Intersection of Change, as the organization is known, will begin the day by hosting a fall festival for its urban agriculture program, Strength to Love II, at the site of the one-and-a-half-acre farm at 1855 Kavanaugh St. in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.

Members of the public are invited to observe cooking demonstrations, take part in fall-themed painting projects, and take home fresh produce, including cherry tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers, at the event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The central mission of the farm — a collection of 14 active greenhouses on the site — is to “supplement access to produce in the area, which is a food desert,” said Nicole Jackson, volunteer coordinator for the organization.

The group provides the bulk of its produce to local food pantries and other charitable organizations, as well as selling directly to interested customers. The program also provides workforce development opportunities, offering employment on the farm for youth between 15 and 21.

Another arm of Intersection of Change, Jubilee Arts, offers classes in visual arts, dance, ceramics, and the business of art for adult and youth residents of Baltimore, particularly those hailing from Sandtown-Winchester, Upton, and surrounding communities. Tuition starts at $3 per class.

Saturday’s event is designed to showcase the work of the hundreds who took arts courses taught by local volunteers over the quarter that recently ended. It will feature dance routines, displays of children’s art, food giveaways and music provided by a DJ. The event will take place between 4 and 6 p.m. in the art gallery in the Marcus-Harris Center at 1947 Pennsylvania Ave.

Jubilee Arts creates at least one mural in Sandtown-Winchester or a nearby community per year, working with a professional artist and ten students each time, said Todd Marcus, executive director of the nonprofit. The group has created three dozen public artworks since 2015.

Intersection of Change, born in 1997 as Newborn Holistic Ministries and now in its 20th year, also operates Martha’s Place, a recovery program for women recovering from substance abuse and homelessness.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Richard Pettigrew, the Oregon archaeologist leading the latest venture to solve the mystery of the legendary aviator’s demise, said in a news update that the expedition — originally scheduled to begin Nov. 4 — had to be delayed due to problems in securing the permits required for his team of 14 people to travel from Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, to Nikumaruru, a remote island in the Republic of Kiribati.

The goal of the mission is to investigate a white, airplane-shaped object researchers have spotted in a satellite photograph taken of Nikumaroro in 2020. The Taraia Object, as it’s being called, appears to be submerged below the surface of the lagoon at the center of the coral atoll.

Pettigrew and his team believe Earhart and her flight navigator, Fred Noonan, could not find their intended destination, tiny Howland Island, on the morning of July 2, 1937, and traveled 400 miles to the southeast, where they made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro. They believe the pair survived for several days before succumbing to the elements.

It’s one of countless theories about what might have happened to the aviators. Most experts believe they ran out of fuel near Howland and crashed into the ocean nearby.

Purdue University, which helped Earhart purchase the 10-seat plane 88 years ago, is helping Pettigrew, the founding director of the nonprofit Archaeological Legacy Institute in Eugene, Oregon, carry out the mission, whose cost has been estimated at $900,000. Pettigrew said the nonprofit continues to raise funds for the venture.

Team leaders said that even if the Republic of Kiribati, an island country dispersed over more than 1.3 million square miles situated roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia, gave its full permission in the next few days, it would still not be in time for the team to avoid the annual cyclone season in that part of the South Pacific, which generally occurs in winter.

The team will return to the expedition no earlier than April 2026, said Pettigrew, who sounded undaunted by the setback.

“Because of the compelling evidence we have in front of us, we have to go to Nikumaroro and get a close look at the Taraia Object,” he said. “Rest assured that we will do just that, so stay tuned! We will have a revised project schedule worked out soon.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Archbishop William E. Lori said Monday that the archdiocese — which claims half a million members in Baltimore City and nine counties in central and western Maryland — will continue to operate its many charitable programs as long as the shutdown lasts and beyond.

The services the archdiocese provides to members of the public include free meals, direct help with rent and utilities, emergency housing, and family and counseling support.

They’re the same ones the archdiocese provides year-round to those in need. Still, Lori said he wanted to place special emphasis on their availability during a time of unusual instability.

