2017 CIIP Program Book 2017 CIIP Program Book | Page 8

"The two main projects I worked on during this summer were the CMOS project and there are about 270
community-managed open spaces in Baltimore, which means pocket parks, gardens and any green space that the
community has some tangible use for, and BGS has data on nearly all of them. There were a few (42) that my
supervisor, Katie, said needed to be connected with either with a direct visit or call, and so I planned a trip around the
City to visit the 25 sites that needed to be visited. After visiting the sites located all around the City, much became
apparent about the nature of green spaces in Baltimore and how drastic the landscaping can be in different
neighborhoods. For example, driving to Bolton Hill to visit one site, one can see a drastic change in architecture,
organization, and even number of abandoned homes, and then driving from that area to Penn North (a mere five
minute drive) it seems like visiting a different city entirely. This was also apparent in the green spaces themselves; a lot
of the sites that were defunct were located in neighborhoods that it seemed weren’t even aware that there were
green spaces in their neighborhoods. Also, a good amount of green spaces are started up by organizations like schools,
non-profits and churches with a lot of gusto and initial backing, but then are left to deteriorate because they’re not
continually managed, there’s no designated site manager(s) or it was created without community use in mind. On the
other hand, there were sites that had questionable data in our records, but turned out to be doing quite
well. Working in the Duncan Street Miracle Garden was also a pleasure, and it was nice to see how important the
garden is to the surrounding community and the City’s history as a whole. This internship has reinforced my drive to
push for more meaningful green spaces in Baltimore, and it’s nice to see the City is making that a priority as well."-
Omar
Community Partner: Baltimore Green Space
Intern: Omar Lloyd
Site Supervisor: Katie Lautar
What is Baltimore Green Space?
Baltimore Green Space is a land trust that partners with
communities to preserve and support community gardens, forest
patches, pocket parks, and other community-managed open
spaces. Baltimore’s residents create social, environmental, and
economic benefits in their neighborhoods; we aim to support them
through land preservation and advocacy for policies that support
local greening.
• Edited a spreadsheet that contained data on over 2,200 forest
patches in Baltimore, grouping them based on who owned the
properties and summarizing the data (start of forest
prioritization project).
• Worked in the Duncan Street Miracle Garden once per week,
learning different gardening techniques, harvesting certain
vegetables like tomatoes and watermelons, and a large amount
of weeding
• Connected with over 20 community-managed open spaces;
checking whether or not people used the sites anymore, taking
pictures, and updating our database.
• Various smaller projects: editing the new strategic plan for BGS,
renewing storm water fee credit applications for our sites,
researching how current city plans overlap with our goals for
forest preservation, setting up a new office phone!
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