Community hub will offer programs in Arts for Learning’s first community-based location

BALTIMORE – For 27 years, the Goodnow Community Center has been the heart of Northeast Baltimore’s Frankford neighborhood, a popular gathering place for community events, youth programs, and adult recreation leagues. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Center suspended operations.

But in July, the Center, at 5311 Goodnow Road, will be reborn as Arts for Learning at Goodnow, a hub of joyful, enriching, and creative experiences for area students and the entire community.

The Baltimore-based nonprofit Arts for Learning Maryland’s first step when assuming management of the center will be to bring free summer programming back to the community this July.  Arts for Learning’s signature approach is artist-led creative experiences and year-round educational programming that integrate the arts to make the learning more engaging for Maryland students. Arts for Learning at Goodnow will also offer free arts-based afterschool programs during the school year to children in the neighborhood and who attend the neighborhood schools of Furley Elementary, Moravia Park Elementary, Sinclair Lane Elementary, Vanguard Collegiate Middle, and City Neighbors Charter School as well as partner with the community to produce other events.

The building owner, The Morton and Sophia Macht Foundation, Inc., enlisted Arts for Learning Maryland to operate the Center due to its familiarity with the nonprofit’s experience delivering engaging, transformational arts and educational programming.

Said Amy Macht from the Foundation, “Arts for Learning’s growth into the provision of full-day summer learning with its integrated arts curriculum, and its after-school programs has been phenomenal and inspiring. The Center wishes to bring that programming to youth in the community.”

Assuming the role of managing partner organization is a significant milestone for Arts for Learning, whose work, over the past seventy-two years, has primarily taken place in schools. The Center is the nonprofit’s first community-based site. Until now, Arts for Learning reached 180,000 Maryland students a year by bringing artists into schools and classrooms to creatively enhance learning.

“We know the arts have the power to transform lives and transform learning,” said Stacie Sanders Evans, President and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland. “We are excited to expand our reach beyond the classroom and into neighborhoods. At Arts for Learning at Goodnow, we can show how the arts are universal and connect everything in life, be it academics, athletics, or gardening. With this new location, we’ll lift up how artists and art can create and foster community.”

Evans also sees this as a hub for innovation and a place to elevate what happens when work is rooted in cultural inclusion and equity. Students and families will be at the center of programmatic planning, giving voice to the community and curating their interest while giving artists an opportunity to develop new ideas and ways to positively impact the development of young people.

“Providing young people with a safe space to learn, grow, and play profoundly impacts their development. Having spent much time at the Goodnow Community Center, I know what reopening it means for our young people in Northeast Baltimore,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “I want to thank Arts for Learning Maryland for stepping forward and bringing arts and education programming into this long-valued community space.”

The Center’s official re-opening is marked by the beginning of Summer Arts for Learning at Goodnow, a free, six-week program for City Schools K-8 students to collaborate and engage with peers in art-making, athletics, and STEM-based learning. The program is modeled after Arts for Learning’s Summer Arts for Learning Academy, which operates out of nine Baltimore City Schools, and serves 3,000 students across the City.

To learn more about Arts for Learning at Goodnow, visit artsforlearningmd.org/goodnow.