“Government shutdowns have far-reaching consequences, but they take a particularly heavy toll on the most vulnerable among us – families living paycheck to paycheck, parents worried about feeding their children, and seniors already balancing the cost of medications and groceries,” Lori said in a statement. “When vital government services are interrupted or delayed, the result is more than an inconvenience – it can mean hunger, anxiety, and hardship for our brothers and sisters in need.”

At such challenging moments, “we are called to stand in solidarity with those who suffer, to walk alongside them, and to be a source of hope in times of uncertainty,” he added.

Lori specifically mentioned Catholic Charities, the nonprofit whose 80 charitable programs across the state include providing food to thousands each day, as well as offering mental health and counseling services. He encouraged anyone in need to call the organization at (667) 600-2000.

He also cited the work of The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Baltimore, which offers direct assistance for rent and other expenses in many parishes. The organization also continues to operate the Beans & Bread Day Services Program, which provides breakfast and a hot lunch to hundreds of people per day, Monday through Friday. He cited the society’s number as (410) 662-0500.

Lori mentioned that many parishes operate food pantries and assistance programs and are open to anyone in need of groceries or meals. He added that anyone interested can find a nearby parish to inquire about the services they offer.

“Our ministries remain open and active, providing care and support across central and western Maryland,” he said.

Lori’s announcement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration says it will cut off Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — commonly known as food stamps — on Nov. 1, which about one in eight Americans rely on.

The shutdown, already the second-longest in history, is stretching into its fourth week without any end in sight. The White House has blamed Congressional Democrats for failing to vote to end the standoff.

The Baltimore archdiocese incorporates Baltimore City as well as Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington counties.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

With her friend, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, in tow, she absconded to a nearby airport, commandeered a Curtiss Condor biplane, and, with both women still in their white gowns and evening gloves, flew to Baltimore.

“It does mark an epoch, doesn’t it, when a girl in an evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night,” Roosevelt said to The Sun afterward.

It was that kind of adventurous spirit that drove Earhart, the legendary aviator and women’s rights pioneer, to try to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe. The dream famously ended on July 2, 1937, when she, her navigator Fred Noonan, and her Lockheed Electra airplane vanished in the South Pacific, never to be seen again.

The latest effort to find the downed plane starts Nov. 4 when a research team backed by Purdue University sets sail for an atoll in the remote Republic of Kiribati.

Earhart may have chosen Baltimore somewhat randomly that night in 1933 — the Condor could get there in 20 minutes, and they reportedly got back in time for dessert — but she made numerous visits to Charm City and other places in Maryland.

Her first touchdown in the state seems to have been on the Eastern Shore. A Facebook user from Crisfield, Deidre Potter Harris, quotes a front-page story from the now-defunct Wicomico News that describes that day in detail.

The president of the Salisbury Rotary Club, F.W. Dryden, wrote  “the most famous woman in America” to invite her to a dinner in her honor at the Wicomico Hotel on Oct. 30, 1929, according to the story, and she graciously accepted

A local pilot, Forrest Wenyon, flew Earhart to a long-defunct airfield near Salisbury known to most people as Del-Mar-Va Airport, the story reports, and the motorcade that soon carried her through town caused the usual sensation.

“It is raining in Salisbury, but the thousands who are waiting at the intersection of Main and Division Streets can hardly contain their enthusiasm,” the article read. “All are anxious and excited to see the first woman flyer to cross the Atlantic Ocean … It is such a special day that schools have closed early to permit more than two thousand of the City’s school children to witness the arrival of Miss Earhart.”

The story then describes the star as waving and smiling at the crowd before entering the Wicomico. (The 103-year-old building is currently the object of a historical preservation project.)

Earhart came to Baltimore twice the following year. The first time was March 4, when she landed at Logan Field, the city’s first municipal airport, in what was then southeastern Baltimore. The aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin greeted her.

She was feted at a dinner at the Lord Baltimore Hotel that evening.

