Who is Joel Bergner? His website http://www.joelsmural.com/ says that he hails from the Windy City and his art work has been heavily influenced by time he spent in Honduras, the Dominican Republic and later both El Salvador and Brazil. He has several upcoming projects, including a mural in Silver Spring, Maryland based on interviews he will conduct with clients of the local International Rescue Committee.
Access Art Inc. was founded by Tony Shore and is a Pigtown based program. As Shore says that if for no other purpose, the program is "a distraction [for the kids] from all the negative things going on in the community...The best way to keep kids off drugs is to keep 'em busy." After growing up in Baltimore Shore attended MICA on a full scholarship and later received a masters of fine arts degree from Yale. It's funny because as soon as I read that he had attended Yale, Shore's story began to sound eerily familiar; I think, in fact I know, I heard it while I was volunteering at the Paul's Place’s summer camp. Someone was babbling off statistics about the horrific high school dropout rate (which currently hovers around 60%) and the even smaller number of graduates who actually went on to college when someone sighted a local artist who had gone on to Yale as if to assure us that all hope is not lost. While at MICA Shore developed his trade mark, paintings on black velvet, which he would later take to New York in an attempt to launch his career. But, as he says, "I was in New York, going to all the right gallery openings, shaking hands, but I started feeling like I was using my powers for not necessarily good--closer to evil." And so goes the tale of how Tony Shore came full circle and back to Baltimore. The Junior League of Baltimore is a volunteer organization for women in the city that was founded in 1912. The Baltimore branch is part of the Association of Junior Leagues International which counts 292 branches in four countries as its members. Some of its current initiatives are the School-Parental Engagement Project (SPEP) and the Wise Penny Internship, where four women are mentored for a 12 week cycle at the Wide Penny thrift store owned by the junior league. The women learn skills in store management, sales, inventory, and customer service. The oldest continuous initiative in the league has been its choral group which is not only recreational, but also reaches out to the old folks' homes in the area.
The Baltimore Police Foundation has taken some hits in recent years (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.kane18aug18,0,5837230.column) for what many see as misuse by the Police Commissioner. The foundation does not exclusively fund philanthropic project, but also provides moneys for business trips and department apparel.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation was founded by Jim Casey and his siblings in honor their mother who as a young widow struggled to support the family. Striving to help vulnerable children and their families who are in circumstances similar to those that the Casey family endured, the foundation began in 1948 in Seattle after Jim Casey had amassed substantial savings from his messenger service (which would grow into the global, multi-billion dollar UPS). The foundation's headquarters moved to Baltimore in 1994.
Two very influential women are responsible for this next mural painted in 1997, called "My Sister's Garden." Mary Carfagno Ferguson is a studio painter and self-identified "middle-class white lady" and Patti Prugh is an art therapist at Sheppard Pratt.
Fergusen branched out into the Pigtown area and worked with skaters to create the "Skaters of Pigtown Recognition Wall" after she helped them to raise enough money to build a skateboard park on un-used tennis courts at Carroll Park. 
Positive Youth Expressions was founded in October 1993 by Dr. Denise L. Folks and is one component of the Greater Church of the Risen Savior's outreach program. This mural is on the side of the ministry building.
Here's is a great article in the Baltimore City Paper from August 2001 that provided me with a lot of information http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3488
The article traces the history of murals in Baltimore. Once informally known as "The Monumental City" because of the many tributes to fallen military heroes, Baltimore used to set aside 1% of the public-building budget for art work. In the 1970s, Mayor William Donald Schaefer directly encouraged mural-painting as a way of breathing new life into the city. As a result, however, many murals were vandalized: "Some neighborhoods shun murals entirely, residents believing them to be signals of decline, a sign that the city considers the community to be in need of sprucing up." I wonder then, how can any of those communities improve themselves if they can't admit to themselves that they've gone into decline? After all the first step is admitting you need help and what better way to be rewarded than with a face life.
interesting blog :)
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