to this remarkable work and the critical
need to improve the odds for the state’s most
vulnerable children. “The continuing challenge is less
about know-how than it is about will,” says Ralph R.
Smith, senior vice president of the Casey Foundation,
“We need the willingness to care enough and do enough
so that all families can realize their dreams for
their children.”
Urban Renewal, a contrast in methodology:
divercity
The Outer Harbor
By
Harold McDougall
As Downtown Baltimore thrives, other parts of the
city struggle to remain viable communities. Here's
how two different neighborhoods are facing their
futures.
"...“Baltimore is still a city falling apart at its
core,” says Bart Harvey, CEO of the Enterprise
Foundation (as of January 2006, the foundation was
renamed Enterprise Community Partners,
Inc.), “We lost white middle class people from
1980-1990, and black middle class people from
1990-2000, but we’re no longer facing a net
population loss. Our problem now is the increasing
level of poverty among the lower income groups, a
work force with a very low level of skill, and
the disappearance of manufacturing jobs.”
So how best to address these issues? “There’s
agreement among the funders about doing
something in our most distressed areas,” says
Harvey, “but good faith disagreements about how
it should be done. It’s hard to get everyone to
focus on a single neighborhood, to agree on one
way to address a problem.”
With that in mind, I decided to look at the “micro”
level by comparing two urban redevelopment
projects: one in
Sandtown-Winchester, which I
studied closely in my 1993 book, Black Baltimore,
and the other in the Mid-East neighborhood on the
East Side. I wanted to see if the two projects
differed in their approach.
Sandtown-Winchester and
Mid-East are two struggling communities
almost the same size—Sandtown is 72 blocks, Mid-East
80—but they lie on opposite sides of the
Charles Street “line” dividing the city. And the
approaches being taken to their redevelopment
seem very different..."
Read
the entire article from
Baltimore Magazine.
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