Grow Home is a 501c3 organization dedicated to building capacity with local leadership and creating employment and recreational opportunities in under-served Baltimore communities by helping turn empty and ignored green spaces into centers of neighborhood activity, exercise, and everyday use.
Since 2012, our staff have worked across southwest Baltimore organizing no-cost recreational programming and youth sports opportunities while supporting resident advocacy councils of dedicated neighbors and volunteer park stewards.
Building on models of park-centric revitalization implemented both in Baltimore and across the country, Grow Home helps residents bring unused parks back to vitality by cultivating local support and providing programming, staff, and other assistance for residents and park lovers.
What We Do at Grow Home
Workforce Development
At Grow Home, we understand that success isn’t one-size-fits-all. That’s why we’ve dedicated ourselves to creating dynamic, impactful workforce development programs tailored to every stage of life’s journey. Our mission is simple: to transform Baltimore’s untapped potential into thriving careers through practical, hands-on training that speaks directly to the needs of today’s job market. Whether you’re a high school student taking your first step into the job market or an adult seeking to elevate your career, Grow Home offers a pathway to success.
Our approach is a partnership at every level—connecting passionate individuals with the skills, opportunities, and community support they need to flourish. By aligning closely with local employers, we ensure our training programs are not just educational, but a direct conduit to employment in booming industries. From construction trades to culinary arts, our programs are designed to open doors to stable, rewarding careers that contribute to the growth of our community and the well-being of our participants.
Community Revitalization
A wealth of studies have shown that just 15 minutes of moderate daily activity in a green outdoor space can greatly help achieve positive health outcomes both physically and mentally. In an urban setting, access to clean and well-enjoyed public parks, gardens and other green areas offer promising opportunities to improve individual health and spark community transformations.
Grow Home works inclusively to help residents looking to turn nearby blighted spaces into places for enjoyment and catalysts for community development. Working with “Friends of” citizen groups dedicated to improving and enjoying their own local public parks and gardens, Grow Home provides administrative, technical and physical resources as we connect experienced people to help residents create green transformations within and outside each public space.
Youth Sports & Community Events
Once properly improved, parks and gardens must be familiar and enjoyed regularly by neighbors and residents to create outdoor spaces where individuals feel relaxation, comfort and investment in the park or garden’s future
At Grow Home, we work with neighbors to ensure that community parks are places where children and visitors feel comfortable and welcome, building organized athletics for youth with trained and experienced coaches, and supporting innovative events, activities and celebrations that unite residents within each shared green space.
Growing Together
While parks and gardens are often prime sites to spark community change, Grow Home is also helping build capacity for passionate people who are uniting communities and helping effect positive change across the region.
Our partners include the Northern Lights Against Substance Abuse Coalition, a group of residents in northern Anne Arundel County who are uniting youth, police, residents and others to spread awareness and get help for families and people battling substance abuse and underage alcohol consumption.
We also are proud to support coalitions of civic organizations and community institutions who are working collaboratively to improve conditions and combat crime, dumping and blighted properties in the Curtis Bay/ Brooklyn communities, and also team up with other regional partners working to improve the city.
Grow Home also proudly supports the Seminoles Sports League, a year-round youth athletics league that offers affordable football, basketball, baseball and cheer league play to hundreds of children across west Baltimore, and numerous “Friends of “ park groups that are each helping people organize independent nonprofit organizations to effect change locally.
Our Staff
Michael F. Dorsey
Executive Director
Michael F. Dorsey is Grow Home’s Founder and Executive Director. Born and raised in Baltimore, Dorsey is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Social Work and awardee of Social Work Community Outreach Service’s top 25 graduates who made a difference in 25 years. Dorsey began his career in green space and community development by interning at Bon Secours, and later co-founded Docs in the Parks program Baltimore in 2011 with the Maryland Academy of Pediatrics and BCRP.
In 2015, Dorsey went on to launch a Community Initiatives Department of the former non-profit the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development (CCYD) before forming Grow Home to continue to support local park development, workforce efforts and community beautification at sites where he worked previously. Focusing on the intersections of outdoor recreation, green space, health and community development, the organization is focused on creating programming, finding funding and empowering partners to reduce barriers to better systems of community and open space development.
Michael Dorsey has worked in non-profit program management, development and growth since 2010. He has directly supervised more than 10 programs that deal with coalition building, community development, leadership training, workforce development, strategic planning, and community organizing. He brings experience and to the day-to-day performance of each program at Grow Home.
