Since 1999, CFUF has worked with our clients, funders, board and community leaders to build an organization that improves the lives of Baltimore's men and women. We provide them with the tools and information they need to create stronger families and stronger communities. Here are the stories of clients and others who have been involved in our work.
In order for us to improve the quality of life in Baltimore, we have to work within the context of the family, but we need to emphasize the inclusion of men and use strategies that help families move forward together in a unified way.
The culture we've created at the Center for Urban Families allows people who live in some of the most disconnected and isolated communities to come here and feel they can trust us.
They recognize that they're not going to be viewed as a number, a statistic, even though they may have certain challenges with whom they are at this particular point.
We give particular attention to males, especially fathers, because they are one-half of the conceiving partnership that brings children into this world. And our social welfare delivery system, locally and nationally, has not been set up to recognize them, particularly as caregivers.
Our children and our families suffer as a result of us not having a system or society that nurtures men. We give them the skills, the methodology, the language, the support, and the optimism to be successful. We give them more than hope. We give them a future."
Joe Jones is founder of The Center for Urban Families. Prior to founding CFUF (formerly called the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development), Joe developed and directed the Men's Services program for the federally funded Baltimore Healthy Start initiative and replicated the Baltimore affiliate of the nationally recognized STRIVE employment services program.
His ability to engage and provide hands-on services to fathers garnered him the reputation of trailblazer in the field.
Joe Jones is now a national leader in workforce development, fatherhood, and family services programming, and through his professional and civic involvement influences policy direction nationwide.
Joe has received numerous awards and honors for his leadership and programming, including the Johns Hopkins University Leadership Development Program's Distinguished Leadership Award.
He has also served on President Bill Clinton's Work Group on Welfare Reform, was an advisor on fatherhood issues to Vice President Al Gore, and contributed to First Lady Laura Bush's Helping America's Youth initiative. He is a Weinberg Fellow and serves as a board member of Open Society Institute-Baltimore, the Development Training Institute, and several other professional, governmental, and civic organizations.
At the age of 50, Joe became a cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is happily married and has three children.
When she was a child, Darcy D'Anna wanted to be on Broadway. She grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else, and she had lots of strong adults in her family and in her community who believed in her abilities.
She and her husband have recently moved to Baltimore and they like the small town charm of the city.
H & S Bakery has hired five STRIVE graduates, all of whom are succeeding at their jobs, and Darcy hopes to hire more, because of their abilities and attitudes.
Bob Embry always felt that he wanted to be able to help people or correct situations that were hurting people.
As a young boy, he had no specific ambitions, but liked reading about people who could affect change, whether they were presidents or noblemen.
Bob grew up with parents who expected him to do well, attended Williams College, and went on to Harvard Law School. He has long been a driving force for implementing social change in Baltimore and is the President of the Abell Foundation.
Born in Baltimore, Moses Hammett grew up as the youngest of eight children. His father was a longshoreman, working at the docks unloading ships.
Heading out to work each day at 5:30 a.m., he instilled in Moses a strong work ethic that remains with him today.
As a child, Moses wanted to be a pediatrician because his mother had lost two infants and he thought perhaps he could have made a difference. He recognized early on that he liked helping people. He now serves as the Director of Workforce Development at CFUF.
An only child of two teachers, Freeman Hrabowski wanted to teach math when he was five years old, and when he was thirteen, he knew he wanted to be a college dean.
His father always held at least three jobs. His parents were his role models. They not only worked hard, they always supported others.
While they attended civil rights meetings in Birmingham, AL, where he grew up, they made sure he finished his homework in the back of the room.
Freeman graduated at nineteen from the Hampton Institute with honors in mathematics and went on to receive his master's and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He realized his dream - first becoming Dean at UMBC and then President of the university in 1992.
Born in Baltimore, Eric Jordan grew up in the Lexington Terrace projects. His strongest role model was his grandmother, and as child, when he thought about the future, he "just wanted to be happy. I wanted a normal life like every other kid."
But he ended up being influenced by many of what he calls "negative people," made some bad choices, and ultimately was incarcerated for over seventeen years.
While in prison, he actively pursued an education, reading, studying, and envisioning a different life for himself. He enrolled in STRIVE five days after his release from prison. For the last three years, since graduating from the program, he has worked for a mortgage company in downtown Baltimore, where he has been their top grossing salesperson since he started his employment.
Her mother was a single mother who struggled to raise three children in a city neighborhood in Philadelphia. Jamie knew as a child that she wanted to lead a different life, and she wanted to be secure, financially secure.
She was admitted to a magnet school in fourth grade and learned the importance of high personal standards. She found teachers who believed in and encouraged her.
After graduate school, she moved to Baltimore to work for Alex Brown, where she became a Managing Director and worked for sixteen years.
Today she consults with companies about growth strategy and owns Velocity Sports Performance.
Walt Pearson grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn, and, as a boy, he wanted to grow up to be a professional athlete. His mother was a great believer in education and enrolled him in a private school across town. But when he returned home each day, he was surrounded by "folks who were not ambitious, a lot of drug dealers and hustlers."
In eighth grade he was a troublemaker in school, but his math teacher recognized his abilities and taught him about the stock market. Walt became intrigued and then got hooked.
From there he went to St. Francis College on a basketball scholarship, where he was an honorable mention Academic All-American and then went to Harvard Business School.
He serves as Managing Director, Senior Portfolio Manager at Brown Capital Management. He is a member of the Center for Urban Families Board of Directors.
Dorothy grew up in Baltimore in a large family, and as a child she "wanted to do a lot of things, but mostly, I wanted to help people." She loved school; math was her favorite subject.
She earned her high school diploma at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical Senior High School. Before enrolling in STRIVE, Dorothy worked at a supermarket.
She decided to enroll in the STRIVE program to gain skills that would enable her to get a better job. As a single parent, she considers herself "a strong provider" for herself and her children. "First and foremost," she says, "I'm a parent."
A 2002 graduate of STRIVE, she has been steadily progressing in her career and is now an operator at a plastic motor machine company.
Chris and Melinda both grew up in Baltimore. When their daughter, Myana, was a year old, Melinda again became pregnant.
As a couple, they were going through a difficult time, and while at the hospital, they were encouraged to participate in CFUF's Building Strong Families program.
The program helped them create a cohesive family.
As a child, Melinda wanted to be a pediatrician because she liked her doctor so much, but now she is completing her college degree and wants to work with children in a different way, teaching elementary school and perhaps opening a day-care center.
Chris is doing landscape work but is considering other options - carpentry and construction.
Growing up in Baltimore with a father who served as a strong role model, Donyel Torsell wanted to be a lawyer because he could talk his way through everything - and also because he liked to watch the TV show "Perry Mason."
His supportive parents made sure he steered clear of drugs and alcohol and urged him to earn his high school diploma.
While searching for resources that would enable him to gain custody of his daughter, Danyel, he found the Baltimore Responsible Fatherhood Project (BRFP) on the internet.
Donyel brought all of his resources to his daughter's custody hearing: a parenting class certificate from BRFP, his CFUF case manager, an elder from his church, another parent from his daughter's cheerleading team, his mother, and his aunt.
The result: He received custody of his daughter.
When he was a child, David Warnock wanted to be a "rock star," he says, "like everybody else!"
His ambitions changed along the way. His father was brought up on an Indian reservation and went from there to M.I.T. David was raised in a middle-class family with the expectation that he would not only do well, but that he would "do something out of the ordinary."
David graduated from the University of Delaware and received a master's at the University of Wisconsin. He is a founding partner at Camden Partners and serves as the Chairman of the Board at the Center for Urban Families.