Baltimore

I’ve been thinking recently about how it’s going to feel turning 20 this year, especially now and in Baltimore – a city standing at a crossroad with some big decisions to make after an unsettling spring. And, I’m also wondering what it’s going to be like on the West Side after having really come of age in the heart of East Baltimore.

First of all, we go where the jobs are.

We’re Caroline Center. Committed to women. Committed to work. 

From “What It Takes“

Many of the women who attend Caroline Center enter this world with the deck squarely stacked against them. Many, but not all. Take, for example, Caroline Center graduate, Quy’an (pronounced Kwan-yun) or “Q” as she is called by just about everybody. Q grew up on Long Island, New York in a relatively stable family environment. Though her parents divorced when Q was 12 years old, to this day they remain “best friends” and – more importantly – strong and positive influences in Q’s life. She describes her mother as a “hard worker” and recalls (with a smile) how her father constantly nagged her about schoolwork and admonished her to “keep her head in the books.” Their good example and advice paid off.

We all want the same thing. To live – and raise our children – in a safe and nurturing environment. But let’s face it. It’s a perilous world. Danger lurks everywhere and sadly, you don’t have to venture beyond the menacing streets of our own troubled city to encounter it. In the last two months of this year alone (and this month is not over), there were more than 60 shootings and 40 homicides in Baltimore City. A public safety concern, by any definition.