Our forever pal James Bond of the Living Classrooms Foundation gets Nestor ready for Maritime Magic in Fells Point on October 4th. Come down and eat and drink and dance and learn and support one of the great groups that is working to lift and grow Baltimore!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
maritime, classrooms, baltimore, people, living, magic, amazing, support, ships, work, tickets, uss constellation, harbor, companies, years, talk, fells point, oysters, wendy, organization
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Jost, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. I’ve got a whole sleeve of Raven. Scratch. Also give away who won $20 today? Oh, they won their winners. Winners. We got winners. Here we’re fatally John Sarbanes has left us. We have the great James Piper bond joining us here from living classrooms, foundation. It’s all brought to you by friends at Jiffy Lube MultiCare. We’re about to do oysters. We have crab cakes. Here it is the crab cake tour. But I’m in the middle of this oyster tour. Dami is bringing me out fried, roasted, broiled, raw. I don’t you know, I feel like Forrest, Gump, shrimp, potatoes, oyster and everything. We’ve been doing oysters every single day. It’s all brought to you by our friends at curio. Well. Curio wellness, as well as our friends at Liberty. Pure solutions. Keep my water clean, keep the water running. You know, I mentioned Curia wellness. Last time you were and I were together was in January for a couple Super Bowl at the old location. We’re now at the new location. Wendy bronfen And I had breakfast together today talking about concerts and my long hair and Pearl Jam and all of this stuff on the fall season. They’re the, one of the underwriters for your living classrooms Foundation. And I dare I say you’re, you know, you’re one of my favorite people. One of my favorite events is maritime magic. And I wanted to get you down here to tell these folks who’ve never been why they need to get the maritime magic it’s important living
01:21
classrooms, well, Nestor, Aparicio, pleasure and an honor to be with you, and we’re grateful, and we’re grateful for your support all these years, but a few decades when
Nestor Aparicio 01:29
you’re here was long and mine was short. That’s right, that’s how long it’s been. How many years for maritime this will be our 36th maritime magic. That’s my lucky number, by the way, 37 Okay, man,
01:40
this is going to be a good one. And it’s October 4, two weeks from today, the weather already looks beautiful. I was just looking, I don’t want to jinx it, but it was looking great, and it’s going to be amazing right at our Frederick, Douglas, Isaac Meyer maritime Park, right at Dames and Caroline Street down on the point of Fells Point. So
Nestor Aparicio 01:59
much has grown down there. If you haven’t done I walked through last Saturday. I was at the Fells Point oyster festival because I invited you Nana Cooper’s ladies and oysters and eggs, and I’m glad you made it this week. But I walked past your campus literally on Saturday afternoon after the oyster fest, right down tames, and my wife’s like, Oh, my God, look at this. You know, we move out of downtown and tell everybody what’s been going on down there, because there’s just so much. Yeah, it’s really the water’s being utilized, yeah, down there. Now you’re one of the first ones to get down
02:25
there. Yeah. But when living classrooms, you know, next year will be our 40th anniversary as an organization, and when we first began to operate along the waterfront, none of those buildings were there with us. Now, Harbor Point and all those new buildings used to be the Allied Chemical Company, the chrome factory. It’s been totally a super fun cleanup. That’s why there’s a hill there, because they had to put all the infrastructure on top of the cap for the for the Chrome. And I’m learning things. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 02:55
why I love having people I don’t know this, yeah.
