He's Holy I'm Knott Welcomes Waves of positive energy from Samantha Musgrave and Devin Weaver of Project Waves

I think it's safe to say that the Rev and I love Keiffer Mitchell.  Imagine being him, growing up in Baltimore, in the Mitchell family, one of the Baltimore's most prominant families, the expectations that they all always live up to.

Public service is how they do it...for Keiffer it started with 12 years in the City Council, 1995 throught 2007 and then served in our legilature and went on to serve as a close advisor to former Governor Larry Hogan. 

What was it like to grow up in the Mitchell Family, come along for the ride and learn what it was like to grow up as Keiffer Mitchell, a Boy's Latin Laker Alumni, a former History teacher at that great institution.

Keiffer lays it all out there, he's a Baltimore treasure, from the days at the Farmers Market hand sqeezing Oranges to the days of running for Mayor, and finally as Chief of Staff basically running the State..Keiffer is one of Baltimore's best Ambassadors and this conversation is cool and refreshing...

In 1999 and in 2005, he was voted Baltimore's "Best Politician" by Baltimore City Paper. Among his community activities are membership on the Echo Hill Outdoor School Board, the Family Tree Board, the Habitat for Humanity Board, and the Board of Trustees of the Boys' Latin School. A lifelong parishioner at Sharp Street United Methodist Church, he lives in Baltimore's historic Bolton Hill, where he serves on the board of his neighborhood association.

Keiffer Mitchell, living the life of a Mitchell in our great city.  Thanks Keiffer, for all you have done for Baltimore,keep rolling..

Friends, this is a great conversation....

Enjoy!

We are back and we have 4 shows lined up for the opening of Season 4. We have some amazing guests coming out over the next four weeks and we are very excited for Season 4.  Following todays post with Rebecca Hoffberger we have three more great Marylanders, Keiffer Mitchell, Pat Moran and James Williams of the Amerrican Cancer Society.  Stay tuned for these Tuesday  releases over the next few weeks as we get in the studio with some great new guests.

It's so great to Welcome the great Rebecca Hoffberger.  A visionary for the Visionaries, Visionary Artists that is, she's established one of the most unique treasured Museums in the Country. Rebecca is someone that Rev. Al and I have both known for a long time. She was married to an incredible man who also had vision the late Leroy Hoffberger, father to one of my best friends Doug Hoffberger... Smaltimore...

Rebecca has done an incredible job with the American Visionary Arts Museum, how about this fact, AVAM is second to the BMA when it comes to visitors and that's saying something given the incredible Museums we have in Baltimore.  Rebecca is gifted and she has the most beautiful soul, she's traveled the world and worked with some incredible minds.   A life-long devotee of the power of intuition and fresh thought, Hoffberger was accepted into college at age 15 though chose instead the personal invitation of internationally renowned mime Marcel Marceau, to become his first American apprentice in Paris.

By 19, Rebecca had co-founded her own ballet company and by 21, was a sought-after consultant to a broad spectrum of nonprofits, including research and development scientific companies. At 25, she was awarded the title of “Dame” for her work to establish medical field hospitals in Nigeria. She studied alternative and folk medicine in Mexico. Returning to the States, Hoffberger served on the Board of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Center in Virginia and worked as Development Director at the Sinai Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry for People Encouraging People, where she first conceived her unique national visionary museum/education center. In recognition of this distinguished achievement in the museum field, Hoffberger was awarded the 2011 Katherine Coffey Award by the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums. Hoffberger has received Honorary Doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson University, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, and McDaniel College, as well as awarded Loyola College's Andrew White Award—the school’s highest civic honor—the College of Notre Dame Sarah's Circle Award, and was selected as Franklin & Marshall College's Conrad Nelson Lecturer. She is an inductee into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame, a winner of the Urban Land Institute's National Award for Excellence, Israel Bonds' Golda Meir Award, and the first recipient of the Sir Arthur C. Clarke Vision and Imagination Award.

Any questions, we get into lots of things, there's so much to talk about, both Rev. Al and I are thrilled to know and call Rebecca a good friend.  Thanks Rebecca!

You're gonna love this one!

Enjoy!

One of things we love about this experience is the opportunity to bring to light organizations that are doing amazing work throughout the City, this episode we have Bernand Foster who is the Executive Director of the Tuerk House and he has overseen and been a part of tremendous growth since he came on board in 2011. 

Founded in 1970, the concept of drug and alcohol treatment was forever changed with the founding of this dynamic organization.   Dr. Isadore Tuerk, then the commissioner of Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene—knew there was a more collaborative, compassionate way to help people find lifelong healing and recovery. From their vision, Tuerk House was born. Today, our non-profit drug and alcohol treatment system serves nearly 300 patients a day, regardless of their ability to pay, through an innovative, integrated model of care that encompasses all aspects of recovery.

300 patients a day that's alot of people they are serving with four centers open, the biggest and most active in the City. All of this is made possible by the incredible leadership team and all of the dedicated workers that are providing hope for these patients in neeed.  Wait until you learn about their leader, Bernard Foster, who believe's God sent him here to do this work, and one thing I can tell you is Thank God for Bernard Foster, who opens up and brings along on his journey to do Gods work. 

