Category: ESCProfile (page 3)

In the Marine Corps, I served in Iraq, Southeast Asia, Africa. But I’d been living in Baltimore for a year and I had zero awareness of neighborhoods outside of Canton or Fell’s Point. They tried describing to me where Oliver…

“I was in Build-a-Bear. I was coming up on what would have been my due date and I was looking for an outfit for my son. A woman overheard me tell the salesperson I’d had a miscarriage and said she’d…

“I was a school teacher and my kids never wanted to leave. They wanted to come on evenings, weekends. Pretty soon we realized what was going on — they had no resources, no activities, nothing meaningful to do when they…

“I went to prison at 18. I was moving too fast. I wanted everything yesterday. The inner-city environment breeds a hunger. I wanted to change my life, change the view that I saw out my window. People out there risking…

“We started with a couple of mobile carts selling water and juice down at the Inner Harbor. It was a way to create opportunities for youth in the summer. Today it’s Frozen Desert Sorbet – a youth-run business with 20…

It was a grey, ugly alley — illegal dumping, a place you didn’t want to go. I thought, “We need to do something big.” Then a neighbor said “Let’s just paint the whole thing.” Even I hadn’t thought that big.…

They kept coming by the farm, walking past looking to see what was going on. Then I asked if they want to work, and they showed up. They learned how to plant seeds, how to take the measuring tape and…

I was a three-sport athlete at Loyola Blakefield High with a huge national following. In my junior year, I broke my neck playing football. I was paralyzed from the neck down. The doctor said “Mr. Brooks, you’ll be in this…

I’m not a professional “green” person. I was never a “green” person until I became president of the community association, so now you’ll see me on Saturdays and Sunday picking up trash from the lots, because it needs to be…