The 6th Branch

The 6th Branch is a nonprofit organization that utilizes the skills of military veterans to execute aggressive community service initiatives in East Baltimore.

Our veteran-led, community-guided, and volunteer-powered neighborhood development efforts are focused on building safe, inviting, verdant spaces within the built environment of Baltimore's historically disenfranchised communities.

Rationale:

In a well-resourced, justly functioning city, whenever housing properties are demolished, a new land-use would immediately sprout up in its wake. In the communities in which we work, however, this is not the case - often, these properties are left to become overgrown, collecting windblown litter, dumped trash, and other illicit activity. The effect is that one type of physical blight is simply replaced by another. This is a matter of environmental justice. Our Neighborscape program is designed to fill this gap: working closely with community leaders, we leverage the efforts of volunteers to eliminate these vacant spaces by building them into clean, beautiful, green places that become stable, functional assets to the neighborhoods in which they are found.