By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com In 1999, Baltimore native David Pridgen worked for the U.S. Postal Service but to supplement his income, he delivered newspapers in his spare time. Traveling through city neighborhoods, he would often see “for sale” signs. Some of the properties he saw captured his […]
Author Archives: Megan Sayles AFRO Staff Writer
Megan Sayles is a business reporter for The Baltimore Afro-American paper. Before this, Sayles interned with Baltimore Magazine, where she wrote feature stories about the city’s residents, nonprofits and initiatives. Her love of music inspired her to be a writer. At a young age she realized it was not the melody that she was so infatuated with, but the lyrics that made up the song and connected with listeners. Sayles grew up in Pasadena, Maryland, and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Maryland, where for her senior capstone project she reported on how the coronavirus and inequality intersected in Baltimore. She also worked as a staff writer and copy editor for campus publications, including Stories Beneath the Shell and The Black Explosion. Sayles teamed up with a partner to report on how the pandemic had put many more responsibilities on the oldest child in families. The Associated Press and other news organizations picked up her story.
Posted inBUSINESS
The Connect Masterclass lets aspiring actors and models meet and learn from entertainment industry pros
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com D.C. native Cashaéy Serenity has worked in fashion, modeling and acting for over a decade, and now she’s employing her expertise and industry contacts to host The Connect Masterclass for aspiring models and actors to network and learn from entertainment professionals. The event, […]
Posted inBUSINESS
SparkCharge is the world’s first and only mobile electric vehicle charging network
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com While studying economics and data science information management at Syracuse University, Joshua Aviv’s environmental economic professor came into class one day and told his students if they wanted to change the world, they’d have to solve the problem of infrastructure for electric vehicles. […]
Posted inBUSINESS
D.C. nonprofits merge to inclusively and equitably transform the financial services sector
By Megan Sayles,AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance, two D.C.-based national nonprofits, recently merged with Ventures Lending Technologies to create Momentus Capital. Momentous Capital aims to serve as a continuum of social, financial and knowledge capital for local leaders, businesses and community organizations to […]
Posted inNational News
‘EtymologyRules: Back to Basics’ helps learners improve literacy skills by teaching the origin and history of words
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, 54 percent of adults, nearly 130 million people, aged 16 to 74 lack literacy proficiency, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. Low levels of literacy make individuals more likely to have poorer […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Harper Watters: a TikTok star and the Houston Ballet’s first Black, queer first soloist
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com When Harper Watters was just 16, he left his family in New Hampshire and moved to Texas to join the second company of the Houston Ballet, the fifth largest ballet company in the U.S. He had auditioned for the company per his dance […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Black men in Baltimore join forces to foster generational wealth
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com According to the Abell Foundation, the homeownership rate in Baltimore City dropped from 51 percent to 47 percent from 2007 to 2017. The Black homeownership rate plunged to 42 percent. The decline of Black homeownership is not special to Baltimore. In fact, the […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Factuality is the board game giving players a 90-minute crash course on structural inequality in the U.S.
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com While working as a director of diversity at Notre Dame of Maryland University, Natalie Gillard was often tasked with developing diversity training for the school. She would find standard exercises online and run them in person, but they felt foreign to her. Even […]
Posted inBUSINESS
Kidsplosion Nation helps youth discover and develop their natural gifts and abilities
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com When Carlena Evans was a young girl, she would often ask God what she was supposed to do with her life, and in time, he gave her an answer. Evans’ dive into entrepreneurship emerged from what she called a “two-finger tap from God.” […]
Posted inBUSINESS
Black-owned streaming platform Disctopia lets independent artists and podcasters build direct-to-fan income streams
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msaylesafro.com Patrick Hill is a self-professed hip-hop head, so when his friend asked him to burn CDs for his new mixtape, Hill figured he could do him one better. He quickly designed a website to host the tracks and added a PayPal link so […]
Posted inBUSINESS
Chase Business Banking mentorship program offers one-one coaching to local minority entrepreneurs
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msaylesafro.com JPMorgan Chase’s senior business consultants in Baltimore, Beth Hehir and Hans Petit-Homme, hold more than 40 years of combined experience in commercial banking, business banking and financial services. Now, using their expertise, the pair has combined forces to mentor minority businesses across the […]
Posted inBUSINESS
Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance merge to create Momentus Capital to inclusively and equitably transform the financial services sector
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayle@safro.com Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance, two established national nonprofits based in D.C., recently merged and joined forces with Ventures Lending Technologies to create Momentus Capital, an organization that provides a continuum of social, financial and knowledge capital for local leaders, […]