Edna Manns-Lake of Fayette Street Outreach was, for decades, a tireless advocate for her West Baltimore community. She reached out to Community Law Center to help her group became a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and to explore how the law could help them to reach their goals.
At the time, drug dealers controlled “The Corner” (made infamous by a book of the same title and the series “The Wire”) using its 7 pay phones to conduct business. Fayette Street Outreach and their CLC attorney, Kristine Dunkerton, staged a campaign (that quickly became citywide) to remove those, and many other, pay phones that supported so much illegal activity. The organization got its IRS nonprofit designation and neighbors organized block parties and rallies holding signs that read “stop the crime,” and “hugs not drugs.”
The Fayette Street Outreach Center was 20 years in the making. CLC assisted the volunteer-run organization with obtaining zoning approval, state funding, contracts with developers, and much more over the years. They acquired and renovated the two houses on North Smallwood Street, completely transforming the once vacant nuisance properties into a safe and welcoming community center.
“The community needed a place to call their own, so they could come in and have community meetings, a place where we can have activities for our youth,” Manns-Lake said. “The center is a testimony of what can happen if you don’t give up and have strong supporters in your corner that believe in your goals.”