UMB To Create $8M Community Engagement Center In West Baltimore

University of Maryland, Baltimore: The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is expanding its outreach to the surrounding west Baltimore community with the launch of a brand-new Community Engagement Center (CEC).

The new center will be the cornerstone of UMB’s Community Campus, a location and a concept that demonstrates a deep commitment to strengthening West Baltimore in collaboration with the neighbors who live there. Located immediately west of UMB’s academic campus, the Community Campus allows the university to meet and serve the residents where they are through a variety of resources, programs, and activities.

(View a video with more information about UMB’s Community Campus.)

“UMB’s Office of Community Engagement, as well as our many community partners and our community advisory board members, have worked tirelessly over the last four years to grow the CEC into what it is today,” says Ashley Valis, MSW, the Executive Director for the Office of Community Engagement and resident of West Baltimore. “Together, we have imagined, planned, brainstormed, and convened many residents to deliver a new community center that will be a welcoming, fun, educational, relaxing, respectful, and transformational space for our neighbors. It will be a place that our community deserves and has been needed for a long time.”

The new CEC will be seven times larger than the current center which opened its doors in 2015. In four years, the current center has recorded more than 35,000 visits from men, women, teens, and children who engage with its services and programming. The CEC is where UMB helps its neighbors find jobs, gives children a safe place to learn and play, hosts health and fitness programs, and connects neighbors with various resources.

Having outgrown the current 3,000-square-foot space, the CEC will soon move around the corner to a 20,000-square-foot historic building on Poppleton Street where services and activities can be expanded to meet growing community demand. It will also house the UMB Police Athletic/Activities League (PAL) and serve as a home to UMB’s nationally recognized CURE Scholars Program, which prepares West Baltimore middle and high school students for competitive and rewarding careers in research, STEM, and health care.

As an anchor institution in Baltimore, UMB is deeply committed enhancing its relationships with its closest neighbors so that, together, they can bring this shared vision to life.
“UMB is committed to this city, to the residents of West Baltimore” says UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD. “I’m so grateful that our neighbors have put their trust in us and are eager to partner with us in something this special. This new center builds on a lot of the hard work we’ve undertaken together as a community, and I can’t wait to see what we create from here.”
Renovations are beginning this month, and an official groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for October 24, 2019. Construction is estimated to be completed by the summer of 2020.