Congrats to Natty Paint!

GHCC is thrilled to see local designer Emily Li Mandri - of Natty Paint fame - on the cover of today's Baltimore City Paper. The feature chronicles Emily's journey from teaching herself to silkscreen, to producing what has quickly become an established indie clothing label right here in Charm City.

"Most of my sales are happening in Baltimore," Emily says. "People like seeing something fashion-forward here and want to support me."

We count ourselves among these supporters, as Emily is who designed and printed some dazzling t-shirts (pictured above) for our 40 Trees in 40 Neighborhoods initiative.

So, in celebration of today's feature story, we're offering our 40 Trees tees at a special discounted rate of $15 for one week only! Each one is hand-printed by Emily herself on organic cotton with eco-friendly inks and can be purchased at our online store. All proceeds go towards our efforts to plant 1,600 trees by Spring 2011.

"I cannot believe I made the front page," says Emily. "It's a huge achievement for everyone involved in Natty Paint and myself. We've been working hard for one year to generate buzz about what we're doing and it's finally happening!"

To see more Natty Paint designs, visit http://www.nattypaint.com/.

Volunteers are Our Foundation

Today the Baltimore Sun ran a great op-ed piece on how GHCC, among others, utilizes national service and other volunteers in Baltimore City. Though the piece focuses on our Experience Corps program, whose members logged over 144,000 hours of volunteer service just last year, this is a great opportunity reflect on the volunteers of all kinds who have shared their experience on Greater Homewood Voices.



Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Sun

• Tutors Lisa Morris and Mary Kay Shock wrote about GHCC's Adult Literacy & ESOL Program.
• Long-time episodic volunteer Neal Gary doesn't have a regular schedule with GHCC, but he's happy to help whenever we need him.  You can often find him helping out at major events throughout the year.  We caught up with him in March to get his thoughts on his three years of volunteer work in Greater Homewood.
• Experience Corps volunteer Richard Przybyszewski enjoyed his service in Baltimore City Schools so much he applied for—and received!—a prestigious internship to teach in Poland.  He wrote for us about what the experience meant to him.
• Many of our AmeriCorps*VISTA members have written about their service year on Greater Homewood Voices.  Most recently, VISTA Leader Kaleema looked back on a year of ups and downs at the helm of our 16-member team.

Thank you, volunteers!  We couldn't do it without you.


If you'd like to volunteer with GHCC, visit our volunteer page for current opportunities.