Recent Press

A Case Study – City of Paris, Johns Hopkins University, and St. Francis Neighborhood Center (publication)

CRD Creative captures the Welcome Home of the community's youth and families back into their physical space with the new expansion that occurred over COVID-19. And while programming never stopped during the pandemic, we are exciting to welcome back programming and our community safely in person.

St. Francis Neighborhood Center of West Baltimore reopens with big fanfare and sparkling new facilities.

Fox 45 Reports Live from the Center's Soft Opening--Welcome Home--Phase 1 of the expansion

St. Francis Neighborhood Center set for October opening after $5.6 million in renovations

St. Francis Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit community center in West Baltimore, has received a $400,000 grant from the city to continue its renovation and expansion process.

New project unites digital humanities, Black studies, and data and computation. Black Beyond Data, a new project backed by a $300,000 Mellon grant, will seek to create an open resource for scholars to combat racial injustice through digital humanities.

We are international! The Danish Broadcasting Corporation recently released a documentary and article about a Center family, the struggles faced by our community, and how SFNC helps. Check it out here... but bring your Danish translator app!

WYPR chats with SFNC staff about learning loss during the pandemic and how we are tackling the issue! Featuring SFNC Program Manager, Jen Burt, and Group 3 Instructor, Timothy Summerville.

Wiki selects St. Francis Neighborhood Center as one of six compassionate organizations working to lift people out of poverty, published 11.20.20

Read our Executive Director's Op-Ed published in Afro. The Center's history and future highlighted--we are here to stay and are committed to Baltimore.

I started volunteering at St. Francis Neighborhood Center in 2013 and then a few months later, there was a position that opened up and I was so impressed with what was going on, I wanted to be part of the team. Now I’m at the point where I’m hiring people to do certain things because my duties are changing each year...

At New Song Academy, youth came together with technologists and community partners to install the mesh network. It shows how a school can become a node of connectivity in areas that lack internet.

Learning, enrichment, and community support. Those are some of the pillars of the St. Francis Neighborhood Center’s Power Project, which provides high-caliber after-school programming for young people in the Reservoir Hill and Penn North neighborhoods. With support from the Baltimore Children & Youth Fund (BCYF), St. Francis was able to more than double the reach of Power Project and serve 75 young people this past year.

St. Francis Neighborhood Center in nearby Reservoir Hill had plans for finishing out the current school year with after-school enrichment youth development programs for 75 children (ages 5 – 19, including 12 high schoolers) and support for their low-income families, while planning their annual summer camp. Then COVID-19 closed all schools in March and sent everyone into stay-at-home seclusion.

Don’t be misled by the shuttered building at the corner of Linden Avenue and Whitelock Street. In spite of major setbacks to the organization’s construction plans, St. Francis Neighborhood Center (SFNC) continues to forge ahead and serve the needs of the families and children of Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill and Penn North communities. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) shutdown seems only to have strengthened its resolve. Services have not stopped. Instead, they seem to have increased.

A group in Baltimore is helping make sure the learning doesn't stop for students just because schools are closed.

As public schools in Maryland remain closed to slow the spread of COVID-19, families and kids are grappling with boredom and stress. Plus Christi Green, executive director of the St. Francis Neighborhood Center in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill, describes how the community is coping. Information about their emergency fund here.

St Francis Neighborhood Center Executive Director Christi Green talks about the mission of this non profit to lift the residents of the Reservoir Hill neighborhood in Baltimore City out of generational poverty. Since the mid 60’s they have been offering programs, meeting spaces and a place for the neighborhood to interact in positive ways with each other. The association has some exciting plans for 2020 and plenty of ways for you to get involved.

The St. Francis Neighborhood Center is the oldest community center in Baltimore City. They operate year-round development programs for children and families in poverty. Elena Russo talks about those programs and everyday life at the center with one of their current students, Zayon Hill.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore’s oldest community center’s success has been burdened with a unique problem, leaving it unable to use the facility while trying to find a solution. The St. Francis Neighborhood Center has been a fixture in Reservoir Hill since 1963, but their home is in need of repairs and is now too small for the programming.

