Author: Molly Ricks

What Are We Planning for 2025? And why we need your support to make it happen.

There are only a few days left in 2024, which means you have only a few days left to donate or become a member this year! We are a small organization so a gift of any size – from $5 to $500 – will help immensely. Here are a few highlights for how your gift will help in the year ahead:

Heritage Tours:

This past year we began hosting three new bus tours and even a new Inner Harbor history boat tour! This spring we will be able to return with more robust tours and events, including more boat tours. Please stay tuned!

Five Minute Histories Videos: 

Our Five Minute Histories series offers a way to connect that in-person programs just can’t. So, don’t worry, these are here to stay, and we’re ramping up for a full year of them in 2025.

Critical Preservation Work: 

This past year we helped restore the Perkins Square Gazebo in the Heritage Crossing neighborhood. In the coming year, we are planning to work with our partners in Herring Run and Leakin Parks on projects that will celebrate the parks’ histories and help improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

 

We need your help today.

 

We at Baltimore Heritage are a little bit unusual. We rely heavily on kind volunteers to make our work possible, and nearly three quarters of our annual operating income comes from gifts from individuals. Most of these gifts are at our basic membership levels of $35 for an individual and $50 for a family. By donating at any level, be assured that your support goes a long way.

So once more for 2024, please accept an enormous thank you to everyone who volunteers with us, comes out for tours and programs (in-person and virtually!), and supports our work by generously donating. We look forward to working with you and connecting with you in the year ahead.

— Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Heritage

Coming Spring 2025: Inner Harbor History Boat Tours

Join us for our brand new Baltimore by Boat tours! America defeated the British here. Frederick Douglass escaped from here. Today we are pioneering watershed restoration here. Join us for 300 years of history on a live-narrated tour of Baltimore’s world famous Inner Harbor. Come see how Baltimore’s wonderful waterfront connects the past with the present and Baltimore to the rest of the world.

 

Please stay tuned for more boat tours coming Spring 2025!

Sign up for our mailing list to be notified of new tours. 

 

Boat tours are 75 minutes long. We have partnered with the Baltimore Water Taxi to use their vessels.

For Private Boat Tours: Starting at $250 plus the price of the boat rental (prices vary). Please contact Molly Ricks at ricks@baltimoreheritage.org or 240-305-3984 for scheduling.

Check out all of our upcoming events!

 

Thank you to PNC Bank and NPS Chesapeake Gateways for supporting this project.

 

St. Peter’s Cemetery Restoration Update

In October 2024, Baltimore Heritage held our annual awards event where we gave away 6 micro-grants to 6 very worthy community projects. One award went to the Friends of St. Peter’s Cemetery to support the restoration of this historic site in partnership with the PRINCE Program, which trains incarcerated citizens in cemetery preservation. Last week, we were able to visit the cemetery and see the valuable work being done here. The Baltimore Heritage micro-grant money was used in the last round of vegetation clearance and funded two additional days of clean-up.


Baltimore Heritage recently adopted a new strategic plan, along with new mission and vision statements. Each of these complements and supports community projects like the work being done by the Friends of St. Peter’s Cemetery.

Our new Mission Statement: To amplify Baltimore’s diverse cultural heritage through collaboration, advocacy, and education.

Our new Vision Statement: We create a thriving Baltimore by preserving, honoring and sharing our histories

Thank You for Attending Our Preservation Celebration 2024!

Last Thursday, October 10, Baltimore Heritage had its annual Preservation Celebration at Hollins Market! We handed out 12 awards to groups and individuals doing fabulous work celebrating and preserving our city’s history and buildings. We gave out 6 micro-grants to 6 very worthy community projects. We conducted our organization’s annual meeting and welcomed a few new board members. And we said a big thank you to our wonderful volunteers. They make historic preservation possible in Baltimore. All the while, we ate delicious food from Hollins Market and drank wine from Spirits of Mt. Vernon! Thank you to everyone attended.

 

Award Winners

The Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center (Photo courtesy of Dr. Al Hathaway)

Volunteer of the Year: Linda Snyder

For leading countless public and private tours

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Beloved Community Services Corporation

For the restoration of the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center (PS 103)

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Dr. Ashley Minner Jones, the Native American Senior Citizens,

and the Baltimore Reservation Project

For promoting Lumbee American Indian heritage in East Baltimore

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Bruce Willen

For the Ghost Rivers public art and history project

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Dr. Raynetta Wiggins-Jackson, curator of Ethel’s Place: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s First Lady of Jazz

Dr. Raynetta Wiggins-Jackson

For the exhibit, Ethel’s Place: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s First Lady of Jazz

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Upton Planning Council and Pennsylvania Avenue Main Street

For the renovation of 1829 Pennsylvania Avenue for the Pennsylvania Avenue Welcome Center

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Shelley Halstead & Black Women Build

For work to rehab houses and build community in West Baltimore

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Christina Delgado

For establishing Tola’s Room, a Puerto Rican home museum

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Betty Bland Thomas

For decades of work to preserve heritage in Sharp Leadenhall

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Baltimore Museum of Industry

For the exhibit, Collective Action: Labor Activism in 21st Century Baltimore

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James Ruttley and Kathleen Lechleighter

For the restoration of 1209 Calvert Street

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Douglas Gordon Award: Charlie Duff

For a lifetime of work in historic preservation

 

Pitch Party Winners

Sara Artes presenting for the Corner Team Boxing Club

$2000: Corner Team Boxing Club

Funds will support Phase 1 of the Joe Gans Monument project, which will pay the sculptor to design and fabricate a maquette of the statue 

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$1000: Evolving Young Girls Mentoring Organization

Funds will support the Baltimore’s Hidden Treasures: Youth Preservation Workshop

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$1000: Friends of St. Peter’s Cemetery

Funds will support the restoration of St. Peter’s Cemetery in partnership with the PRINCE Program, which trains incarcerated citizens in cemetery preservation 

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$500: Friends of Patterson Park’

Funds will support a videographer to create a video of the interior of the Observatory for virtual access

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Jessica Williams presenting for Westminster Hall & Burying Ground

$500: Westminster Hall and Burying Ground

Funds will support the restoration of the brick pathway

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$500: Pride of Baltimore

Funds will support replacement of the ship’s planks