GameChanger: Morgan Grove

This article was originally published here at www.baltimoremagazine.com in June, 2021. Written by Lydia Woolever.

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Pastor Michael pictured with Morgan Grove

With such a last name, it’s no surprise that Morgan Grove has spent his life’s work surrounded by trees. Particularly trees in cities, studying their relationships with communities. A U.S. Forest Service research scientist at the Baltimore Field Station since 1996, his decades of experience have culminated in the Stillmeadow PeacePark, a collaboration with the Stillmeadow Community Fellowship church to restore 10 acres of dying overgrown woods into a public green space. We spoke with Grove about his career and what these trees could mean for Baltimore.

'Resiliency Hubs' Forming Around Baltimore

This article was originally published here on CNSMARYLAND.ORG.

Written by Colleen Curran and Maya Pottiger

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POWER House — an abandoned fire station turned community space by the Living Classrooms nonprofit — is one of seven resiliency hubs recognized by the City of Baltimore. Hubs are a result of the city’s efforts to find neighborhood partners in low- and middle-income areas to help cope with climate-related disasters.

The term “resiliency hub” is relatively new, but the basic concept, of course, is not. Community leaders have long been running trusted spaces that serve residents in a variety of ways through churches and community centers.

These spots are well known and within walking distance. The city designated these spaces as hubs and provided supplies including snow blowers, shovels, two-way radios, refrigerators and water for weather-related disasters.

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Stillmeadow as a resilency hub

Stillmeadow has partnered with the Baltimore City to develop infrastructure to better support our community by serving as a resiliency hub.

Four Congregations - One Watershed

This article was originally published here on the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake website on September 8th 2022.

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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.

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