All Posts Tagged With: "Community"

Baltimore Nia is an expressive, barefooted, dance/fitness practice with a wholesome focus on body, mind and spirit. Nia creates weight loss while providing the proper weight maintenance. This form of dance also improves muscle tone, calms the mind and relieves stress. Created by Carlos Rosas and Debbie Posas in 1983 Nia, is now brought you by Megan Charles Founder and instructor of Nia Baltimore. You can get involved through classes located at 3000 Chestnut Ave. on the first Sunday of every month, beginning in January.

The Neighborhood Design Center works throughout the Baltimore and Prince George’s County area helping residents, small non-profit organizations, and community development corporations do what they typically otherwise couldn’t: improve their communties. These communities many times are seeking to improve blocks and homes, renovate parks and school grounds, reclaim abandoned structures for new community uses, improve neighborhood commercial districts, etc., but simply lack the means. The Neighborhood Design Center helps by offering multiple free services: conceptual building and site plans, preliminary feasability studies and cost estimates, neighborhood master plans, and community development guidance. As the center itself is a non-profit, it does all this by mobilizing volunteer architects, planners, landscape architects, engineers, and other design professionals who donate their professional services to help neighborhoods in their initial revitalization efforts. Through their work the center hopes to strengthen community participation in neighborhood improvement efforts, educate the public about the value of good design, and serve as a catalyst for increased investment in neighborhood development.

Baltimore Bird Club is a chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society, the Baltimore Bird Club provides a series of links on its website — other local birding groups, birding blogs, interactive games, and issues of the club’s downloadable newsletter.

One Less Car is an advocate for safe and effective transportation alternatives in Maryland. They accomplish this through education, lobbying, and facilitation between communities, governments, and state and local representatives. Their website is a great resource for finding cycling clubs, stores, maps and trails, and commuting and mass transit options. At One Less Car, they believe that people walking, biking, and using public transportation (essentially: people interacting), are all indicators of a healthy, working city.

Since 1989, Trees for the Future has been helping communities around the world plant trees, through seed distribution, agroforestry training, and country programs. Focusing on developing countries, they equip rural communities with the knowledge and materials necessary to turn degraded lands and farms into sustainable production. Since their inception a decade ago, they’ve planted around 50 million trees in Central America, Africa, and Asia. For a list of projects, resources, or information on how to get involved, visit their website.

The Yabba Pot Cafe, located at 2431 St. Paul Street, is “Baltimore’s premiere Vegan hot spot”. Owned by “Mama” Chef Skai, the restaurant offers Rastafarian-influenced cuisine called “Ital”, the main concept being that food should come straight from the garden to the table – no processing and no preservatives. She even uses traditional Afrikan clay Yabba Pots for stewing. The menu and specials change daily. A community-oriented business, the Yabba Pot also features cooking classes, workshops and seminars, as well as a poetry venue Saturday evenings. Check out the menu online!

Green School of Baltimore is an elementary school with a different approach to learning. Adopting a curriculum that embraces what they call “EIC” (Environment as an Integrating Context”, the school’s surroundings and community are used as the context for math, reading, science, and social studies. Each grade participates in year-long studies and projects that include creating rain gardens, planning and growing an edible, organic garden, developing a recycling program, and creating a tree nursery. The school’s mission is not only to educate its students, but help them increase environmental stewardship through experiential environmental education.