At the cornerstone of UMB’s Community Campus is the new permanent home of the Community Engagement Center (CEC), a 20,000-square-foot historic building on South Poppleton Street in need of complete renovation.

Bringing this beautiful, distinctive property back to a useful life will significantly expand the CEC’s capacity, making possible additional youth programming, workforce development support, health education, and social work assistance services. With a CEC seven times its current size, we can provide on-site spaces for our community partners, including the United Way of Central Maryland.

This new facility will include spaces and amenities that our neighbors have been asking for: an exercise/dance studio, a large multipurpose room for community meals and events, a safe play area for children, a wellness suite, a more robust computer lab. The facility will include space for food market programs and a kitchen where residents can learn healthy cooking techniques and where CEC staff, partners, and vendors can prepare food on-site for school groups and events.

The center also will have private consultation spaces where residents can take advantage of discreet legal and health counseling, and a family room where group counseling sessions for families will be led by licensed clinical social workers and social work students.

The new UMB Student Health Alliance will provide preventative health education to community members relative to the major health issues in West Baltimore including: asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and mental health. Nearly 275 UMB students have elected to take advantage of the opportunities offered at the CEC to train in their chosen discipline. Expanding these opportunities will facilitate UMB’s training of the next generation of health and human services professionals as they develop and refine the interprofessional skills they need to become competent, compassionate, and civically engaged practitioners.