09-12-2021 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 10
10 Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, September 12, 2021
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2021
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
JAMES
PIPER BOND
O
ne day in May 2020, James Piper Bond, CEO of the
Living Classrooms Foundation, received a voice
message on his phone from a woman who sounded
strikingly familiar:
“Hi, James,” she said. “This is Oprah. I assume that
you can use another million dollars now that we’re in
the pandemic.”
As her voice message inferred, that million dollars
from media star Oprah Winfrey was not her first to the organization. And neither
would have come without the visionary Mr. Bond at the helm.
It started when he returned after a wandering, adventuring life and travels
around the globe, sailing the South Pacific on a two-masted sailboat after college;
teaching maritime programs in France and Switzerland; and coaching lacrosse
at an Australian university. In 1986, Mr. Bond returned to his Baltimore hometown and became education director aboard the pungy schooner Lady Maryland,
a learning vessel and the flagship of what soon became the Living Classrooms
Foundation. Three years later, Mr. Bond would become its executive director,
and in 1995, the CEO and president.
Starting out with that single
floating laboratory to teach children about the environment and
maritime history, Mr. Bond developed the foundation over its four
decades into an anti-poverty force
on the Baltimore waterfront,
offering an array of programs that
have touched thousands of lives.
Among them: urban gardening
for kids; post-prison employment
and job training for ex-offenders;
community centers, anti-violence
programs, early childhood education, a tuition-free middle school
(Crossroads); daily after-school
programs; music education; and
the Masonville Cove Environmental Education Campus, which Mr.
Bond calls the country’s first urban
wildlife center.
Last year, the foundation’s Safe
Streets sites conducted more than
400 mediations to stop brewing violence. Its Project SERVE,
a program that helps ex-offenders find employment after prison,
recorded 151 job placements in a
BACKGROUND
Age: 62
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Baltimore
Education: Gilman School and
University of North Carolina
Career highlights: President and
CEO, Living Classrooms Foundation
Civic and charitable activities:
Serves on numerous boards and
chairs the Baltimore National
Heritage Area
Family: Wife, Meg Ward; combined
family of four children
battered economy.
“James Piper Bond is an
authentic visionary,” says Freeman Hrabowski, president of the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County and one of Mr. Bond’s
former mentors. “He knows how to
connect people, from the business
leadership to people in public housing to young students to returning
citizens who have been down on
their luck. And that smile that he
has is genuine, it reflects a spirit that
says, ‘We will get through this.’ He
understands the problems of Baltimore and of the American urban
environment and he has committed his life to making a difference.”
During the pandemic, the
nonprofit shifted its mission to
help some of East Baltimore’s poorest families adjust to the effects of
the lockdowns put in place to slow
the spread of the coronavirus. Staffers distributed thousands of meals
and household supplies, and thousands of activity boxes in science,
math and art for children. They
purchased the technology needed
to keep sixth, seventh and eighth
graders at the Crossroads School
from falling behind academically.
That call from Ms. Winfrey came
in the nick of time.
Five years earlier, while in Baltimore for the production of a movie,
she had happened into a conversation with some men in Project
SERVE, which led her to Mr. Bond.
She gave him a chance to explain
everything Living Classrooms does
— a daunting challenge for the few
minutes Ms. Winfrey had to spare
— and, on the spot, she pledged the
first $1 million.
That marked a turnaround for
Ms. Winfrey, whose television
talk show career had started in
Baltimore. In 2006, she famously
disparaged education in the city
and refused to donate any of her
wealth to city schools. But she was
an instant believer in the education
mission of Living Classrooms —
and not the first person to be blown
away by the scope and scale of what
the foundation has been doing in
Baltimore under the direction of
Mr. Bond, leading her to pledge a
second million just a few years later.
At the heart of Living Classrooms
is its Target Investment Zone, a
2.5-square-mile area of East Baltimore (population, about 40,000)
“He understands the
problems of Baltimore
and of the American
urban environment and
he has committed his life
to making a difference.”
— Freeman Hrabowski, president
of the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County
that concentrates its programs on
breaking the cycle of generational
poverty with a holistic approach.
“We work with the entire family,”
Mr. Bond says. “We work with the
babies, the parents, the grandparents, focusing on the core competencies of education, workforce
development, health and wellness,
and violence prevention. We find
the best partners and coordinate
with them, raise money and really
lean into it.”
Talib Horne, now director of the
Annie E. Casey Foundation’s efforts
in Baltimore, helped Mr. Mr. Bond
develop the zone. Inspired by the
Harlem Children’s Zone in New
York City, the idea is to saturate the
area with the best programs possible to help low-income families and
children.
“It’s cradle to college,” says Mr.
Horne, listing the numerous projects Living Classrooms developed
within the zone, including the UA
House, a community center funded
by Under Armour. The center offers
education, job training and wellness
programs to children and adults.
“It’s a very big project, trying
to break the cycle of poverty in a
particular area,” Mr. Horne says.
“And this is why I credit James.
The man is fearless in taking on big
challenges. He’s relentless in this,
relentless.”
Living Classrooms continues
to evolve and has undertaken a
new project — the Jack and Nancy
Dwyer Workforce Development
Program, to offer job training in
entry-level health care jobs. The
foundation also plans to establish
what Mr. Bond calls a “supply chain
academy,” offering eight-week
courses to prepare people for work
in the warehouses at TradePoint
Atlantic.