02:57
And so it’s, it’s safe, it’s monitored on a daily basis. And now they built, you know, the Beatty organization has built on top of that. And that’s where Exelon and constellation, so many companies, tiro prices building their new buildings that will open up. You got this
Nestor Aparicio 03:14
businesses that you mentioned that have kept living classrooms going 40 years? Am I right? So all of them, system of the city or,
03:20
you know, and so down there in our East harbor campus, we started the first charter school in Maryland, 23 years ago, the Crossroads school. Every one of those children, 163 children. It’s title one school kids that live below the poverty line. It’s an amazing school. We have an incredible principal and team. Kids come to us two or three grade levels behind, and our job is to help get them up to speed and into the best high school, the best fit for them. Every one of those children has a mentor that come from those companies that are right around living classrooms down right there at Harbor Point and Harbor East. So we have that. You’ve got the new Marina there, right outside the Central Avenue Bridge. But back to maritime magic. That’s it that Frederick Douglass, Isaac Myers maritime park a block away from where the school is, right on the point of Fells Point. Beautiful Site, site of the country’s first black owned shipyard. We have the BEN CARDIN pier there. You’ll see, you’ll see three of the historic
Nestor Aparicio 04:14
hardened pier. I didn’t know we need to Pier after Ben. Oh yeah. I
04:18
was with him this morning. We just were part of the ceremony on board the USS Constellation, which, again, we’re responsible for. All those four large ships, like the submarine and the Coast Guard Cutter and the light ship and the constellation in their harbor. Those are all living classroom. We had the secretary of Navy on board today. We had the number two person in the Department of Defense. You should have seen the motorcade coming in with all the motorcycles today, yeah. And so they named the next ship the US Navy is going to build is going to be the US, USS Baltimore. It’s going to be the most high tech submarine in the world. And so all this brass came into town, and we had all these dignitaries. It’s a pretty. Will pretty very,
Nestor Aparicio 05:01
never been a USS Baltimore, this
05:03
will be the sixth one. So out there has going back to 1700s there’s been different Baltimore’s. And so you’re a
Nestor Aparicio 05:10
real Waterman, you know, I mean, you refer to the ships as hers. And you know, the waters your that’s your that’s your toy man, that’s your
05:18
thing. You know, we utilize these ships and our community centers and Masonville Cove and all the different sites. Living classrooms has 30 different sites in the Baltimore, DC area, and we reach 35,000 children, youth, adults a year. A couple 100,000 others go on board these ships or on the Under Armor house, up on Fayette street, or at our Douglas Myers maritime Park, where we have the restaurant and activity every day, there’s a wedding going to take place there tomorrow. They’re setting up for right now. So all of that comes back to helping children, youth and adults to reach their potential academically, in the workplace and in their lives. So we have not only charter school, not only these maritime stem environmental ed programs happening daily, but also job training programs, and we work with more returning citizens, that’s people coming home from incarceration, than any other community based organization in Maryland. We’ve been
Nestor Aparicio 06:08
doing that for 25 that’s a piece of work there unto itself. We talk about recidivism. We talk about when someone leaves incarceration, they come back on the street, whatever that support system would be, would lead them to be a functioning member of society if they don’t have that in that first 3060, 90 days, yeah,
06:27
we have rapid attachment to work, so we work with people behind the fence. We have this MOU with Department of Corrections, and our folks have been doing this for years so that when people are released, they’ve done their time. They’re ready to turn over the page. They want to, want to do the right. There’s already stigma and already but we immediately have a rapid attachment to work, earning minimum wage. They’re part of a family like today. I think we have a 49 people in Project serve. You’ll see them in the green, greenish yellow shirts, all around the Inner Harbor area, up in the neighborhoods around East Baltimore and down in South Baltimore, and they’re so they’re earning, they’re earning a wage, they’re cleaning the streets of Baltimore, they’re planting trees, doing all sorts of projects. And then after four months, we then have to kind of urge them out of the living classroom nest, and we have dozens of employers that then will hire them, and we have case management for a year to help them be successful beyond working in Project services. That’s just one of the many things living classroom does, and many things that maritime magic will help support. And so back to Wendy. Bronfen curio is the lead sponsor of maritime magic this year. They’re our title sponsor. Wendy’s on our board of trustees. She’s fabulous. I saw her last night, one
Nestor Aparicio 07:37
of my favorite people.
