Baltimore Community Foundation to release first round of Key Bridge relief grants

The nonprofit Baltimore Community Foundation (BCF) Tuesday announced it will award the first round of grants to local community-based organizations offering charitable relief in response to the March 26 Key Bridge collapse and closure of the Port of Baltimore.

The grant money comes from BCF’s Maryland Tough Baltimore Strong Key Bridge Fund, created within 48 hours of the Key Bridge collapsing and stemming from an outpouring of support from national, regional, and local businesses and philanthropists. So far, the fund has raised $15.6 million.

The following organizations were selected as BCF’s first round of philanthropic grant awardees:

• Community Assistance Network ($366,000) – The Community Assistance Network (CAN) is a nonprofit based in Dundalk that develops, operates and supports programs that reduce vulnerability and empower personal growth among people in Baltimore County experiencing economic challenges. The grant money will be used to support the increase of its usual services, including food distribution, transportation services and cash relief programs in response to anticipated demand following loss associated with the Key Bridge. With the grant money, CAN will produce 2,925 care packages, including food supplies covering three meals and snacks for seven days for a family of four.
• Pro Bono Counseling ($178,500) – Pro Bono Counseling (PBC) is a mental health service provider and reference agency based in Baltimore that serves the state of Maryland. The grant money will bolster PBC’s usual services, creating additional staff hours to facilitate increased intakes for connecting clients to permanent low- and no-cost suppliers and to operate its WARMLine emergency counseling service. Funding will also be used to add new temporary roles to conduct bilingual community outreach to support the 400% increase in Spanish-speaking WARMLine requests since this time last year. BCF’s contribution would fund first-line responders, MSW-credentialed case workers, WARMLine operators, and outreach associates.
• Baltimore Museum of Industry ($25,000) – The Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) is a cultural museum based in Baltimore dedicated to interpreting the diverse and significant human stories behind labor and innovation in the city. The grant money will be used to organize an oral history memorialization effort around the loss of the Key Bridge and the efforts of first responders, road workers, and the disruption of everyday workers at the Port of Baltimore. The primary expense for the program is compensation for bilingual community engagement and oral historian contractors who will engage with the broad range of impacted communities respectfully and sensitively and collect their stories. The museum intends for the materials collected to serve as a basis for a future exhibit on the Key Bridge’s history and collapse, as well as a historical record that will be available for access by historians and other researchers in the future.
• Leftover Love ($5,000) – Leftover Love is a Baltimore-based logistics nonprofit that facilitates the distribution of leftover food by restaurants at the end of the business day to local human services providers in Southeast Baltimore City. The grant money will support additional volunteer mileage reimbursements through the end of the year as team members distribute more food to Southeast Baltimore City food pantries, churches, and human service providers seeing increased demand following the collapse of the Key Bridge.

Baltimore’s Key Bridge destroyed: Everything you need to know

Additional community-based organizations are invited to apply for grants from the Maryland Tough Baltimore Strong Key Bridge Fund that will support first responders and their families, port workers and their families, and the Key Bridge and Port adjacent communities including Dundalk, Edgemere, Essex and Key Bridge contiguous areas in northern Anne Arundel County and Baltimore City.

Organizations must present a credible response to a need connected to economic destruction from the Key Bridge collapse. Grant payments will be distributed as they’re awarded.