Just in time for college-application season, Friends School of Baltimore senior Noah Gainsburg added an impressive title to his resume: St. Francis Neighborhood Center’s Volunteer of the Year. At 18, this Reisterstown native has dedicated more than 300 volunteer hours to Reservoir Hill’s SFNC, a nonprofit that offers youth development programs for families living below the federal poverty line.

Elena Russo talks with Christi Green, Executive Director for the St. Francis Neighborhood Center. They discuss the organization and their mission to the community. They also discuss the renovation that is going on at the center. For more information on St. Francis Neighborhood Center, and their mission, visit their website.

A tech tool built for cities is going neighborhood level in Baltimore. Lutèce, developed by the City of Paris, is an open source platform designed to house city services and offers a base platform on which to develop web and mobile applications. For Paris, it’s the digital home for the 200 various functions city government performs.

Reservoir Hill has been at the center of some of the worst stories about Baltimore, but there's much more to it than just the shooting headlines. The Saint Francis Neighborhood Center has been a beacon of hope for the people that love and live in West Baltimore for over 50 years.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has awarded $1.2 million to the St. Francis Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit community center in West Baltimore.
The grant is one of the largest donations to the center's capital campaign so far as it seeks to raise $4 million to renovate and expand its facility in Reservoir Hill. The Weinberg grant brings the campaign's total to $3.4 million. The center previously received a $250,000 grant from the France-Merrick Foundation.

Noah... is aware of the way that adults in his life speak about him. But, he said, he’s only got one constituency in mind when it comes to his work at St. Francis, a nonprofit education and community services organization in Reservoir Hill: “Kids. There’s no question about it,” he said.

Founded more than five decade ago, St. Francis Neighborhood Center has deep roots in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill community. Free summer and after-school programs for kids, job-seeking assistance for adults, help with groceries, counseling--executive director Christi Green says the center’s mission is to end generational poverty through education.

Read this interview with our Executive Director Christi Green about our the capital campaign, how she came to the center and why St. Francis plays such an vital role in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood.

Interview with Tiffaney Quickley, the parent of two children who attend St. Francis Neighborhood Center, about the impact of the center, not just on her family, but on the community as a whole. The center is holding its Reservoir Hill Resource Fair and Music Festival on August 4th at German Park.

Christi Green of St Francis Center tells Nestor about the #BmorePositive impact of her neighborhood center

Interview with Christi Green, the Executive Director of the St. Francis Neighborhood Center, about how Center is community driven and is a model for West Baltimore and the City. Also discussed is their recent success in hitting the 50% mark of their four million dollar campaign, as well as ways for people to get involved.

Interview with Alan Berkley, a High School Center Intern with the St. Francis Neighborhood Center, about the importance of the center for kids and families. Also discussed is the High School Intern program.

Interview with Helen Hiser, from the Board of Directors for the St. Francis Neighborhood Center, about the importance of the center and what would happen if it was not there. Also discussed is expanding the center. For more videos and information about your community, go to ComcastNewsmakers.com. Recorded on: 1-11-18

The Watsons became part of Comcast’s Internet Essentials family when they signed up in November of 2015, joining the more than 750,000 households enrolled to date in the nation’s largest, most comprehensive, and most successful broadband adoption program for low income Americans.

"Today we share a dream to build prosperity and justice for all," said Leon Pinkett, Assistant Deputy Mayor. "Innovation Village fosters collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation," said Pinkett. Innovation Village is an initiative aimed at connecting anchor institutions with small firms, startup businesses, incubators, and accelerators. The goal is to rebuild and transform Central West Baltimore by providing opportunities for new businesses, jobs, housing and retail.

There, the kids are hooked on technology which includes everything from drones and robotics to 3-D printing ad computers. It's a free place for students in kindergarten to 8th grade to go and learn after school. The center has been a breeding ground for creativity and innovation since 1963.

The dog days of summer in Baltimore can be hard on children, especially if they’re playing outside in the heat. But during a recent visit to the St. Francis Center in Reservoir Hill, the 47 children signed up for the center’s summer camp were cool, busy, engaged in activities to improve their community and having fun.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Several cleanup efforts are still going on after this week’s riot on Monday. One group saw its volunteer list morph from a handful of people to hundreds looking to give back to the city.

Dan Rodricks of the Baltimore Sun writes about our Power Project.