07:39
Yeah, she’s she’s awesome. And the bronfen family have been amazing with living classrooms, and we’re great. Classrooms, and we’re grateful, and so we will pull together two weeks from today, 36 maritime magic starts at six o’clock. We’re gonna have over 50 restaurant top restaurants and wineries and breweries can’t
Nestor Aparicio 07:56
eat at all. I mean, I come and I think I get picky, and you know what? I mean, I don’t want to be all bougie to nice event, but, like, I get picky. I’m like, Nah, I can’t. Can’t eat 50 different things. You got
08:07
to pick and choose. But it’s so it’s going to be incredible food, beverages. It’s not that expensive a ticket. It’s like 125 bucks to come, but nice dinner, yeah? Well, and then you’re going to have amazing music all night. We’ve got the motet coming in from the west coast in Denver. They’re amazing funky music. It’s kind
Nestor Aparicio 08:25
of funky. You’re always bluesy, Funky. Yeah, it’s,
08:29
yeah, it’s kind of our gig. And so everybody will have a great time. We’ll have probably always
Nestor Aparicio 08:34
a band that plays your gig that would be at very at home in New Orleans. Well, yeah, that’s literally when I think of your gig, I’m like, what end of New Orleans is James pulling the band from this
08:44
year? That’s why we got to go to jazz fest every year to do a little
Nestor Aparicio 08:49
research. I lived downtown for 20 years. I lived at Harbor court. My wife and I on any given that was our neighbor. It was our backyard. We would walk out into the harbor past the light Street and the very controversial harbor place pavilions that we’re gonna fix at some point. But I would see children sleeping on that boat. You still doing that? Oh
09:09
yeah, tonight on the constellation the weekend, 50 kids. Well, it’s weekend and weekdays, you know, summertime, summertime and some school groups come during the week. It’s camp, but really they’ll be sleeping in the hammocks of the USS Constellation tonight. I was at an event last night. A dad said, Yeah, my son, 11 years old, is going to be with his scout group on Saturday. So there’s no better way to learn about history and to to experience the USS Constellation than to you’re going to be on board, you’re going to be a crew person, you’re going to you’re going to sleep, you’re going to eat, drink, and help clean the ship and do all the things, and so stand wise, almost like the
Nestor Aparicio 09:47
ultimate field trip, right? Like any that’s what people say to me, what’s living customers like, it’s sort of like a field trip that you stay on and you immerse into, right? I mean, it’s a little
09:56
bit and then we have amazing educators who figure out how you we map. Math and science and history and language arts and learning about the Port of Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. So there’s a lot of intentionality, but to a kid of any age, it’s fun, and it gets you excited about learning. And so look at a smile on your face. You have fun thinking about it, yeah, but that’s what it’s all about. And then we take that to a workforce development perspective, and we work with so many people who have not worked in the traditional workplace, or who are underemployed, or they’re coming home from doing some time, and it’s all about, how do we train them for jobs where they can make a decent living, support themselves honestly and honorably and support their families? And so we’ve been doing that for 36 years as well. And so we have construction training, we have production, warehouse distribution training, we have CNA, GNA teaching people to be nurses, which is such a need right now, thanks to Jack Dwyer support, we’re working with green healthy homes to help people learn about weatherization. So all these jobs that we need to fill, and we’re helping to train a part of our population that has not have access prior to living, classrooms, connections. And so it’s very gratifying, and that’s what maritime magic helps us to support all these different programs. So I’m grateful for you giving us a little bit of
Nestor Aparicio 11:17
somebody asked me who the guests were today. They had a table. People here to somebody won 20 bucks in the Maryland lottery, so that’s fun. But there was a group. They had naval stuff, and they were from Annapolis. They were taking sort of a group picture and doing the tourist thing. And so he says, who’s that guy over there? And I said, Well, that was John Sarbanes. Like, who else do you have on the show? I said, Well, I have James Bond color from living classrooms. And, like, what’s that? And I I went back to, like, billix first, because I really had heard of you through Brian. When Brian came to Baltimore 1999 you had a special relationship, and Brian still on our board, we just plug living classrooms in 99 2000 does one then I started to learn a little bit about it. And then one year, Brian invited me, and it was before why you still coach, before he was my partner. He said, hey, you know what? You know? Living