Two Jewish teenagers are warming hearts and helping the homeless through blanket drives and by raising awareness.
On Saturday, March 25, Isaac Garonzik and Grace Miller worked with eight other teenagers from their community to wrap, tag and roll 65 blankets to be donated to local shelters. Many of the blankets were collected from a blanket drive held at the McDonogh School, where Grace is a sophomore. Isaac is a sophomore at Pikesville High School.
The teens did this through Keeping Baltimore Warm, an organization Isaac and Grace started that holds blanket donation drives for the homeless and raises awareness about homelessness.
“By donating, wrapping or helping to distribute a twin-sized blanket for those in shelters, volunteers are able to make a tremendous, positive impact to help others and become a part of the Keeping Baltimore Warm family,” Isaac said.
Their endeavor started in 2022, when the teens participated in 4Front’s Social Innovation Fellowship. 4Front is the JCC of Greater Baltimore’s teen initiative. 4Front has three signature programs, all of which are taking applicants through April 16. The SIF program is 12 weeks long and is meant to inspire Jewish teens to be changemakers in their communities.
4Front empowers teens and teaches them to engage in meaningful Jewish ways with their community, according to Diana Solomon, the senior director at 4Front.
The SIF program, which is for high school students, teaches teens how to use business to solve problems and use social innovation as a vehicle for justice. Social innovation, Solomon said, means finding an innovative solution, either one that’s smarter or more cost-effective, to a social problem.
SIF partners with Startup Experience and kicks off the program with an innovation boot camp. Participants are instructed to choose a social problem and brainstorm ideas to solve it with their group. At the end of the 12 weeks, each group pitches their idea to judges at a Shark Tank-style event.
Isaac and Grace participated this past winter, where their team won first place. They were given a small amount of money to bring their organization to life.
Now, Keeping Baltimore Warm regularly conducts blanket donation drives, and the teens continue to coordinate with area businesses and organizations, further developing their professional communications skills.
“We are very fortunate that the Junior Maccabi Games are being held in Baltimore this year. We are very appreciative that the JCC is organizing a way for teams attending the Maccabi to contribute blankets to Keeping Baltimore Warm,” Isaac said.
Isaac and his family belong to Beth El Congregation of Baltimore, where he went to Hebrew school and had his bar mitzvah.
He met Grace at the orientation for the SIF program, which took place at the Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC.
Together, Isaac and Grace decided they wanted to use their SIF project to address the issue of homelessness in Baltimore because it was a cause both teens felt strongly about.
“When we joined the Social Innovation Fellowship, we were allowed to try to solve any problem of our choosing,” Isaac said. “We knew that tackling homelessness was important to both of us, so we came together to attempt to make homelessness more comfortable in Baltimore.”
While the two recognized they couldn’t solve the issue of homelessness entirely, they hoped to alleviate some of the struggles that come with it.
According to a 2022 point-in-time count report by the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services in Baltimore, 1,597 people were counted as experiencing homelessness in Baltimore City on a single night in February of 2022. Of those people, 68% were men and 73% were Black or African American.
Since Keeping Baltimore Warm began, the project has expanded to involve more than 40 area teens in collecting and distributing more than 200 blankets.
Going forward, the teens plan to continue conducting drives and organizing events.
Updates and announcements for future events will be posted on their social media pages and soon on their website, which is currently under construction. Their Instagram handle is @keepingbaltimorewarm.