Jeff Dugan
Community Athletics
Jeff Dugan serves as Director of Community Athletics for Grow Home, where he leads the development of all youth athletics programming with our partner parks. Dugan has a Masters Degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis on Psychosocial Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity. He has 15 years of experience coaching and coordinating youth sports and general youth programs.
Over the past four years, Dugan has joined more than 100 coaches and parents together in communities across the Grow Home map to offer year-round sports clinics and competitions in Carroll Park, and is working to build connections between all our sites for a greater utilization of open spaces in the entire area Grow Home serves.
Dugan’s work currently centers on reviving and re-establishing community youth athletics programming at several partner parks following the COVID-19 sutdowns, including Carroll Park, ABC Park / Seminoles Sports League and at Garrett Park in Brooklyn/Baybrook. This will include a return of Dugan’s Cross Country/Track Running team with youth in Carroll Park this autumn, when teens will practice in the park regularly and participate in organized 5k events throughout the season around the city in multiple community charity runs and races.
Ike Enenmoh
Case Manager
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and raised in Los Angeles, California, Ikechukwu “Ike” received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine. As a medical trainee, he was enthusiastically involved in the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) chapter at Johns Hopkins, helping to lead the chapter’s Brotherhood Alliance for Science and Education (BASE) pipeline initiative. He has worked closely with community organizations in East Baltimore focused on building mutual aid and the thriving of all current and historic residents of the area; and as a volunteer with the city-wide pandemic initiative, ‘Baltimore Neighbors Network’, he gained invaluable experience connecting individuals with social services in the city while lending an empathetic ear in times of need.
With a background in Emergency Medicine and work experience as an EMT in Los Angeles, Ike hopes to help build robust systems of care and prevention that strengthen our social safety nets and meet people’s essential needs – directly in his work as a case manager with Grow Home and in all of his endeavors. He is grateful to call Baltimore City home and strives to leverage his training in medicine as well as institutional resources to give back to the place and people who have given him so much to cherish. Outside of his work, he focuses his time on reading, being present with his friends, family, and neighbors in Baltimore City or sampling music to make beats in his bedroom.
Rebecca Klug
Data Management & External Relations Specialist
Rebecca is a communications professional with 15+ years of experience helping nonprofit organizations bridge organizational missions and community goals. With a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Iowa and a bachelor’s in anthropology and English from Luther College, Rebecca found her calling at the intersection of storytelling and community building, most recently at the Delaware Community Foundation and Delaware College of Art and Design. When she’s not working to amplify community voices, she loves exploring area hiking trails with her camera.
Andre Robinson
Workforce Development/Sports/Youth Mentor
Andre “Magic” Robinson is a longtime teacher, coach and is the primary mentor for Grow Home’s Baltimore Builders program.
“Coach Magic” has been a youth mentor and coach in Baltimore since 2004, working and volunteering at area schools, recreation centers and other sports organizations constantly to mentor youth in baseball, basketball and football. Robinson has extensive experience working in the Baltimore assembly and transportation industry, giving him a wealth of experience to draw on for workforce development.
His past achievements include the creation of the B-More Stallions, a sports league offering youth a chance to play football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse and golf at Hilton Field in the 21229 communities. Robinson assumed his role with the Builders in 2020, developing and implementing a curriculum and organizational structures for helping area youth become workforce-ready. Robinson is extremely experienced in conflict resolution and youth engagement, and will be integral to our youth workforce initiative in 2021.
Cleo Rose
OST Site Manager & Internal Relations
Cleo earned her Integrated Arts degree from the University of Baltimore in 2015 while also studying part-time at the Maryland Institute College of Art, combining business insight with artistic refinement. For over six years, she assisted a multidisciplinary artist and managed acquisitions and operations for an art consulting firm, honing skills in project management, strategic planning, and data organization. Her roles required exceptional multitasking, attention to detail, and the ability to drive projects to successful completion under pressure. When she’s not busy working with the community, she is hanging out with her husband, an army veteran, and planning trips to visit their friends around the country.