classroom like? Yeah, you talk about it all. Don’t know what it is, but you talk about it all the time. He’s like, they got a party you should take. I just got married, shake your wife, then I got an extra ticket. Here. He’s still a coach. He’s like, It’s me the best party of the year. I can’t go. I’m coaching. It was a frightening season, right? He’s like, I got two tickets for me and Kim, you go. And I didn’t realize a he’s writing a check. He’s a part of this, or whatever, and I went down. But he sold the party because I was, like, young and sexy. Then it’s 25 years ago, and he’s like, party of the year. You’re gonna eat, you’re gonna trick. Just take the tickets. I remember, just take the tickets. Tell your wife, get dressed up. You’ll go down there. And I didn’t know anything about it, and I showed up, and I’m like, it’s like, the Super Bowl of parties is what it really is. And he explained it to me that way. What 2024, years, it’s probably 2003 or four that I went to your first one, and Wendy bronfen and I for Curia wellness, for foreign daughter. She met her husband at maritime. Imagine a lot of people. She has this story of, I went just expecting to go to an event. Next thing you know, I married someone that I met there that night. I would just say that all of these names, and you mentioned Jack Dwyer from CFG bank, there is a ecosystem in this city. When I talked to the matt Gallagher’s of the world, I had Martin Knott and I talked yesterday. I met him at maritime magic 15 years ago. Handles
13:16
all our HVAC mines as well, right? Matt’s, you know, been a long time friend and support. He handles my Pearl Jam tickets
Nestor Aparicio 13:23
when I can’t take him too. But these people that are connected to charity, foundations, big business, you mentioned Exelon and, you know, T Rowe and these, these venerable as well as Venable companies that when I see your program, and you know, all due respect, John angelos, the angels the only time my life I’ve ever seen Lou Angelo’s was a maritime magic. There is a part where the people who make Baltimore go and grow know about you, and at the very least buy a table for maritime you know, if they’re doing the bare minimum, they’re involved with you because of the integrity of the work you do. I mean, I and I’m involved with you, but the but the amount of people speaks for itself for the work you
14:09
do. Well, we have, you know, incredible team, you know, we employ over 300 people. We have 30 different sites. We have an amazing board of directors, and it’s just a total team effort. I mean, I was with the mayor this morning. We were talking about the, you know, some of our teams working up in East Baltimore, and so it’s, it’s a great, you know, I feel very honored to be part of a great group. And you know, we have merit properties who’s been with us for 30 years at maritime magic with Rob Merritt and his team. So it is a lot of companies and individuals who’ve been with us for a long time, but the organization continues to not only excel, but to sustain ourselves coming out of the pandemic. And actually, we’re scaling. We’ve grown from a $16 million year budget to a $19 million year budget in the last couple years. So it’s one step at a time, and there’s a lot more work to do to and that $19
Nestor Aparicio 14:58
million comes. From these names and these companies and these people that, quite frankly, we can complain about government, complain about city and underfunding and all that, but these are the kinds of organizations and these foundations that really put a backbone into you would notice instantly if they were gone, it would really it would trouble our city more. I mean, there are people like you every day trying to lift the city.
15:24
Yeah, it’s a it’s a team effort to support the city that supports the city, agencies, living classrooms, there to help now and very much in the future. And we’re just grateful for the opportunity. I hope everyone will come out to maritime magic. October 4, Friday, two Fridays, I’ve ordered perfect weather. It’s it’s supposed to be sweet. I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s gonna be late. The Orioles are starting the second round of the play. Well, there’s no Orioles playing night. That night, they’re off regardless, so hopefully they’ll be in team ones the next day. I was with Mr. Rubenstein last weekend. We gave him the Fort McHenry Legacy Award, and you know, he’s been doing a great job. Obviously, we’re thrilled to that he’s owning the Orioles when he’s got an amazing team. So yeah, there’s no Orioles game that night. So come on out and enjoy us. October 4. Maritime Management, hold
Nestor Aparicio 16:09
you. There’s no Oriole game at night. It better not be, because there’s no Oriole game. So hopefully we know
16:16
where they are, James, you know what I mean, like one yesterday, but no matter where they are in the playoff that that’s an off night. So
Nestor Aparicio 16:23
anyway, that is the night before game one of the alts, I’m going to say.
