By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), alongside several community leaders and philanthropists, acknowledged and celebrated major investments in the state’s initiative to end child poverty throughout Maryland.
“Within our first six months, we expanded the Child Tax Credit and raised the minimum wage to lift more families out of poverty,” said Moore on Jan. 23 in the Governor’s Reception Room in the Maryland State House. “One year ago, we crafted and passed the ENOUGH (Engaging Neighborhoods, Organizations, Unions, Governments and Households) Act– the most ambitious state-run, place-based poverty-fighting effort in America.”
The ENOUGH Act aims to end child poverty in Maryland by investing in communities experiencing concentrated poverty. Several designated areas reside within majority Black communities of Maryland including East Baltimore’s McElderry Park and Prince George’s County’s Hillcrest Heights.
“Just last month, we announced our first cohort of ENOUGH Act grantees, who will develop and implement plans to fight poverty in their communities,” Moore continued.
Awardees include various community organizations already doing the work in Baltimore City, such as the Park Heights Renaissance, Cherry Hill Strong, Tendea Family and We Our Us. Through the ENOUGH Act, the 27 local organizations selected were awarded $13.1 million in grants.
State leaders aim to have $200 million invested in the initiative over six years.
Moore also announced the official start of the ENOUGH Alliance and the ENOUGH Community Support Fund.
According to the governor’s office, “members of the ENOUGH Alliance either commit to providing aligned funding to nonprofit organizations in ENOUGH-eligible jurisdictions or to contributing to the ENOUGH Community Support Fund.”
“We are proud to celebrate the official launch of the “ENOUGH Alliance,” said Moore. “The ENOUGH Alliance is an independent coalition of both philanthropy and private sector organizations.”
Moore explained that “in the balanced bipartisan budget we passed, the legislature allocated $20 million toward this work. But we also knew that the government alone would not get us where we needed to go. That is why we have come together to build a team big enough to take on this challenge.”
“The alliance has already inspired investments of over $100 million toward fighting poverty and expanding opportunity in Maryland,” said Moore. “This investment puts us halfway toward the alliance’s goal to galvanize $200 million of philanthropic support to end poverty in our state.”
Blue Meridian Partners, a philanthropic non-profit organization, made a significant commitment of $50 million on Jan. 23.
“We have gotten all of this done in less than 12 months,” Moore touted.
The new fund is an independent way to gather support and resources from philanthropies.
Yolanda Jiggetts, CEO of Park Heights Renaissance, spoke about what this progress means to her.
“I’m almost overwhelmed with emotion for you, even recognizing that and standing up and saying that we in the community know best,” said Jiggetts to the governor during the announcement. “The residents live there. They know what’s best for their community.”
Jiggetts said one of the most challenging aspects of her work at the Park Heights Rennaisance is “getting people to recognize that the community should be telling you what they want and you should be supporting” not the other way around.