“The number of women flyers has increased from 12 in January 1929 to 200 today,” she told the Baltimore Evening Sun at the time. “I see a big future for women in this work.”

Eight months later, she was part of a group that landed at the Martin factory to mark the start of service to Baltimore by a short-lived airline, the New York, Philadelphia & Washington Airways Corporation. Another local dignitary met her there.

“After an official welcome had been extended to the visiting fliers by Mayor W. F. Broening, the passengers who flew in the ship … made a tour of the airplane factory,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 25, 1930.

Her final Baltimore appearance came in 1936, when David Foote Sellers, then the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, invited Earhart to attend the annual Navy-Notre Dame football game, which was played at Baltimore Municipal Stadium (later named Memorial Stadium) that year.

Researchers 90% positive they will find Amelia Earhart’s doomed plane on remote Pacific island

As the first woman to address a Naval Academy class, the aviator told the midshipmen she had no real reason to take her coming around-the-world trip “except my own wish to do so” — and added, ominously, that it was safer to fly across the Pacific than the Atlantic because “Pacific flight usually is over well-traveled steamer lanes.”

Places such as her hometown of Atchison, Kansas, and Purdue University, where she taught aeronautics for two years, have a stronger claim on Earhart’s legacy than Maryland, of course. So does the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington and Chantilly, Virginia. The Chantilly site is home to the Lockheed Vega 5-B, in which Earhart became the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932, as well as a leather flying coat and a pair of goggles she wore.

Maryland has its own smaller-scale offerings. The Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum in Middle River includes Earhart items in exhibits on aviation history, for example, and the College Park Aviation Museum in Prince George’s County offers educational Earhart experiences. A mural in Saint Helena, meanwhile, a neighborhood between southeast Baltimore and Dundalk, commemorates Earhart’s nearby visits; “When She Had Wings,” a play about her, debuted in Bethesda in 2015, and a Maryland actress, Mary Ann Jung, counts Earhart among the 12 women of history she portrays in interactive educational shows across the state and beyond.

The state is also home to some well-known researchers on Earhart and her disappearance, the cause of which is still the subject of debate.

The late Frank Benjamin, an educator who taught at Anne Arundel Community College, spent years traveling to the Marshall Islands and advancing the argument that Earhart and Noonan crashed-landed on a reef near tiny Barre Island and were captured by Japanese soldiers who believed they were spies, and spirited off to Saipan. An exhibit he curated was displayed at the Earhart birthplace museum in Atchison.

Another Earhart aficionado, Bill Snavely of Salisbury, hosts a dedicated podcast on the Earhart saga, “Chasing Earhart,” with new episodes airing every few weeks. He holds the minority view that Earhart and Noonan encountered strong headwinds shortly after taking off from Lae, New Guinea, the day of their disappearance, turned back, and crashed en route to the nearest runway, which was in Buka, Papua New Guinea. He has traveled to the South Pacific to test his theory.

Perhaps there’s no better testament to Earhart’s legacy in Maryland, though, than her influence on women’s aviation. Among her accomplishments was serving as the first president of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization that provides mentoring, networking, and scholarship opportunities for female pilots. The Maryland chapter, founded in 1929 and based in Central Maryland, and the Frederick-based Sugarloaf chapter remain active.

The Maryland group held an introductory event for female fliers in Easton in September, according to longtime pilot and former chapter president Jane Toskes. Sixteen women responded to the group’s invitation “to come and see what aviation is about and take a ride in a small plane” at the “Let’s Fly Now” day, she said, and did just that in “five or six airplanes” flown by local experts.

“Most of the women loved it,” she said, adding that “several acted like they’re going to go to flight school and get into” aviation.

It wouldn’t be unusual. Over the past few years, women who got involved have earned instrument ratings, become flight instructors, and even gone on to work with the organization’s international legal team.

The woman who flew a first lady to Baltimore 92 years ago still plays a part. Most of the female pilots Toskes knows have “grown up hearing stories of Amelia Earhart that really intrigued them,” she said. “At this point, it’s hard to separate her legend from anything else that might have inspired you to start. People definitely get inspiration from her. She’s a part of everyone’s knowledge.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Amelia Earhart was a superstar long before the term was ever coined.

