This article was originally published here on the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake website on September 8th 2022.
In 2016 and again in 2018 the Irvington, Beechfield, and Westgate neighborhoods of west Baltimore that sit on the Maiden Choice Run of the Gwynn Falls watershed experienced two one thousand year floods. Six feet of water flowed down Frederick Avenue trapping riders in a city bus and wreaking havoc in over 200 homes. Stillmeadow Community Fellowship sits high on a hill, but it was flooded too. They, along with several other congregations, assisted with the emergency response, helping to provide food and services that their neighbors needed, coordinating with FEMA and other government agencies.
Pastor Michael Martin, their relatively new pastor having been recently reassigned from a church in Los Angeles CA to Baltimore, realized that something had to change. Some of his congregants had just “introduced” him to “da’ woods”- a nine acre track of forested land with a stream that the church owns. After just one walk in the forest together they decided that they would transform this overgrown and neglected area into a “PeacePark”. The vision is to restore the woods into a healthy place of community healing and spiritual renewal. They are transforming their property that has a huge parking lot and tremendous roof into a model of stormwater management.
