Media Advisory

What: Picnic for 200 youth in foster care to reunite them with their siblings
When: Noon to 4 p.m., on May 10
Where: Columbus Pavilion at Druid Hill Park. (Directions at bottom of this advisory.)

Editors' note: Reporters may interview and photograph youth older than 18. Some youth in foster care younger than 18 will have permission from parents and guardians to be interviewed and photographed.

BALTIMORE—To celebrate National Foster Care Month in May, Baltimore Community Fellow Shantel Randolph is organizing a picnic for more than 200 youth in foster care to reunite them with their siblings, many of whom are separated from each other while they are in the child welfare system.

Randolph, 26, herself was shuttled in and out of foster care as her mother struggled with addiction. At age 17, she went into an independent living facility in Baltimore. There, she lived in an apartment with other older foster youth until she turned 21 and "aged out" of the child welfare system. Young people who age out of foster care often suffer poor outcomes. Many end up homeless, in trouble with the law or unable to support themselves. Randolph lost her health insurance and then had to scrape together $1,000 for a dental emergency, nearly ruining her. She was almost evicted.

Today, Randolph is on track. In 2007, she won a Baltimore Community Fellowship from the Open Society Institute-Baltimore to help other young people in foster care successfully move to adulthood. Through her fellowship, she is working with a group of 15 to 18 students at the Baltimore Freedom Academy who are either in foster care or who are aging out of care. They participate in her program called "Foster Youth Incorporated" or FYI. The aim is to empower foster youth to tell their stories and advocate for improvements to Maryland's foster care system.

In foster care, siblings often are split up, typically because a foster parent or group home can't accommodate them living together. They get to see each other only very sporadically. Randolph was separated from her eight siblings. "You miss out on that bond you should have with your siblings," she says. "You don't get to grow up together. Years later, it's hard to form that relationship with someone you hardly know. Your lives have moved on from that, and mentally it is tough to build those relationships and have that trust. Even to this day, I'm not as close to my brothers and sisters as I would like to be. We have all made our own lives for ourselves."

Randolph is one of eight 2007 Baltimore Community Fellows who each receive $48,750 to work full-time for 18 months implementing creative strategies to assist marginalized communities in Baltimore City. The fellows' work focuses on pervasive problems in the city's underserved communities. This year's new class brings the total number of Baltimore Community Fellows to 94-the great majority of whom are still actively working in the city.

"Through her Community Fellowship, Shantel is trying to make life better for other young people in the foster care system," said Pamela King, OSI-Baltimore director for Community Fellowships. "Her commitment and passion come from her own life experience, and she is determined to help others in foster care make successful transitions to adulthood."

Randolph has been working with lawyers at several private firms and the Legal Aid Bureau to invite children to the picnic. Students in her FYI group will serve as hosts for the other kids as the event, which will feature barbecue, games, a DJ, an open karaoke, face-painting, balloon sculptures, and a professional photographer who will take siblings' photos together. Kids will be able to make their own frames for their photographs.

Here are directions to Columbus Pavilion in Druid Hill Park from Interstate 83:

From the north:
Exit 7 south toward Druid Park Lake Drive and the zoo.
Stay right. Exit will put you going west on Druid Park Lake Drive with the lake on your right.
At the first light, turn right into the park on Swan Drive.
Bear right at fork toward Safety City. (Do not follow signs to the zoo at this point.)
At first stop sign, turn left onto Mansion House Drive.
Columbus Pavilion is the first building on the right on the hill.

From the south:
Exit 7A. Stay in left lane toward Druid Park Lake Drive and the zoo.
Exit will put you going west on Druid Park Lake Drive with the lake on your right.
Follow the rest of the directions above.


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Founded by philanthropist George Soros, OSI-Baltimore is a private operating foundation that supports a grantmaking, educational and capacity-building program to expand justice and opportunity for Baltimore residents. With support from a range of investors, its current work focuses on helping Baltimore's youth succeed, reducing the social and economic costs of incarceration, tackling drug addiction, and building a corps of Community Fellows to bring innovative ideas to Baltimore's underserved communities.