Why would someone coming out of prison, with all the challenges they face, take on the task of starting their own business? Partly because employers pass them over, says Vanessa Bright, founder of the Maryland Reentry Resource Center. And some are natural risk-takers, she says.

We talk to Lamont Bell, who runs three businesses he started since leaving prison and Chris Taylor, a retired business executive who now advises entrepreneurs. 

The Maryland Reentry Entrepreneurship & Networking Conference will be held on Saturday, October 1st at the Maritime Conference Center. Details here.

Find a business mentor through SCORE.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Where would our country be, what would it be without Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman? Award-winning documentarian Stanley Nelson evokes new insights into how each pushed to freedom from slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In the film MPT premiers next week, Nelson traces Tubman’s visions, which she took as direct guidance from God. Then Nelson shows Frederick Douglass reinventing himself again and again on his quest to demand respect for his people.

Learn more about these two documentaries. Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom will debut on Maryland Public Television and PBS stations nationwide next Tuesday, Oct. 4. Becoming Frederick Douglass, which will debut the following Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Storytelling is at the core of what we do here at WYPR. So today, as a special fund-drive treat, we’re offering up a double scoop of Stoop Stories!

Arianne Rice, a newly ordained priest facing a crisis, talks about what she wished she’d learned in seminary and Jessica Murphy Garrett, who heard her biological clock ticking at age 35, tells how she decided to take matters into her own hands:

“And I thought the right thing to do is to give him first right of refusal on being the sperm donor, basically, and I said, you know, ‘Since we’re married I don’t know if that’s something you want.’ And he said, romantically and wistfully, ‘Nah, I’m good.’

Links: Stoopstorytelling, LIVE Stoop Tales from the Crypt, Stoop podcasts.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Imagine iconic characters like Batman or Daredevil. How would their personalities sound, if presented in the Big Band style?

Stephen Philip Harvey’s latest album, the debut of his jazz orchestra, is SMASH! He drew inspiration from superheroes he watched in Saturday morning cartoons, and translated brooding heroes and scheming villains into jazz melodies and harmonies. Check out his upcoming performances here.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

SPARK -- a large database of DNA from people with autism and their families -- offers insight into the spectrum of the disorder.

Neuropsychologist Ericka Wodka of Kennedy Krieger Institute explains how the enormous number of SPARK participants helps researchers investigate other conditions that commonly affect people with autism. And Angie Auldridge, whose son, Mark, has autism, tells how genetic testing revealed a rare mutation and set his treatment on a different path. 

Connect with SPARK through Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

A nursing shortage still grips U.S. healthcare. How can the system onboard students faster … while making sure they grasp all they need to know about patient care?

Lisa Rowen, System Chief Nurse Executive for the University of Maryland Medical System, hopes the Academy of Clinical Essentials, or ACE, will begin to address that challenge. 

“With ACE the nursing students are able to see the continuum of care for a 12-hour shift. It is a realistic insight into hospital care of patients.” 

Then Liz Cushing, a trauma nurse and ACE instructor, and nursing student Naseem Ahmadi, on why more hours of hands-on instruction -- at regular intervals -- better prepare new nurses for what they’ll face. 

Links: The UMMS Academy of Clinical Essentials

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Some factors in the economy are slowing--but not the job market. “Help wanted” signs are everywhere. Some employers are brainstorming how to hire the talent they need. Penn-Mar Human Services, a nonprofit that offers a range of supports for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, works with businesses that want to analyze whether some part of their workflow would fit a person with a disability. Greg Miller is Penn-Mar’s CEO:

“It is not a charity, it is not something where we expect an employee or a business to lower expectations. It is trying to find the right job in the right business for the right person.And we meet Tim O’Neill, a Penn-Mar client who has worked at Bank of America’s Hunt Valley campus for two decades, .. and his manager, Joseph Waldron.Links: Penn Mar Customized Employment Program

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Here's a Stoop Story from Rachel Micah Jones about fighting for migrant worker rights. 

Want more Stoop Storytelling Series? Listen to the podcast or find information about upcoming Stoop shows.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Gun violence, leading to the deaths of two Baltimore students, cast a shadow over the start of the school year.

Annette Anderson, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins ‘Center for Safe and Healthy Schools,’ is a former principal--and the parent of three teens in Baltimore City public schools.

She says violence prevention starts with positive relationships, “Our young people may not always connect with their classroom teacher, but it may be a lunchroom aide, it may be the custodian, it may be the school secretary that they connect with. We need to have enough caring adults trained in the building to help our young people connect and learn how to diffuse conflict.”

Check out this Hopkins' Hub article on preventing gun violence.

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472

Brittany Young’s non-profit, B360, gives kids hands-on STEM experience through dirt bikes. As they ride them, fix them and even design them … they learn science, technology, engineering and math.

Young knows dirt bike riding has a reputation … and she intends to transform that, along with the lives of young people. Five years in, her dream is within sight: to create a permanent multi-acre campus:

 “I just need people, even if you don’t understand it,  to have a bit more empathy, a bit more compassion. Because there are kids that don’t want to be in the streets they want to be in programming -- we know, because we work with them every summer! And so we need a space for us.” 

Then we hear all about the buzz around B360 camp!

Links: B360, Ride4Change 

Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers [email protected] 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his [email protected] 410-235-1472