Fifteen congregants and community members met the afternoon of November 2, 2025 for a BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development) listening session. After joining BUILD this year, Govans pledged to host a listening session before the end of the year to help identify the important community issues we collectively face in North Baltimore.
We addressed two questions during the listening session. The first asked for names of successful initiatives that were only possible through working with others. Some examples were community associations, the Baltimore Community Fridge Network, York Road Partnership, and York Road Initiative.
The second question addressed problems that community members would like to see addressed. Some examples included speed bumps, drug dealing on York Road, a new building for the DeWees Recreation Center, turning the vacant lot next to Staples into an intergenerational playground, and an additional community fridge to address growing food insecurity.
These ideas will be shared with BUILD as they gather other ideas from other listening sessions throughout North/Northeast Baltimore, and will be used to create an action item for BUILD to undertake in the future.
Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) is a broad-based, non-partisan, interfaith, multiracial community power organization rooted in Baltimore’s neighborhoods and congregations. BUILD’s strength and success is derived from its member institutions—congregations, public schools, and neighborhood associations from across the city—that join in the work of making Baltimore a better place to live, work, worship and raise a family. BUILDs specific work is founded on these types of listening sessions and are used to create an action plan.
