700 Youth Scheduled to Participate in Baltimore’s
National Youth Service Day Projects – April 11-13, 2003

Baltimore, MD – Twenty-six youth-focused organizations have joined in partnership with YO! Baltimore to make National Youth Service Day the best ever. Projects vary widely and include the following:

· Through a Lovin’ Our Parks project on April 11, 2003 one hundred YO! Baltimore members will help prepare Druid Hill Park for summer by helping to clean the pool, plant flowers and much more.
· Forty students from the Baltimore City Career Academy will serve patrons at Manna House Food Kitchen and read to youth at Child Step Learning Center.
· A consortium of 300 youth from the Youth Volunteer Corps of Greater Baltimore will help implement “Operation New Day” a Lakeland and Mt. Winan’s community clean-up and beautification project.
· The Greater Homewood Community Corporation will design and paint a mural at 3604 Elm Avenue in Hampden utilizing the skills of 13 youth artists.
· Students from Walbrook High School and Diggs Johnson Middle School will work with the University of Maryland Law School to engage youth in Teen Court, where teens serve as bailiffs, court clerks, attorneys and jurors.

National Youth Service Day is a project of Youth Service America (funded by State Farm Insurance©). For more information on this international effort logon to www.YSA.org/nysd.

The mission of the Baltimore Youth Opportunity Movement is to increase the long-term employability of young people living in the Empowerment Zone by creating a systemic approach to youth services, by offering a broad array of coordinated resources and activities, and by helping each young person design and negotiate a career pathway to success.

YO! Baltimore is an initiative of the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board Youth Council, Mayor’s Office of Employment Development and multiple workforce partners. For additional information about YO! Baltimore and its center locations, visit www.yobaltimore.org, or call 410-396-6722.