The famed aviator set multiple flying records, serving as a model of independence for girls and women in a male-dominated world. She was a 1930s-era influencer, starring in radio spots, endorsing products and hobnobbing with the world’s elite. She drew crowds wherever she went, including several times in Baltimore, even flying First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to Baltimore one night in 1933.

So when Earhart and the plane she was trying to fly around the world vanished in the South Pacific 88 years ago, the event sparked a global frenzy. The madness hasn’t stopped yet.

A team of 14 explorers will depart for Nikumaroro, a remote speck of an island halfway between Australia and Hawaii, on Nov. 4, in search of the downed aircraft. It will hardly be the first such venture — the U.S. Navy conducted a 17-day search in 1937, and dozens have led expeditions since — and most in the famously quarrelsome world of Earhart enthusiasts expect this one to come up empty.

The leader of the venture, archeologist Richard Pettigrew, acknowledges the doubters. But his analysis of the long Earhart saga convinces him that he and his team from Purdue University are about to solve what some have called “the greatest aviation mystery of the 20th century.”

Whatever the outcome, Pettigrew said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, he can’t miss this opportunity to test his theory: that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, died as castaways on this tiny atoll 400 miles from their intended destination — and that the shiny object visible in a newly reexamined satellite photo is Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E.

“We have a lot of evidence to go on, and I believe the chances are 9 out of 10 that it’s Amelia’s plane, but we won’t know until we go in there and take a look at it,” he said.

A rapid climb, a sudden fall

A great deal is known about Amelia Earhart, which should surprise no one, given her celebrity during her lifetime and the books, articles, documentaries and podcasts that have chronicled her exploits.

She was born in 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, and grew up an adventure-seeking child. She caught the aviation bug in her early 20s, juggled jobs to pay for flying lessons, and advanced quickly enough to set a world record for altitude reached by a female pilot (14,000 feet) at age 25.

She would become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928, the first to do it solo four years later, and with no little urging from her husband, publisher-promoter George Putnam, undertook the first around-the-world flight by a female pilot in 1937.

It was on the last leg of her intended 29,000-mile journey that Earhart and her flight companion, navigator Fred Noonan, failed to reach their destination on July 2, a fleck of land less than a mile square in size known as Howland Island. At about 9 a.m., they lost radio contact with the USS Itasca, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter moored nearby and assigned to bring her in. They were never seen again.

What exactly happened is still a matter of fierce debate.

Mainstream historians embrace the simplest explanation: that the plane, which was likely carrying enough fuel to reach Howland, hit empty even as Earhart sought to spot Howland and find the right frequency to hear the Itasca. They believe the plane crashed and sank in 18,000 feet of shark-infested waters.

Amelia Earhart made Maryland her runway — even with the first lady aboard

Dorothy Cochrane, the retired curator for aviation for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington and Chantilly, Va., said most known facts support the hypothesis — including that Earhart was flying into the sun that morning and had never bothered to learn Morse Code, a communications method that would have established a link to the Itasca.

Laurie Gwen Shapiro, a documentary filmmaker and journalist, spent five years researching Earhart’s life for her latest book, “The Aviator and the Showman,” and also believes her plane rests at the bottom of the Pacific. For all her importance and flying achievements, Shapiro said, Earhart’s sense of adventure sometimes eclipsed her skills and preparedness.

“They ran out of fuel and crashed,” she said in an interview with The Sun. “It was a tragedy waiting to happen.”

For others, the matter is not so cut-and-dried.

Competing ‘myths’

Researchers have sidelined a theory some accepted for years: that the pair somehow flew 700 miles to the northwest, crashed in the Marshall Islands, and was captured and executed by Japanese troops. Or that Earhart, who was friends with President Franklin and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, was conducting a U.S. spying mission. Or that she survived and lived a long life under an alias.

