Organization seeks to be an ‘Open Door’ to Baltimore communities
- Apr 18, 2008 - comment
BALTIMORE, Md.—Nestled on the invisible line between the past and the future in South Baltimore’s Brooklyn community stands the new offices of Open Door Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit community service organization that seeks to offer hope across the changing urban landscape.
Located in a house adjacent to First Church, Brooklyn, Open Door seeks to bridge the gap between existing community residents and the vast influx of newcomers, who are mostly the poor and working poor who are being displaced from downtown Baltimore neighborhoods.
“South Baltimore’s Brooklyn is a proud but anxious community,” explains Bill Simpson, Open Door’s executive director. “Brooklyn [once considered a suburb away from the inner city] is not a community in crisis. It is a community in change.”
With all the changes, residents are worried about the future of their neighborhoods. They are concerned about the morale of their community.
In this past year, Simpson admits he’s been asked on several occasions, “What are you going to do for us so that our kids will want to stay in the community?”
In 2006, an independent study by the Percept Group, a national demographic and ethnographic research organization, found four challenges facing the urban poor in this Baltimore locale.
According to the findings, the community stress conditions are “critically high.” Sixty percent of residents have “little or no faith involvement.” The education attainment level is “extremely low.” Finally, the basic family structure is “extremely nontraditional.”
Overall, the entire city of Baltimore presents an even bleaker picture.
According to a recent study conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 65 percent of young children are not ready to begin school. And in seemingly direct correlation, the high school dropout rate is at 62 percent.
From Baltimore media accounts, 23 percent of the population is at or below the national poverty rate.
“This is indicative of a city in crisis,” Simpson says, pointing to the comprehensive needs in the greater Baltimore area.
Accordingly, Simpson and his staff members point to Prov. 13:12 as Open Door’s scriptural mandate: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
“For the typical American, there is a sense of hope that tomorrow will be better,” he explains. “But for the urban poor there is no such hope.”
The Open Door team knows the task before them is monumental. Realizing the enormity of it all, they have realistic short-term goals.
“We want to help people do better next month than last month,” Simpson says. “We want to provide education, motivation and inspiration so that all people feel better about themselves and their futures.”
He adds, “We’re not a social services agency. We are not a ‘hand-out’ society. We’re a ‘helping up’ society. We want to help a struggling family to do better next year.”
Simpson, who has been developing a board over the past two years while studying Baltimore’s various needs, believes that the Church in America can help resolve issues among the poor. He sees Matthew 25, where Jesus commends those who feed and clothe the poor, as the right way to approach the complex situations.
“We want to help facilitate greater social proximity between the urban poor and the Church in America,” Simpson notes, asserting that the local church is in the best position to holistically help individuals.
Currently, Open Door is developing partnerships with area churches as well as businesses and community groups to help develop the dream of a better community. First Church, Brooklyn, and The Church at Covenant Park in Ellicott City, Md., have been strong advocates of the work, as has the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and Embrace Baltimore.
“Open Door is enormously appreciative for the generosity and missional spirit of First Baptist Church, Brooklyn, led by Pastor Louis Paradiso, and the Church at Covenant Park, led by Pastor Danny Crow,” Simpson affirms.
Open Door seeks to open its doors to develop a Community Campus, where civic organizations can use the facility for meetings, where senior citizens can come and interact with each other and where moms can come and spend time with other moms in a stress-free environment.
The organization also seeks to develop a Community Corps component, much like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps model, which seeks to match volunteers with opportunities to address critical needs in communities.
“We want to be a place where the churches [and other groups] can learn to interact and take back to their communities what they’ve learned. We also want to be a place where people of different faiths can work together,” Simpson shares.
Like other nonprofits, Open Door is only made possible through the generous donations of organizations and individuals.
For more information on how you can partner in this vital work, contact Open Door at (410) 354-1220, bsimpson@opendoorbaltimore.org or online at www.opendoorbaltimore.org.
This article is reprinted from the April 2008 issue of Baptist LIFE, the newsjournal of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware.
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