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Establishing A Community-led Flood-Disaster Response System for Stillmeadow Resiliency Hub for A More Resilient Community Towards Flooding

Baltimore, Maryland

Featured image for the project, Establishing A Community-led Flood-Disaster Response System for Stillmeadow Resiliency Hub for A More Resilient Community Towards Flooding

This project seeks to create a Community-led Flood-Disaster Response System. Specifically, the project aims at (1) preparing and improving community flood response by creating an operational structure and framework that mobilizes resources, (2) creating partnerships and collaborations to respond to community flood emergencies effectively, (3) equipping the community with knowledge and skills to individually and collectively respond to flood emergencies and (4) increasing the adaptive capacity of Stillmeadow community to better prepare and respond to floods.

Description

About the Community

Stillmeadow Community Fellowship (SCF) Church is in the Westgate Community, Southwest Baltimore, Maryland. According to the Statistical Atlas, the Westgate Community has an approximate population of 2,683, most of whom are considered impoverished and underprivileged. The church is surrounded by other communities like Tremont (958 people), Beechfield (3,708 people), and Irvington (6,559 people) among others extending its services to approximately 13,908 people, predominately from the Black and Hispanic races.

Due to the church being of central importance in these principally impoverished and underprivileged communities, it has witnessed the increasing risks of climate change in the form of severe flooding. This has contributed to recurrent economic crises, housing, food, and financial insecurity within the communities. Subsequently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) identifies these communities as flood risk areas and lying within a designated floodplain. In addition to climate risks, in 2020, the Maryland Department of Agriculture showed the increasing impact of the emerald ash borer pest in Baltimore accounting for losses exceeding $227,568,000 in damage to ash trees.

Race composition within SCF surrounding communities.
Source: Statistical Atlas (https://statisticalatlas.com).

Based on this growing need for community action, in 2018, SCF founded a non-profit arm of the church, Stillmeadow Community Projects, Inc. (SCPI). This was primarily set out to transform the degraded forest (from the damage of ash trees) to a Stillmeadow Peace Park, a privately-owned, public-access park for the community. However, after its extensive efforts in responding to the flood incidences along Fredrick Avenue in 2018, the non-profit organization was re-created as a Baltimore City Resiliency Hub working to help the communities respond to climate disasters. 

Immediately after disaster events, the hub responds by providing access to resources such as shelter, water, food, clothes, electricity, heating/cooling, medication, refrigeration, etc. Furthermore, it has established a cooling center on Code Red Days to provide emergency relief from extreme heat conditions and installed solar panels for solar power and battery storage in case electrical power is lost. The hub has continued to have capital improvements and receives resource equipment and supplies for community disaster response. 

To mitigate flooding, in 2023, SCPI created partnerships to install rain barrels and cisterns that store up to 600 gallons of water to capture stormwater and repurpose it for irrigation. Despite making strides and having the resources to respond to flood disasters within the community, the hub realized gaps in effective flood response, resource distribution, and active collaboration with partners during disaster events. Therefore, it seeks to establish a well-organized Community Flood-Disaster Response System to efficiently mobilize resources, create collaboration, and improve flood resiliency within communities.

To create an effective community-led disaster response system, the hub is working with AGU’s Thriving Earth Exchange, which shares similar values of helping communities become more empowered, resilient, and responsive. Through this partnership, Thriving Earth Exchange helps the community find a project manager and community scientist to guide and develop the response system collaboratively and help the hub achieve a higher level of service and visibility to the community. 

About the Project

Baltimore communities continue to face flooding risks due to factors like low-lying coastlines, sea level rise, heavy rains, and thunderstorms. These have led to unprecedented damage to property and infrastructure, cut-off access to utilities, transportation, and emergency services, economic losses, and social disruptions. As flooding disasters increase, Stillmeadow Community Projects, Inc. (SCPI), a Baltimore City Resiliency Hub strives to build communities’ resilience to these adverse impacts. This project therefore seeks to develop a community-led Flood-Disaster Response System that will advance Stillmeadow’s ability to foster collaborations, ensure proper resource allocation, and coordinate effective flood readiness and response processes before and during flooding. In the long-term, the project will contribute to community post-flood recovery and resilience. 