Pettigrew has a different contrarian view. As director of the Archeological Legacy Institute, a research and media nonprofit based in Oregon, he has spent decades tracking the work of one of the most prolific — and, some would say, most controversial — of all Earhart aficionados, an amateur aviation historian named Ric Gillespie.

As head of the International Group for Aviation Recovery (TIGHAR), a nonprofit he founded in 1985, Gillespie has led 12 expeditions to Nikumaroro, written two books on Earhart, and become as sure of the “Nikumaroro Hypothesis” as institutional historians are of theirs.

He believes Earhart and Noonan overshot Howland that morning, continued flying about 400 miles to the southeast, conducted an emergency landing on Nikumaroro (then known as Gardner Island), and lived as castaways for at least a week before succumbing to the elements.

Beyond that, he’s convinced the plane was swept to sea and “chewed to pieces” in violent surf.

Gillespie, of Oxford, Pennsylvania, an hour northeast of Baltimore, points to the more than 130 people who reported hearing distress calls from Earhart on short-wave radio in the days following her disappearance. (He says he and his team have verified 57.)

His team has discovered artifacts on Nikamaroro they believe belonged to Earhart — a pocketknife, a cosmetics jar, even skeletal remains they say match her known measurements. (Each claim sparked media firestorms and garnered donations to his operation).

If he’s right, the Electra had to have had enough fuel to travel 400 miles further than most believe. As many have pointed out, crewmen on the Itasca heard a brief radio snippet of Earhart saying “[we] cannot see you, but gas is running low” just as the plane appeared to be approaching Howland. (Coast Guard radio transcripts support the point.)

Gillespie said it’s now understood that Lockheed designers advised the crew ahead of time to conserve fuel throughout the flight by adjusting the plane’s “manifold pressure” (the relative mix of fuel and gas) as needed, and, assuming they did, they could have had four hours’ worth left.

“That’s another myth, that she was out of fuel,” he said. “She had plenty of fuel. Next myth!”

From Trump to Taraia

President Trump ordered his administration to declassify all government records related to Earhart last month, but the move did little to settle the debate. The FBI’s files were already available online, and so was a trove of information at the National Archives.

Those records don’t confirm what years of Gillespie’s team’s evidence had already convinced Pettigrew — that the Nikumaroro Hypothesis is plausible. Unlike Gillespie, he believes remnants of the Electra survived.

In 2020, when an Earhart enthusiast from California reexamined an Apple Maps photo of Nikumararo and spotted what seemed to be an elongated object below the surface of the lagoon in the island’s center, Pettigrew decided to act.

Satellite photos taken between 2009 and 2024 showed that the suspected plane — now known as the Taraia Object — first became visible in March 2015, shortly after a historic cyclone is known to have swamped the area. Pettigrew believes it had floated into the lagoon not long after its pilot landed it safely on a reef.

He reached out to Purdue, the world’s largest collection of Earhart papers, artifacts, and memorabilia and where Earhart had taught aeronautics and counseled female students in the 1930s. The school’s research nonprofit, the Purdue Research Foundation, had financed much of her 1937 attempt, and the university has extended Pettigrew’s team a line of credit for the roughly $900,000 expedition.

The Archaeological Legacy Institute continues to raise funds for the project and has posted a series of videologs on an affiliated website as background.

Expedition members plan to depart Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 for Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii. Leaving Majuro on Nov. 4, they will sail the 1,200 miles in six days to Nikumaroro, a densely vegetated island in the Republic of Kiribati.  

They’re to spend five days on the atoll using remote sensing technology at the site, get a photographic record, and dredge for a clearer view. If it’s the Electra, they’ll return another time for a full-scale excavation.

For his part, Gillespie says the object is just a fallen pandanus tree. Smithsonian’s Cochrane believes the Electra never came to the area. Filmmaker Shapiro questions the whole premise of the expedition.

“I’m telling you now — there’s no plane in that lagoon,” she said.

As for Pettigrew, he knows nothing is certain, but his research tells him they’re about to end the mystery that has intrigued the world since before World War II — and that even if he’s wrong, it’s worth the effort.

