Community Partner: Reservoir Hill Improvement Council
Intern: Matthew Brown
Site Supervisor: Eli Lopatin
What is Reservoir Hill Improvement Council (RHIC)?
RHIC’s goal is to revitalize the physical and human infrastructure of Reservoir Hill without resulting in full‐scale
gentrification and significant displacement, including rehabilitation of deteriorating buildings; alleviating poverty and its
attendant problems, including poor sanitation, crime, education, low homeownership, and unemployment; and making the
organized, informed voice of residents influential and effective.
Heading into my internship, I didn't know what to expect. However, I found
Tasks:
my time at Reservoir Hill Improvement Council to be a unique and valuable
• Updated the interactive Tree Canopy Map
experience I will never forget. From cataloging the more than five hundred
• Attended various community organizing
trees in the area to working at the Whitelock Community Farm, my
meetings with both community partners in
internship gave me the opportunity to engage in various areas of the
Reservoir Hill and the greater Baltimore area.
Reservoir Hill community. One of the key things I learned through my
• Worked at the Whitelock Community Farm
internship is the importance of working together. Many of my
• Helped to plan, prepare, and execute an
responsibilities involved talking to other community organizations in the
Alley Cleanup Day with local community
area in order to coordinate and execute both long and short term projects.
partners in order to engage the community
The ability to have effective meetings and a consistent and determined
as well as clean up and improve the health of
group of people around you is one of the keys to being successful in the
the area.
nonprofit sector. Another important asset is the ability to effectively
communicate with the people you are trying to help. When you create an
plan for an idea, you have to make sure to present every aspect of your plan
to neighbors and other members of the community you are working in. By
consulting with the people in the area and giving them an active role in the
planning, you build meaningful relationships that build trust between your
respective organization and the community. This is crucial because you need
to listen to the people affected by what you are doing in order to make sure
that your project never loses sight of its purpose: to serve and help the
people and community that you work in. I am thankful that CIIP afforded me
the opportunity to engage with a part of Baltimore I had never explored and
would highly recommend this program to students interested in taking a
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more active role in the Baltimore community. ‐ Matthew