The Perkins Firehouse returns to service after having been a boarded up and nearly abandoned part of the Perkins neighborhood for many years. The Living Classroom Foundation and its partners that include Greater Baltimore Cares and Ross Technologies, Inc. amongst many other gracious and committed corporations and individuals will gather together on December 15, 2011 for the grand opening of the Perkins Community Center. Greater Baltimore Cares and RTGX partnered up to help furnish the community center and to design and equip the firehouse with the technology needed to support the mentoring and community empowerment efforts that the firehouse will be at the center of.

The first floor of the firehouse will include a multi-purpose space for after-school programming to add to the Carmelo Anthony Youth Development Center on East Fayette Street. The first floor will also include a community technology center. The second floor will hold offices for Living Classrooms staff and the Perkins Homes Tenant Council as well as conference rooms and space for community health fairs.

Perkins Homes is part of the Living Classrooms Target Investment Zone in East Baltimore, and the firehouse was renovated with the help of participants in Project SERVE, Living Classrooms’ initiative to lower recidivism and raise the employment rate among those re-entering Baltimore communities following incarceration.