Thanks to Bernard Foster and his team, doing God's work!  Enjoy!

Wow, every once and a while we bring forward these great organizations from the heart our our community and they are doing amazing work, right in our backyard.  Walter Billips and Earl El Amin are doing the work that's helping turn peoples lives in the right direction. 

NCIA, The program runs five traning courses for incredible jobs that can provide for a great living and everyone of them allows the skills possesor to do what they do nearly anywhere in the world. 

Let's take note, HVAC/R, Automobile Repair. Drones, Commercial Drivers Training, CDL, and Culinary Arts.  They have a great group of choices for those that enter the program do the hard work, and end up in jobs in our community.  They enjoy great relationships with other non profits in the City such as DCREP, District Court Re-Entry Program, and they are super focused on members of the population that are returning citizens with a real focus on Veterns returning to the workforce.

Nothing comes for free, these programs give people an opoortunity, skills are where its at.

What a joy it was to welcome these guys, we are both interested in the programs we would love to help hire people from this program and our next talk is going to be there when the Rev and I pay them a visit. I am excited to see this exciting program in action. 

Rev. and Earl are familiar faces in the community and Walters doing the lords work out there. Tune in for a great discussion that's shines the light on NCIA and the incredible people that work there and the work they are doing. 

Gentlemen, thanks for catching up and thanks for giving men and women a second chance and a fresh start. 

Reverand Al and I have been busy, AIR LLC and Beloved Community Services are about as busy as they have ever been and before we get even busier.  So its time to get busy with a series of new Podcasts to be released over the next two months. We've been back in the Advanced Indoor Resources Poast Studio with a bunch of exciting new guests. 

So get ready for weekly Posts as the next two months are filled with amazing guests just like Samantha Musgrove and Devin Weaver.  These two young hungry individuals are making Waves bringing free internet to parts of Baltimore that could easily be considered Internet Deserts. 

More than 96,000 homes in Baltimore City lack internet home service.  This has broad implications for these residents who lack this service.  How about this fact, at the start of the pandemic more than 24,000 students couldn't get online to continue their educations while they spent much of the Spring at home. That statistic in and of itself is why we are promoting this work.  You might well imagine where we do and don't have service throughtout the City, and if you guessed the same neighborhoods that were redlined over 100 years ago you guessed right.

Project Waves was founded in 2018 and through the design and creation of the Waves Point to Multipoint wireless network, their team has connected over 300 households to free high speed internet service.  Baltimore City residents face one of the highest rates of Digital Disconnectivity in the United States.  As you might imagine a lack of access, affordability and digital literacy exacerbate disparities in Education, healthcare access, stable housing and more.

Unlike traditional Internet Servcie Providers Project Waves is a non profit who's priority is ensuring members of their network have relaible high speed internet service regardless of socioeconomic status. 

Samantha and Devin bring so much energy and knowledge to this effort and they are a dynamic duo that are getitng the job done despite a lack of help and urgency from the City, who ultimately controls their destiny.  Listen in to this Podcast, there's so much to learn and understand about the heavy lifting that the people at Project Waves have undertaken.  Thanks to Sam and Devin your energy and enthusiam for providing what the UN has declared a human right, Internet service for all. 

Thanks for all you are doing to close the gap. 

Here we go wiith another great interview in Las Vegas at the ICSC Maryland Pool Party. 

We start off with Bill Henry, our Comptroller for the City of Baltimore, a Baltimore native and a man who has served our City for many years.  Bill gradualted HS class of 86' at Loyola Blakefield.  He served three terms as Baltimore's City Councilman representing the 4th District.  He loves revitalizing neighborhoods not only in his district but around the City.  He comes to the world of politics naturally because his father spent a life time running campaigns.  A mentor to Rev. Al, Bill's father sincerely beleived that you could make difference.  This trait passed along to Bill and he has run with it.  The man is totally prepared for the work he has taken on, Hopkins undergrad for Urban Studies and Loyola MBA with a concentration in Finance.  He's passionate about his job and he is working to bring the Comptrollers office into the 21st century.

This incredible conversation exposes the love he has for our City, we are lucky to have him.  It's not long before we are joined by Councilman Eric Costello, in his third term representing the mighty 11th District which consists of 24 individual neighborhoods and stretches from Fort McHenry all the way to Mt Vernon with alot going on.  Councilman Costello has established himself as the model Councilman, his sense of urgency is awesome and he always comes through for his constituents.

Two men, one from Baltimore and one from NY, both passionate workers for the betterment of our City. Thanks to both of them for taking time to speak with us during this incredible busy day for Elected officials in Las Vegas. 

So we are out in Las Vegas with all of the Developers in Maryland and as it turns out many Maryland born developers have also started developing in Virginia and who do we find at the Maryland Pool my friend, Levar Stoney..the Mayor of Richmond.

He grew up in Hampton Roads, went to James Madison and his next stop was Richmond. He fell in love with it and so why not become the Mayor.  The people of Richmond love him and he's done a great job as Mayor since being elected in 2016.  It's a two term limit in Virginia for Mayor and one term for the Governor, the Mayors success has many people in Virginia talking about a run for Governor in his future. 

