Finding a remedy for the institutional and social injustices that persist in society sounds like a daunting task. In Calvert County, a group of citizens is ready to accept the challenge and have organized their effort.
The Calvert Concept Charitable Corporation announced this month that after three years in the development stage they are ready to serve as a prototype for other organizations.
In a press release, the 501c(3) nonpartisan charitable organization’s leaders declared the group’s focus “is righting the wrongs of institutional and social injustices amongst descendants of enslaved people, Native Americans and public servants in Calvert County.”
The corporation has retained the services of consultant Michelle O. Crosby to serve as its first executive director.
Crosby, a southern Anne Arundel County native who now resides in North Beach, told Southern Maryland News the aim of the corporation is “an idea whose time has come. This is something that needs to be fixed.”
“Our national search presented us with many well-qualified candidates, but Ms. Crosby was clearly the leading candidate,” Kip At Lee, the corporation’s board of directors chairman, said in a press release. At Lee said Crosby’s qualifications include “combining an understanding of the complexities involved with sensitivities to the goals of our organization.”
The corporation specifically intends to offer aid to Calvert’s “families kept from home ownership by official policies and social prejudices. Public servants — hospital workers, teachers, sheriff’s deputies, service industry employees, etc. — who can’t afford to live here. The elderly whose care of others has greatly depleted their financial resources.”
Crosby acknowledged that while the program is providing reparations to the disadvantaged, no one’s resources will be wrested away in the process.
“It doesn’t mean taking away, it means nobody is left behind,” Crosby said. “There’s a huge need for us Americans to take care of our people.”
The local organization is funding its community work through grants, such as the $30,000 awarded to it by the Maryland Episcopal Church.
Crosby said there are corporations, such as Verizon TCC’s “Culture of Giving,” which is a private foundation, that give community grants to local nonprofits.
“We’re exploring a huge number of grants,” Crosby said.
In announcing Crosby’s appointment as its executive director, Calvert Concept Charitable Corporation officials noted her work at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and service in the Middle East and northern Africa.
“Her dedication to enhancing education and nonprofit organizations globally, combined with her strategic insights into monitoring and evaluation, make Ms. Crosby a leading figure in her field,” the nonprofit’s press release stated.
Crosby said she is the lone paid employee of the Calvert Concept Charitable Corporation, which is manned by volunteers. Those volunteers include members of a selection committee, which evaluates applications of those seeking help, plus liaisons who work with accepted applicants.
Applications are available at local library branches and on the corporation’s website.
Corporation spokesman Nate Pope told Southern Maryland News the group is using office space provided by All Saints Episcopal Church in Sunderland.
The corporation’s programs include the development of a $10 million campus where “eligible descendants of enslaved people and Native Americans of Calvert County can live for up to three years while qualifying to purchase a home or business,” the group’s press release stated. “This campus will also be available for other persons who have faced social and financial injustices such as teachers, hospital workers and public servants.”
Crosby stated a key strategy to ensuring success will be to “change behaviors in financial planning and budgeting” and teaching “skills to improve employment options.”
To learn more about Calvert Concept Charitable Corporation, go to www.c4housing.org.
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