The project outcome focuses on creating a Community-led Flood-Disaster Response System. The community will be equipped with the knowledge to prepare for floods, know how to respond during a flood, and be involved in the decision-making processes of disaster planning, and preparation. For climate scientists, the project will unveil the imperative need to involve communities and community bodies in the development and uptake of climate change solutions. Globally, the project will contribute to sustainable development goals 3, 11, 13, and 17 which focus on good health and well-being of people, building sustainable cities and communities, climate action, and creating partnerships to achieve the goals.

Project Timelines and Milestones

The project is planned to be executed in 18 months, from May 2024 to November 2025.

Project Team

Community Leaders

Yorell Tuck 

Born and raised in Baltimore City, Yorell Tuck pursued a career in teaching and mentoring youth and young adults.  She progressed from working as a College Campus Minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA at Bucknell University to Director of Providence House Maternity Home for teens.  She also had the honor of working as a Student Life Counselor for middle and high school students at The SEED School of Maryland for 12 years. She has now settled into serving the Southwest Baltimore community with her lifelong church, Stillmeadow Community Fellowship, and its 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Stillmeadow Community Projects, Inc.  As the Director of Operations, Yorell has had the opportunity to expand her reach in serving residents of her beloved hometown.  She engages people of all ages and walks of life by facilitating Stillmeadow’s array of programs offered through the Stillmeadow PeacePark, resiliency hub, food distribution, and the Stillmeadow PeacePark Learning Center. 

Kevin Warfield 

Kevin Warfield is the Policy Administrator for Stillmeadow Community Projects, Inc. (SCPI), a non-profit organization founded by Stillmeadow Community Fellowship. He was brought on to SCPI staff to assess, evaluate, and create structure for the team, and implement standard operating procedures (SOPs) for various programs and events that SCPI has. Mr. Warfield has worked for several years in the Transit industries, where he worked in various roles such as recruiter, trainer, supervisor, and manager of operations. In his role as manager, he was tasked with creating and monitoring budgets. He worked on projects like the remodeling of the transit mall (transit hub for route connections) and helped implement the TAP System (card payment for riding buses and trains). In addition, Mr. Warfield facilitated discussion groups to improve employee relations and created supervisor schedules to ensure adequate coverage for Dispatch, Communications & Road Supervision.

Kimberly Cruise 

Kimberly Cruise is the Director of Stillmeadow Food Pantry and Resiliency Hub Manager for Stillmeadow Community Projects Inc, a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization. She has dedicated more than twenty years serving Southwest Baltimore, Maryland in composing various positions such as Outreach Coordinator, Director of S.P.R.O.U.T. a youth lead program that focused on urban gardening, mentorship and youth lead community engagement and Events Coordinator. In her current role, she is actively working to help decrease food instability and increase availability to healthier foods options as well as help facilitate training/accessibility to emergency-based preventative and recovery resources for underserved communities.

Community Science Fellow

Ritah Nakanjako 

Ritah has a background in Meteorology (BSc) and Geo-Information Systems (MSc) and has worked as a researcher with various rural and urban communities largely in Uganda and other areas like Indonesia, Ghana and South Africa. She has primarily worked on projects that assess climate vulnerability in cities, climate adaptation mechanisms, the interplay of social factors, economic disparities, and decision-making systems in addressing environmental challenges, translating science into local adaptation practices and so much in connecting communities to researchers, policymakers and implementing partners. She is pursuing a PhD focusing on effectiveness of passive heat adaptation strategies in low-income communities in African cities. She is keen on communicating climate science to local stakeholders, co-production of knowledge, community engagement, and use of interdisciplinary tools for the co-development of climate change solutions. 

Scientist Wanted

Scientist Role

The scientist will closely work and effectively communicate with the entire project team, develop specific objectives based on the broader aim of the project, create a multidisciplinary methodology approach to achieve the project-specific objectives, contribute to the development of the final project document, and work both on-site and off-site. The project strongly prefers the scientist to be able to visit the community and engage with project community project leads on-site. The project is open to having experienced students meeting the criteria and needed skills considering the project timeline.