This conversation spans 40 minutes but starts with Rev Al and the Mayor exchanging historical facts and family ties as the Rev has family from Richmond and knows his stuff, the ensuing discussion is enlightening and fun. 

The City of Richmond is a place where Levar Stoney is making a huge differance. He is the 80th Mayor elected in Richmond history, and prior to that he was the Secretary of State for Governor Terri McCaliffe's where he was the youngest member of that Administration. 

Levar Stoney is a winner, he knows how to build community, he knows how to lead and as a result the numbers across the board in Richmond are getting better. He's investing in Parks and infrastructure to support a City on the rise.   If you like Food Richmond is a new hot spot for foodies...

Jump in and learn about what makes this guy tick, Rev Al and I are so grateful for his time in between meetings and looking at deals for the City of Richmond.  We were lucky to have him come by. 

Thanks Levar, we appreciate you, your love for our neighbors to the south and your open mind about Government and how it can be better for the people... we can't wait to see what you do next. 

People come to Baltimore and fall in love with it and dedicate their lives to making it better,  Rev. Al and I couldn't be more excited to welcome Farmer Chippy a man who John Brothers couldn't stop talking about, so we had to bring him on and we quickly came to the conclusion he's a bigtime diamond in the rough.

Farmer Chippy, he's a farmer, he's community organizer, the father of two children and a difference maker in a Community that has been challenged for a too long. 

He started coming to Baltimore as a child to visit his grandfather from his home in Trinidad Tabago, he fell in love with the place and laid down his roots coinciding the birth of his first son...

If he's not working with kids that don't trust many other than him, he is buildng a reputation as someone that gets things done.  The largest Urban Farm in one of the state's most challenged neighborhood.  Bringing trust, growing a little food and providing "food for the mind" he's created a large following and he's leading his fellow citizens to the light. 

Community organizing is his strength and he recently pulled together the Carribean Community, which is prevelant and proud in Park Heights for a celebration of "Carnival" in Druid Hill Park, one of our favorite places. 

We got an hour with him, it's a great talk and we quickly realized that this guy is Holy, his work is Holy, and we are lucky to have him as a full fledged advocate for our City...This is what Baltimore does to  people...Rev and I feel the same way as you do Farmer Chippy, Baltimore, "The Greatest City in America"

Thanks for joining us and all you are doing for Baltimore.

Up Up and away we go...

So if you're looking for a conversation about development you might want to find yourself by the Pool at the Maryland Party at the ICSC Conference in Las Vegas Nevada.

Rev. Al and I couldn't be more pleased to have the opportunity to catch up with Mark Renbaum, a friend, and a man on a mission to bring a Transit Oriented Development to Lutherville, Maryland. 

Mark's firm owns the old Caldor site and is looking to redevelop that site as a transit oriented residential and commercial developement. He's also developing in the City with David Bramble at Northwood Plaza adjacent to Morgan plus he's involved in the redevelopment of Madison Park at the 800 Block of North Ave, a place that hasn't been invested in for too long. 

Mark takes the community approach, he understands that the community needs to be involved and he is working with them on prioritizing green space in Lutherville and delivering the ammenities that support a strong community.  Look at the transformation of Northwood by two of Baltimore's best  developers, a once blighted property now thriving with great retailers and a new grocery store for the community and it has all the amenties that the Morgan students want.

Lutherville is next and the investment in that property is going take the value from 9 million to over 200 million dollars.  The taxpayers paid for the light rail a long time ago, we should be maximizing it's use, this development improves the ROI for taxpayers and we all agree that we should be maximizing transit oriented development where ever we can. 

This is Holy work and Rev Al says Mark is a Holy man!  Come along for this lesson in development, he really is one of Baltimore's best. 

Thanks Mark for coming on to talk about your work and this incredible development in Lutherville, we can wait to see it when it's done!

This is the first of a bunch of new releases that were recorded while we attended the ICSC Convention. It is Maryland's Real Estate Extravaganza held anually at the Wynn in May. 

You can hear the crowd in the background around the pool,  a huge thanks and shout out to Howard Perlow and the Wynn for the set up and space to conduct these interviews..

Brooke grew up in politics, that's what happens when your fathers Terry Lierman, she represented the 43rd District in Baltimore City and did a fantastic job, always looking out for her constituants she built a strong following which allowed her to take her service to another level and run a successful Statewide campaign  to become the first Woman Comptroller in Maryland History.

We get the whole journey from the begining, Brooke is determined and she is a hard a working elected offical.  She also likes to have fun, and she's an amazing mother whose passionate about her children.

Get a read on what's happening in Las Vegas that's attracting Marylands top officals from the Governor to the Comptroller, County Executives and many others. 

We capture Brooke's thoughts coming off her first Legislative session and the first 6 months in office.  She's also got great idea's about how to make the Comptrollers office an office for the people and a modernized office for 2023.

This is a great one and we have our first Angel....what more could we ask for in Vegas..

Thanks Brooke!