Archive

This week, Baltimore Fishbowl reported on OSI-Baltimore’s grant to the Baltimore City Health Department to purchase testing strips that detect the presence of fentanyl in street-purchased drugs, distribute them at mobile syringe and needle exchanges, and study their effectiveness at reducing overdoses in the region. The Board of Estimates was scheduled to review the expense this […]

The Baltimore Book Festival is coming up September 28 to 30th, and Open Society Institute has been given the opportunity to curate an hour of programming on the main stage from 4 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 29th. The program will include a reading by Lady Brion (Brion Gill), a 2015 OSI Community Fellow, […]

This week, 2016 OSI Community Fellow Melissa Badeker was featured on WYPR’s On the Record, talking about how the Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap, the program she co-founded, has grown. The program is an exchange that provides much-needed school supplies to the educators who need them. As Badeker describes, the Swap gave away $20,000 worth of […]

Restorative Response Baltimore, an OSI-Baltimore grantee founded by 1998 OSI Community Fellow Lauren Abramson that offers conflict resolution and mediation, will hold its Summer Mix N Mingle event on August 25th. In addition to games, music provided by DJ Trillnatured, henna by Aayesha of Mehendi_Wali, and sweets by Kellz Kupcakes, the celebration will feature a […]

Yesterday, Mayor Jorge Marquez Perez from the Puerto Rican city of Maunabo visited Baltimore’s City Hall and met with Mayor Catherine Pugh as part of a mayoral exchange organized by Open Society Foundations. The program, launched in February, was created so that U.S. mayors could express solidarity and share expertise with their Puerto Rican counterparts as they […]

This week, NPR’s Morning Edition featured 2016 OSI Community Fellow Melissa Badeker talking about the Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap, the program she co-founded. The swap allows for educators to both donate any unused supplies they’ve collected and shop for classroom materials at little or no cost. Last year, Badeker says, they gave away more than […]

Like so many in Baltimore, we were deeply disturbed by the video that surfaced over the weekend of a Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officer brutally beating an unarmed man. We appreciate the quick statements by Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle and Mayor Catherine Pugh, including the mayor’s statement that “We are working day and night […]

Tara Huffman, director of Open Society Institute’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, was quoted in the Baltimore Sun today, talking about the case of Deniro Bellamy, a mentally disabled man who overdosed on morphine and fentanyl in Baltimore City jail and died while being held for a traffic violation. Huffman emphasized the need for pretrial […]

Six Open Society Institute – Baltimore Community Fellows joined Open Society Foundations’ 2018 Soros Justice Fellows and alumni Fellows in New Orleans for a conference to showcase the work of the Soros Fellows past and present, participate in a series of presentations and tours related to justice work in New Orleans and around the country, and […]

Next Friday, August 10, young writers from the 7th annual Writers in Baltimore Schools Young Writers’ Studio will share work from their time at writing camp.  Middle and high school students from 9 Baltimore City schools will showcase their new fiction, poetry, and non-fiction at the West Bay of the Show Room at the Motor […]