Keeping Baltimore Warm: How Two Teenagers Are Making a Difference in Their Community


Grace Miller and Isaac Garonzik

“We Wanted to Bring About Change”

 

My name is Isaac Garonzik. Grace Miller and I are the co-founders of Keeping Baltimore Warm, an organization that spreads awareness about homelessness in Baltimore and provides new and gently used blankets to people currently experiencing homelessness in Baltimore.  

Keeping Baltimore Warm collects new and gently used blankets through in-person drives and online donations. We attach a tag to each blanket with an uplifting quote from an inspiring person, in hopes that it will resonate with the person receiving the blanket. 

In the winter of 2022, Grace Miller and I signed up to participate in the Social Innovation Fellowship program through 4Front Baltimore and the JCC.  

The program is designed to empower teens to become changemakers in their community. The teens are put into small groups and prompted to identify a problem in their community and work towards solving that problem.  

teens volunteering

Grace and I chose to focus on homelessness in our community. While we realized that we could not solve homelessness altogether, we decided that we could still help those experiencing homelessness be a little more comfortable during the long cold winters. 

We presented our research, statistics, business plan, goals, weaknesses and solutions to a panel of judges. 4Front Baltimore then awarded our team first place and since then, Grace and I have gotten our organization up and running.  

The Social innovation Fellowship taught us about the process of creating a business. With the help of Diana Solomon (JCC) and Henrik Scheel (Entrepreneur), all participants in the fellowship learn how to create, sell and market a product. This fellowship greatly influenced Grace and I by providing us with the knowledge needed to create our nonprofit organization. We sincerely recommend this program to all teenagers in the Baltimore area who are looking to make a change in their community.  

blankets

Through Keeping Baltimore Warm, we have been able to spread awareness to students about people currently experiencing homelessness in Baltimore and provide 127 blankets to homeless shelters in the community.  

Once Grace and I collect enough blankets through our drives and Amazon Wishlist, we then get together with a group of students to wrap each blanket up with a ribbon and an uplifting message.  

We then deliver the blankets to homeless shelters throughout Baltimore! 

4Front is the Baltimore Jewish Community’s comprehensive teen initiative, managed by the Jewish Community Center (JCC) and supported by The Associated, the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Joseph & Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, and other local donors.   


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