2018 CIIP Program Book CIIP Booklet 2018 | Page 17

Community Partner:
Charm City Care Connection
Intern: Christina Ambrosino
Site Supervisor: Augusta Gribetz
Interning at Charm City Care Connection has been a wonderful experience. As it’s a
small organization, I got a chance to see and take part in many different sides of its day-
to-day operations. Most daily activities fell within the categories of clinic walk-in hours,
patient follow-up, electronic health records, health screener resource database upkeep,
and community outreach. One of the best parts of the summer was collaborating with
Charm City Care Connection’s partner organizations including the Baltimore Resources
for Indoor Drug-use Grassroots Education & Safety (BRIDGES) coalition, the Pleasant
View Garden’s affordable housing building for senior residents, Baltimore Food Rescue,
the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, and the 29th Street Community Center. I feel
like I learned so much from the BRIDGES coalition, especially about the current political
discussions surrounding safe consumption sites in the United States and abroad.
What is Charm City Care Connection?
We believe that connection creates community.
We do this by building long term partnerships
between volunteers and community residents,
empowering both parties to learn from each
other as they work to promote health and
well-being within Baltimore’s fragmented health-
care system
At Pleasant View Gardens, we held a four-week long cooking class where we’d work in
small groups to prepare a meal and then sit down to eat dinner together. After dinner,
Baltimore Food Rescue held a food giveaway in the residential home. Through conversa-
tions with the staff from both Charm City Care Connection and Baltimore Food Rescue, I
was grateful to get a much better understanding of the problem of food waste and food
access in Baltimore.
Throughout this summer, Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition has been an incredible
community of teachers and supporters for both the clinic and myself. With their help,
I was able to complete my training to become a trainer in naloxone and later to help
lead a community training at the clinic’s summer Open House event. Carrying out the
trainings at the clinic event was a wonderful opportunity to learn more from community
members about their feelings, experiences, and concerns surrounding harm reduction
and the opioid crisis.
Finally, this summer intern experience would not have been the same without the part-
nership between Charm City Care Connection and the 29th Street Community Center.
In our efforts to co-organize a community health fair event, I was continually impressed
by the passion and collaborative spirit of the CIIP community. Taking the first steps to
organize the health fair might have seemed like a daunting task. Yet by already having
a contact – the respective CIIP intern – in many of the city’s key health-oriented organi-
zations, this process was unexpectedly easy and enjoyable. I was and am so grateful for
the other interns’ and community partners’ willingness to go out of their way on a rainy
Saturday to attend our event.
To the Charm City Care Connection staff and regular volunteers, I also want to express
my absolute gratitude and appreciation. They devote so much to the clinic and its mis-
sion. I’m so grateful to have gotten to be a small part of it through CIIP!
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Community outreach, including tabling at fairs,
door-knocking, preparing for the clinic Open
House event, and communicating with neighboring
non-profits
Training with the BHRC and holding a naloxone train-
ing at the clinic Open House event
Organizing a Community Health Fair event with the
29th St. Community Center intern, Bentley
Creation of a LGBTQ health resource guide and map
for health screeners and case managers at the clinic
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