 

Desired Skills and Qualifications (bulleted list):

  • Climate scientist with disaster planning and adaptation experience
  • Experience with interdisciplinary methodologies
  • Experience with citizen science is an added advantage.
  • Desire to participate in community engagement and co-production approaches
  • Willingness to partner with both local and state stakeholders in developing methodologies
  • Willingness to connect science to local concerns
  • Strong teamwork and communication skills
  • Ability to work remotely with less supervision
  • Ability to deliver on strict work timelines
  • The scientist should be able to visit the community in person

 

Thriving Earth Exchange asks all scientific partners to work with the community to help define a project with concrete local impact to which they can contribute as pro-bono volunteers and collaborators. This work can also position the scientists and communities to seek additional funding, together, for the next stage.

Interested in volunteering as a scientist? Apply now!

Collaborating Organization(s)

Stillmeadow Community Projects, Inc. (SCPI)

SCPI was founded as the non-profit organization arm of the Stillmeadow Community Fellowship and officiated as a Baltimore City Resiliency Hub in 2018. The organization primarily focuses on working with communities to respond, prepare and strengthen climate disaster resilience. It has collaborated with various partners like the Baltimore Office of Sustainability, Baltimore Community Resiliency Hub program, DOTS Energy, Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management among others to run food donation operations, install a solar-powered facility for community access to reliable power, continued communication, store medications and coordinate services during and after disasters. The maximize its effectiveness, the organization is leading this project on developing a community-led flood disaster response system to help surrounding communities prepare, respond and build resilience to floods.

Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management (OEM)

OEM operates in five critical areas: prevention, preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery to protect Baltimore City from emergencies and disasters through emergency planning, partnerships, collaboration, and coordination.  Their mission is to maintain the highest level of preparedness to protect Baltimore’s citizens, workers, visitors, and environment from the impact of natural and man-made disasters. Working with OEM from the start of the project will help leverage their expertise on developing city disaster response plans to further create a disaster-specific and community response plan. 

Crystal Dawn Bright – Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management Representative

Crystal is the Deputy Preparedness Section Chief of the Office of Emergency Management. She graduated from Towson University with her bachelor’s in communications in 2020. She has been an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for twenty-four years leading into working in private ambulance service and then the Health Department before landing at the Office of Emergency Management. Crystal’s expertise includes public speaking in which she provides informational presentations on Emergency Preparedness to the aging population, private and local sectors, youth, and supervising Summer Youth Workers. She serves as the Lead Coordinator of the agency’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. She also sits on the Equity Coordinator’s Committee and is the Disability Coordinator for her agency. Whenever the City of Baltimore faces a crisis, Crystal is in the Emergency Operations Center ready to help the city return to normal operations.

Baltimore City Office of Sustainability

The Office of Sustainability develops and advocates for programs, policies, and actions by government, citizens, businesses, and institutions that improve the long-term environmental, social, and economic viability of Baltimore City. It oversees and tracks the implementation of the Baltimore Sustainability Plan, integrates sustainability into City government operations and develops partnerships with organizations on the ground performing related work. The organization highly prioritizes local collaboration which will help guide the project in different approaches and methodologies of developing an effect plan. 

Joanna Birch – Baltimore City Office of Sustainability Representative

Joanna Birch is the City’s new Floodplain Manager! Joanna was born and raised in Maryland. She’s originally from St. Mary’s County and grew up surrounded by water. She has more than a decade of experience working in data-driven mapping and environmental compliance in both the public and private sectors. Joanna holds a bachelor’s in environmental science from the University of Maryland, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Goucher College, and a master’s Certificate in Geographic Information Science from Penn State University. Her interests and hobbies include gardening and houseplants, spending time on the water, doing anything crafty, and making maps.

Both organizations will be involved in all stages of the project, from development to implementation to ensure effective communication, co-partnership, co-development and co-implementation of the project objectives. In addition, the project team will work with various local partners and community members to facilitate community project ownership and inclusion through the project process.