Another New Face at RHIC - Welcome Alli Lesovoy

Repair the World Fellow Alli Lesovoy has joined the RHIC family through July helping with communications updates at RHIC and a Whitelock history project.

Alli is a San Francisco Bay Area native and is currently a Repair the World fellow in Baltimore. In June 2013, she graduated from University of California Davis with a BA in Sociology and minors in Chemistry and Psychology. Her history of Jewish extracurricular activities sparked her passion for social justice and action. As a Repair the World fellow, Alli has spending 10 months planning and recruiting for meaningful volunteer opportunities throughout Baltimore.  After she leaves RHIC she is off to New York for more adventures.

Welcome Back Anita Prettyman

Last summer, Reservoir Hill resident Anita Prettyman joined RHIC's staff for the summer to coordinate outreach and education on the summer meals program, and identify more sites to offer meals.  Anita's position was part of a city-wide strategy coordinated by the Baltimore Partnership to End Childhood Hunger to increase access the Summer Meals Program.  The sites in our area reported increased use of the program, so the feet-on-the-street approach seems to have worked.

Thanks to support by the Family League of Baltimore, Anita is back with us again this summer working to ensure that families known about the Summer Meals Program.

How can the West North Avenue Streetscape Project design improve the health of our communities? Join the discussion at the 1 July Commuity Health Forum

New face at RHIC and around the community

Noah Erwin has joined the RHIC ranks as a summer intern from Johns Hopkins University.  Noah hails from Tennessee and is a rising junior at Johns Hopkins University, majoring in Global Environmental Change and Sustainability & Economics. On campus, he is active in Real Food Hopkins, a student group that promotes a just, sustainable food system; and serves as the treasurer of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi. Along with a few friends, he is training for a triathlon at the end of the summer.

Noah will be spending the summer working with RHIC on a number of existing projects.  He helped with finishing touches on the new Girl Scouts mural at German park, and is currently working on the tree inventory.

You'll be seeing Noah around the community for the next six weeks.  Please welcome him to Reservoir Hill.

The 2014 Reservoir Hill Homecoming Was a Wonderful Night

The 2^nd Annual Reservoir Hill Homecoming was a warm and festive evening.  Eighty people gathered in the historic Beth Am Synagogue to share good food and participate in a discussion of the book, The Other Wes Moore.  In this book, two people sharing the same name, growing up in similar circumstances end up in very different places in life, having made very different choices. 

Park Avenue resident, Russ Moss, formed a reading and discussion group ahead of Homecoming, so some participants had read the book before attending.  Every table had a list of discussion questions, and Russ led a lively exchange centered around themes and lessons from the book.  It turned out to be an extremely stimulating conversation with a lot of participation.  Attendees represented a wide range of background and brought their experiences to the conversation.  For instance, state Senator Catherine Pugh joined us and brought to bear her experience in public service, in developing a school, and in writing children’s book.  Another person was an employee of the Maryland prison system. Much of the discussion became focused around the intersection of personal responsibility in making positive choices, the environment that supports ones ability to make such choices, and our responsibility in helping create that environment and to better understand the life situations of others.

We look forward to keeping Homecoming as an annual Reservoir Hill tradition.

Designing John Eager Howard Elementary as a Community School

On the 4th of June, the School Design Advisory & Action Team held a public meeting focused on how best to use 3,000 square feet in the new design of John Eager Howard Elementary School for community programming and services

A group of residents, city schools personnel, and others met to discuss the results of the Team's community survey of 100 residents.

There were four main categories of need or interest identified through the survey: Food, Housing Counseling, Art, and Health & Fitness. The participants participated in four small groups, each assigned one of these topics.  They explored what resources currently existed in the community, and what resources pertinent to the topic could be incorporated in the new school.

Reservoir Hill's city planner, Alexandra Hoffman, spoke with the participants about broader neighborhood planning being undertaken by the Department of Planning.  In Reservoir Hill, Reservoir Hill Improvement Council and Neighborhood Design Center have partnered to work with the Department of Planning on such neighborhood planning.

Outreach on ideas for how John Eager Howard as a Community School could benefit the Reservoir Hill neighborhood is ongoing.  For more information contact Erin Bowman at ebowman@reservoirhill.net or call 410.225.7547.