“With the information we have in front of us right now, we have to go there and look,” he said. “I know that without any doubt.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

The Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore, a longtime hub of religious activity in the Walbrook neighborhood, will host an extended open house, “Islam and the African American Experience,” on its West North Avenue campus from Oct. 15 through Oct. 19.

The traveling exhibition, provided by the America’s Islamic Heritage Museum in Washington, D.C., presents visual and written displays on “the evolution of Islam in America, how it came to America through the slave trade, how it grows into the proto-Islamic movement and evolved into what we’d call mainstream Islam today,” said Imam Earl El-Amin, the spiritual leader of the mosque, which was founded in 1990.

Members of the public are invited to attend the exhibition any day between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. during its stay. Admission is free.

The event begins off-site, at Morgan State University, with a panel discussion among historians and local experts on the subject that begins at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The two-hour event takes place in room 514 of the Jenkins Hall Behavioral and Social Sciences Center on the Morgan Park campus.

For the following four days, visitors can stop by the mosque to experience displays that show and put into context key periods and illuminate significant characters in the history of Islam in the United States, including such figures as Abdul Rahman Ibrahima ibn Sori, a prince of the Fula ethnic group of West Africa, who was captured, sold into slavery and transported to the U.S. as part of the transatlantic slave trade in 1788, only to establish himself as a successful merchant and be freed and returned to his homeland 40 years later.

The exhibit covers cultural, political and sports figures of the Muslim faith in America up through the present day, El Amin said, including figures as wide-ranging as Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to hold elective office in the U.S., and basketball star Kyrie Irving of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

“It covers the past, present and future of the faith,” El Amin said.

The exhibition’s final day will feature a talk by Muhammad Fraser-Rahim, a professor at the Citadel and widely published author on subjects including the enslaved African Muslim experience in antebellum America. The address begins at 11 a.m. Sunday at the mosque.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Officials of the Knights of Columbus will present new winter coats to the 265 students at St. Michael-St. Clement School, a STEM-focused preschool-through-8th-grade elementary school of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in the Overlea neighborhood of Baltimore County, during an Oct. 21 event at the school, the archdiocese announced Monday.

Students will have the opportunity to choose their own coat at the event, which begins at 10 a.m.

The giveaway is part of the Knights of Columbus’ Coats for Kids Program, an annual nationwide initiative the worldwide organization launched in 2009. The group, which selects schools in each of the 50 states as recipients, distributes about 200,000 coats per year. It gave out its one millionth at a school in Denver two years ago.

Baltimore has been a recipient city every year for more than a decade said archdiocese spokesperson Yvonne Wenger.

The organization will provide coats for children at two other Baltimore Catholic schools later this fall — the Loyola School, an elementary school in Mount Vernon, and Mother Seton Academy, a middle school in the East Baltimore-Midway neighborhood.

Archbishop William E. Lori, the leader of the Baltimore archdiocese and the supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus since 2005, and other organization officials will help distribute the coats.

As supreme chaplain, Lori is charged with overseeing the spiritual welfare of the Knights’ more than 2.1 million members around the world.

Lori said the annual event “is always an enjoyable day for me, because I get to visit with these young people and watch their excitement at selecting a new coat in the color and style they choose.” She added that it exemplifies the organization’s core mission: to practice charity.

The day “will provide brand new winter jackets to students just in time for the start of the cold season,” he said.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Unlike some public buildings, churches need open access to carry out their functions, said Michael Toomey, the president of Secom, a Columbia firm that provides protective technologies for government agencies and houses of worship across the U.S.

“You want people to be able to walk around freely, not be faced with a lot of security barriers,” Toomey said. “That’s one of the things that makes churches a ‘soft target.'”

Secom and other firms have developed new tools to counter attacks, including AI-equipped surveillance cameras that detect suspicious behavior and send instant alerts — or even lockdown signals — within seconds.