Chuck Sauer
Construction Trades Instructor/Field Education Director
Chuck Sauer served in the United States Marine Corps from 1990-1994. Born and raised in Baltimore, Chuck has lived in different areas of Maryland and worked throughout MD, VA, DC, and FL. He brings 30+ years of experience in the construction, warehousing, and security industries. Chuck also has over 40 years of experience in coaching and competing in highly competitive athletics, particularly baseball and major level fast-pitch softball. Chuck’s duties with Grow Home include scheduling crew members who are part of the workforce program, upholding all contracted work, teaching and mentoring crew members so they can become sustainable employees, and recruiting, managing, and coaching athletics with BCB Athletics.
Henry Scott
Building Trades Instructor & Special Projects Manager
Henry is a field instructor and project manager born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He has a multidisciplinary background with skills that range from sculpture and photography to woodworking and construction. Henry is also a proud Marine Corps veteran and active member of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing.
Delmer Taylor
Park Steward
A retired city sanitation worker, Taylor is the de facto groundskeeper for Garrett Park, and also assists in larger beautification projects with Grow Home and the Baltimore Builders, where we train first-time employees.
Grow Home aspires to engage local residents near public parks who help maintain the grounds and cleans litter each week by paying small stipends or modest part-time wages. Our organization is regularly searching for other residents like Mr. Taylor near other parks hoping to do similar work.
Daniel Valentine
Writer, Development Associate
Daniel Valentine is a writer and public servant who provides administrative and other development help to Grow Home.
Originally from Richmond, VA, Daniel assists with planning, writing and helps Mr. Dorsey implement Grow Home’s mission and activities. His career includes 15 years writing and reporting for newspapers across Maryland, and four years with the Prince George’s County House Delegation in the Maryland General Assembly, where he was a legislative director.
Daniel is a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, and lives in Baltimore with his daughter.
Katie Wargo
NLASA Coordinator
Katie Wargo is a wife and a mother of four boys and a resident of Pasadena. For the past five years, Wargo has been the Coalition Coordinator for two of the four prevention coalitions that make up Anne Arundel County, Northern Lights Against Substance Misuse, and Western Arundel Substance Prevention. Wargo is also the Program Creator and Director of Sound of Silence, a mental health program. Katie lost her two brothers during the height of the “Opioid Epidemic” between 2015 and 2018. Because of this loss, Wargo has committed to a great deal of voluntary professional development in prevention and harm reduction efforts.
Wargo has taken on significant leadership roles including as a public panelist of the Not My Child series and working with various county leaders to expand access to mental health services. Through awareness events such as the Haunted House of Addiction, Sound of Silence speaking tour, Mobilized Recovery Town Hall Series, and the prevention framework with the coalitions, Sound of Silence helps break the stigma and lower overdose numbers in Anne Arundel County and across the state. Wargo has also cowritten a book, The Unraveling Effects of Addiction, with her mother Denise Williams about their family’s personal journey through addiction.
Clayton Williams
Green Trades Instructor
Clayton, a Baltimore native, community organizer, and food justice activist, created an urban local flower, vegetable, and fruit farm to support and uplift the community. He uses his farm to teach agriculture and sustainability to young people in Grow Home’s workforce development and community revitalization programs.
Denise Williams
Outreach Coordinator
As the Outreach Coordinator for Grow Home’s Sound of Silence program, Denise educates young people about the dangers of untreated mental health issues and substance misuse. A long-time Pasadena Community member, Denise is a mother and grandmother who worked as a floral designer at Lauer’s Supermarket for 18 years before accepting a position as outreach coordinator for Northern Lights Against Substance Misuse after losing her son Ryan to an accidental overdose in 2015. In 2018, she lost her second son Matt (Ryan’s twin brother) to an overdose complicated with mental health issues.
Denise was a frequent panelist on the “Not My Child” program that ran from 2016 through 2018. She and her son Matt were featured in the 2016 documentary The Missing Half, filmed by the University of Maryland film students to bring awareness to Anne Arundel County’s opioid epidemic. Denise has also been featured in a podcast (“Drug Stories – My Twin Sons”), radio shows, and television segments on addiction and mental health. She has worked with SADD students at Northeast Sr High since 2016 on the Haunted House of Addiction. Denise is a member of Recovery Anne Arundel to bring awareness and education to addiction and mental health in the area. Denise, along with her friend Ann Youngblood, started the nonprofit Lance and Ryan Fund to assist those in recovery financially. Denise, joined by her daughter Katie Williams Wargo, wrote and published a book titled Hindsight the Unraveling Effects of Addiction, a true story about her sons and living through addiction within the home.
