BCP Community Spotlight: West Baltimore Renaissance Foundation
October 9, 2026
The West Baltimore Renaissance Foundation (WBRF), a division of LifeBridge Health Inc. founded in 2019 to support and bolster community wellbeing, is a proud supporter of Frederick Elementary School, the Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP) neighborhood conversion charter serving the historic West Baltimore neighborhood. For the 2025-26 school year, WBRF generously gave $2,500 through its Small Neighborhood Grants Program to support Frederick’s attendance initiatives.
How West Baltimore Renaissance Foundation Helped to Transform Attendance at Frederick
With the WBRF funds, school leaders and the Attendance Team at Frederick purchased incentive prizes for the school’s popular Kidz Korner store. Every student who attends school each day earns points for that day. At the end of the week, students with perfect weekly attendance may spend those points at the store.
To further underscore the importance of attendance, students are called to the store in class, giving recognition and pride to those students who attend daily and serving as further incentive and goal-setting for other students.
WBRH’s (WBRF’s) grant also supported the final school-year luncheon that celebrated attendance for families. Frederick’s and BCP’s larger Transforming Attendance Initiative embraces a holistic approach to attendance and involves the family.
“Our lens as part of LifeBridge’s dedication to West Baltimore is family and support strategies that address the social determinants of health,” explains Kurt Sommer, executive director of WBRF. “Youth programming and school attendance are very important to improving the health of a community. School attendance is key to succeeding at grade level and to advancing in education.”
“Completing high school, college, and/or trade school contributes to a stronger possibility of earned income for better housing, food, and other resources,” he adds. “It all starts in the classroom and going to school every day.”
Frederick Elementary School’s Impressive Attendance Results
With community partners like WBRH, Frederick was able to achieve remarkable success in its first year of the initiative. During its first year of the program, BCP’s six schools collectively reduced network-wide chronic absenteeism from 45.55% to 37.85%.
Frederick made the greatest improvement in attendance across the BCP network. Chronic absenteeism at Frederick fell from 73% to 55.3%. Daily attendance increased from 81.1% to 87.4%. For the current school year, Frederick’s August 2026 average daily attendance was 92%. Read more about Frederick’s attendance success.
West Baltimore Renaissance Foundation’s Commitment to Improving Lives in West Baltimore
LifeBridge Health’s community support in West Baltimore includes the Grace Medical Center, the former Bon Secours Hospital Baltimore, and The Factory: A West Baltimore Opportunity Center, which WBRF opened in 2025. The Factory brings together several nonprofit organizations in a welcoming space for the community to gather. In addition to past support of Frederick, WBRF (supports and The Factory hosts) provides workforce development, mentoring, food access, and population health programs.
“Building strong relationships between WBRF, our health center, and the neighborhood schools is very important,” Sommer adds. “When people live in healthy neighborhoods and have access to good schools, grocery stores, parks, health care, and more, it leads to better probabilities for better health outcomes. This work is truly about investing in communities to build better futures and outcomes.”
Thank you, West Baltimore Renaissance Foundation, for your support of Frederick Elementary School and in helping to make the children’s futures bright by encouraging daily attendance.