Comments (0)Where Are They Now? Carrie Lebow
November 2009
Carrie Lebow cares about giving back to her community, about sports, and about her kids. A 1987 graduate of Park School, she is thrilled to see her two children, Ben, 10, and Jamie, 6, enrolled there now. She has happily melded her other interests, sports and community service, into a thriving career. A Lutherville resident, she is the senior director of development at The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation.
iNSIDER: What led you to the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation?
Carrie: After graduating from Widener University, I went to work as the first community relations manager for the House of Ruth, a domestic violence center. When I worked at the United Way, I launched a women’s fundraising initiative. I helped Park School launch their centennial campaign for their hundredth anniversary in 2012. I love starting something new, promoting something people don’t know about. And I love this community. I’m a Baltimore girl.
What exactly does the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation do?
We are a non-profit organization, and we use baseball and softball team programs as a hook to help build character and teach life lessons to disadvantaged kids across the country. Cal Ripken Jr. always says that baseball is just a hook we use to get kids’ attention. Then, once we have it, we can teach them about things like respect, communication, work ethic and sportsmanship. My job is to raise funds that support our efforts and to promote who we are and what we do.
The foundation has a new project going these days?
We have a new initiative building Youth Development Parks. We hope the first one of these ballparks will be a youth replica of Memorial Stadium. Our foundation partners with youth-serving organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs in the most disadvantaged part of a town. Kids there often don’t have lots of green space; they need safe, clean places to play. So far, we have raised half the money we need to build a field on the (old) Memorial Stadium site. Parks like these can transform a community.
On the lighter side, you design your own jewelry.
It’s a passion of mine. I started making jewelry for myself, then my mom and then for friends. I do it for fun. Jones & Jones at Cross Keys sells my pieces. They are all things I love to wear and luckily other people seem to like them too.
How does it feel to have your children attending your alma mater?
I love it. I didn’t start attending Park until seventh grade. I always wanted to be there and wished I had started in kindergarten. I love the seamless transition my children have from one year to the next. I love that they integrate community service into the curriculum early on.
What made Park special as a high school?
A wonderful education and dedicated teachers. Besides this, I had an opportunity to play competitive sports. I played field hockey, basketball and lacrosse, something I couldn’t have done at that time at my public school. I’m super-competitive by nature, so it was a great outlet for me; and I went on to play lacrosse in college.