Hundreds, if not thousands, of teenagers in the Baltimore region are essentially raising themselves, with parents too pre-occupied to provide the support they need, hit with pressure to get immersed in crime, or drugs or truancy. Dozens of human-services organizations are trying to help, but they face challenges, also – to find the revenue to support what they do, to coordinate with government agencies as policies and theories change.
So it makes sense to just stop for a few minutes and salute a non-profit that has been working with at-risk youth for forty years. The Chesapeake Center for Youth Development was founded in 1974 – and for more than 30 years of those four decades, Ivan Leshinsky has been at its head. Leshinsky joins Sheilah in the studio.
On October 9, CCYD is celebrating its 40th anniversary at a fundraising dinner with former Mayor Kurt Schmoke, the new president of the University of Baltimore. You can learn more about that here, and about a 5k race that CCYD is participating in.