They might have prevented such tragedies as the mass shooting that killed 27 people at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017. The assailant in that case fired at individuals outside the building and might have been stopped before entering the church.

One problem is the price. A full-fledged state-of-the-art security system can cost between $40,000 and $100,000. It could include anything from apps that can buzz congregants, take over their laptops, or alert law enforcement, to alarms that trigger sirens and flashing strobes.

But an investment of $3,000 can mean a significant upgrade, said Geno Roefaro, the CEO of SaferWatch, a Florida company that provides advanced security technology.

“How many more warning signs do you really need to prioritize safety?” he said.

Government programs do offer security grants to vulnerable nonprofits, including houses of worship and parochial schools. The federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program provides funding for security upgrades, while Maryland offers two state options — the Protecting Against Hate Crimes Grant and the Hate Crimes Grant through the Maryland Center for School Safety.

Critics argue that taxpayers’ funds should not be used for religious establishments, but proponents claim that the economic impact of upgrades can be both direct and indirect, reducing crime, boosting local businesses, and increasing property values.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has no uniform security policy for its parishes but urges each to prioritize safety, said Tom Alban, the diocese’s director of risk management. The archdiocese offers training for hundreds of volunteers who serve on church security teams. Many are armed and have military or law enforcement backgrounds.

Parishes also follow best-practice procedures such as having single points of entry, providing bullet-resistant glass, keeping close ties with police and other agencies, and simply encouraging greeters and parishioners to engage with all who enter.

Some have been able to provide armed private security and upgrade surveillance, Alban said, adding that the archdiocese is applying for the DHS grants.

So are officials at Grace Fellowship Church in Timonium, a congregation with about 4,000 members. Pastor Vincenzo Leone has trained teams of volunteers to monitor the church, many of them quietly armed. Officials have a well-rehearsed action plan in place for when a pastor senses anything amiss from the pulpit.

But the system continues to evolve, and Leone said his team is applying for grants in hopes of making them even stronger.

“It’s sad, but the world has changed,” he said.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

There was the day he was giving the eulogy at a funeral and the son of the deceased rose to attack him in the pulpit. And another day, when two men mugged him in the church parking lot.

It was more than enough to convince the West Baltimore minister he should carry a gun and have a uniformed armed guard present for all church activities to keep himself and his flock safe.

“I carry and I don’t care who knows it,” said Hudson, the pastor of Ames Memorial Church in Sandtown-Winchester and Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Harlem Park. “It’s sad to say — we all believe in God as our protector, but the other harsh reality is that there are so many people who have absolutely no respect for God and the church nowadays.”

Hudson shared the memories and his philosophies on security against a backdrop of shockingly violent acts against churches in recent weeks. One evangelical think tank, the Family Research Council, identified 1,384 acts of hostility, including violence, theft, or arson, toward churches in the U.S. between January 2018 and December 2024.

Several have taken place in Baltimore. They include the nonfatal shooting by a pastor of an intruder at an abandoned church in Union Square and the fatal shooting of a man in front of Adams Chapel AME Church in Northwest Baltimore, both in 2024, and the slaying of a beloved congregant on the grounds of Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore in 2021.

But the gruesome and targeted incidents of the past few weeks have further raised alarms.

Police prevented what could have been another massacre last Sunday by arresting a man who had planted more than 200 destructive devices in a tent he’d set up in front of the Cathedral of St. Mary the Apostle in Washington.

“These were tragic, tragic incidents,” said Greg Farno, the chancellor of education for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, whose job includes overseeing security for about 60 Catholic schools in Maryland. “Clearly, security at our schools is a high, high priority. They’ve only caused us to make our protocols even stronger.”

The Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Jr. said it’s shocking, if not totally surprising, that some unstable individuals have chosen to vent their ire at churches.

The pastor of New Shiloh Baptist Church in West Baltimore cited some of the motives behind the violence on the harsh nature of modern political discourse, the rise of extreme ideologies, and the apparent increase in drug and mental health issues in the U.S.

