Community Partner: 29th Street Community Center
Intern: Tommy Mee
Site Supervisor: Ali Warhaftig
What is the 29th Street Community Center?
The mission of the 29th Street Community Center is to offer a space for meaningful community building
and high quality enrichment programming that adds value and vibrancy to surrounding neighborhoods
and the Barclay Elementary/Middle School.
Commonly portrayed and perceived as a dangerous, neglected city, Baltimore’s
reputation does not match its heart. The most important take‐away from my
experience at the 29th Street Community Center is that Baltimore is a vivacious
city with a great deal to offer. The Center, for example, hosted Peace Camp,
Bulldog Basketball Camp, a movie night, and tons of programming, and will
shortly host a three on three basketball tournament and a block party health fair.
Along with the other full‐time staff, I helped other organizations advertise for
their events. As a student with a heavy workload during the academic year, it is
easy to feel disconnected and ill‐informed about what goes on in the city. Through
my internship, I have been able to strengthen my connection with the city and
learn about the lively events it has to offer. My internship has been demanding
and rewarding; I have attempted to recruit after‐school programs for the center,
advertise the basketball tournament, create a prototype website, and maintain
general upkeep of the Center. The block party health fair event will take place in
less than a month and has proven to be the toughest challenge and biggest
responsibility of my internship. I began planning the event in July in partnership
with the Charm City Clinic. It will offer free food, music, and navigational health
services, such as assistance with signing up for insurance. The marketing plan has
been designed to target vulnerable, low‐income populations that could benefit
most from the medical services. From the planning process to the outreach, I have
learned what it takes to deliver an event and what challenges arise as a result. Of
course, the event has not happened yet and there are plenty of obstacles yet to
emerge, but unresponsiveness dominates the list of issues. Persistence has been a
crucial, necessary skill to hone and is certainly a skill consistently needed for any
kind of event planning. ‐Tommy
Tasks:
• Successfully helped plan a movie night that displayed
“Inside Out” that had approximately 75 attendees.
• Assisted in planning and delivering professional
development lessons for 8 Youth Workers
• Created a website for the Center
• Planned and executed a block party health fair event
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