As a community based nonprofit, Newborn Holistic Ministries was founded in 1996 by life-long community resident, Elder C.W. Harris. We have always been focused on meeting the material, social, and spiritual needs of our community. These needs have been intense as our communities struggle with severe poverty related issues such as drugs, unemployment, poor schools and lack of resources.
When we acquired our first building at our intersection (1928 Pennsylvania Avenue), three of the four corners had abandoned and dilapidated buildings and were dominated by open-air drug dealing. The fourth corner had a brick-top park whose main feature, a large water fountain, had been off for nearly 20 years. Furthermore, these buildings were all surrounded by vacant lots - the result of buildings demolished by the city without a redevelopment plan.
When we began renovation of 1928 Pennsylvania Avenue, our founder, Elder Harris hoped to turn it into a center for arts but changed course at a community meeting when a resident spoke about a lack of recovery programs for women and asked for help. From that experience a new vision was born and in 2000, after completing renovation, we dedicated that building as Martha’s Place, a six-month transitional program for women overcoming drug addiction and homelessness.
Since then, our small nonprofit has continued to rebuild the intersection. With funding support from individual donors, foundations, and city grants, our small staff has been able to operate Martha’s Place, which has seen over 100 women leave our program clean and sober with a job and housing. At the same time, we’ve also been able to acquire and renovate four rowhomes on the northeast corner of our intersection to provide long-term housing for graduates of the Martha’s Place six-month program. We’ve taken the seven vacant lots (8,500 sq/ft) surrounding our buildings and transformed them into beautiful community green spaces with meditative gardens, murals, flowers, and fountains. And this November we will complete the renovation of a commercial building on our southeastern corner at 1947 Pennsylvania Avenue which will feature arts classes in ceramics, visual arts, dance, and writing through our new Jubilee Arts program.
Throughout all this work however, the abandoned fountain at our northwestern corner remained dormant. Over the past year we worked to slowly push closer to our goal of reviving this corner. Beginning with strategic guidance from our partners at the TKF Foundation and Tim Almaguer at Friends of Patterson Park, (which successfully restored the fountain in Patterson Park) we worked to identify ways to get the fountain turned back on. Next steps involved regular contact with our city councilman Bill Cole, who worked diligently on our behalf to coordinate city agencies to help restore our corner fountain. Finally, with great help from Vernon Smith in Baltimore City’s Department of General Services, crews began to repair the fountain and this September the fountain shot to life for the first time in over 20 years. Though some kinks in the fountain’s operation are still being ironed out, we are celebrating this restoration and the beauty and symbolic resurgence it gives our community.
I was recently told there is a strategy stating that if all four corners of an intersection in a struggling area can be reclaimed, they will anchor the area and lead to long-term redevelopment. With the dedication of our final building at 1947 Pennsylvania Avenue scheduled next month on November 14th, at 11:00am, we will have completely revived our entire intersection to address the needs in our community and make it an area of beauty and hope. We still face tremendous work to do in order to achieve the full revival of our community but our work thus far is proof that it can and must be done.
To learn more about our work or to become involved, please email: newborntm@hotmail.com
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