“Spiritual warfare is a major variable in the equation,” said Carter, a third-generation Baltimore preacher. “We are engaged in a spiritual battle. But people under stress tend to take out their frustrations on religious or faith-based institutions. They stand for something, unlike neighborhoods, community centers, or malls. It becomes simpler and easier to turn one’s frustrations and anger against the church.”

No one knows how many Christian leaders go as far as Hudson by carrying a licensed firearm even in the pulpits; however, it’s clear that pastors make it their business to ensure that other forms of armed protection are in place.

Lifeway Research, a nonprofit evangelical research firm in Nashville, found in a 2023 survey that more than half of Christian congregations in the country — 54% — have armed church members on site when congregants are present. An overwhelming majority have law enforcement or military backgrounds.

More than three-fourths of larger American congregations — those with 250 or more members — said they had such armed volunteer teams in place. Twenty-seven percent of those hired were uniformed officers. Nearly 75% had intentional plans for active shooters in place.

As a “free person of faith” who believes that “God is going to take care of me and my family,” Carter said he doesn’t feel the need to arm himself. But he considers it his sacred obligation to make sure his flock is protected.

New Shiloh employs a range of methods to make that happen.

The 5,000-plus-member church took a less vigilant approach to security measures up until about 10 years ago, when Carter and others became concerned that violent incidents were becoming more commonplace.

The congregation now pays a handful of security officers and works with a team of trained volunteers to provide armed protection at every activity, from Sunday morning services to midweek Bible study classes.

Carter said most congregants enjoy the sense of security they provide.

The church has long had surveillance cameras in place, and it has added upgrades and more units over the past two years, with the security team closely monitoring the scene.

“For churches of our size, it’s common; it’s of necessity,” Carter said.

For his part, Hudson, a former U.S. Army paratrooper, acknowledges that many pastors, if not most, would frown on his decision to carry a .38 special. But he points to the Book of Acts, which urges church leaders to “be on guard for yourselves and all the flock.”

But Ames and Metropolitan churches can only afford that one uniformed officer.

“If they get past him, I’m the second guard,” Hudson said. “The pastor almost has to be a security guard.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

The Maryland Center for History and Culture – formerly the Maryland Historical Society – has named Anna Majeski, a curator in the field of natural history, as its new Lilly Endowment Curator of Religious History.

Majeski’s goal will be to mine the museum’s collections and communicate with faith communities across the state to assemble a comprehensive, “nuanced” portrayal of Maryland’s unique legacy as an exemplar of religious diversity and tolerance, the center’s president and CEO, Katie Caljean, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Maryland’s role in the story of religious tolerance and pluralism is particularly relevant today as we approach the United States Semiquincentennial in 2026,” Caljean said. “While [the state was] established as a Catholic refuge with a commitment to tolerance of different faiths [as] codified in Maryland’s 1649 Act of Toleration — the earliest of its kind in British North America — history shows this ideal stressed, redacted, and reinstated almost cyclically throughout the development of our state and nation.”

Majeski, who earned her PhD. in Art History from New York University, curated a major exhibition, “Sketching Splendor: American Natural History, 1750-1850,” at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia last year. It explored the work of the naturalists John James Audubon, William Bartram and Titian Ramsey Peale.

Majeski will also will work with the Towson-based Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies  to create “exhibitions and programs that illuminate Maryland’s complex religious past, while inviting today’s religious communities into dialogue about religious diversity and our shared civic life,” ICJS executive director Heather Rubens Miller said in a statement. The plans include a major exhibition, curated by Majeski, scheduled for fall 2026.

Majeski also will advise with churches, synagogues and mosques across the state on the preservation and care of their collections and records.

“I am excited to delve into MCHC’s collections and collaborate with communities across Maryland to help steward and share stories about our state’s diverse landscape of faith,” Majeski said.

The new position is supported by a $2.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative, which is to fund a larger programming and research initiative at the center that “aims to interpret the history of religious diversity and contested stories of religious tolerance in the state of Maryland.”

The Baltimore museum is one of 33 organizations that received a grant through the endowment last year.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com