As Featured in the Baltimore Sun: Called to Service to Help Women

17 NOVEMBER 2021

BALTIMORE, MD – Gayle Kelly will never forget a woman she met while volunteering at Helping Up Mission (HUM) men’s recovery center. Gayle recalls how the woman was dressed like a man in order to receive a meal. “I was serving meals, and as she got closer, it was clear she was a woman dressed like a man. The staff at Helping Up Mission spoke to her, as the facility was not able to serve women at that time. I clearly remember that experience and keep wondering, ‘Where did she go?’”

With women and children being the fastest-growing population experiencing homelessness—more than 900 women homeless each night in the city of Baltimore alone—Gayle and her husband, Frank Kelly III, Chief Executive Officer of Kelly Benefits, felt a calling to help.

Since 2018, Frank and Gayle have served as co-chairs for HUM’s $61 million Inspiring Hope campaign to build a new 145,000-square-foot Center for Women & Children in East Baltimore’s Historic Jonestown, which will allow HUM to serve up to 200 women and 50 children. The new center will help women fighting addiction and homelessness get their lives back through a year-long Spiritual Recovery Program that addresses their physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs.

“We all see what is happening in our city. We see the challenges with violence and drug and alcohol addiction, and how they are related. Most of us don’t know how we can help. It’s easier to sit on the sidelines and complain, but Gayle and I felt compelled to get involved in this effort. Drugs and alcohol have robbed these people of joy, peace, identity and respect. We want to help restore them in any way possible,” Frank says.

The new center, to be located at E. Baltimore Street, is scheduled to be dedicated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, December 9, 2021, and is slated to open to individual women in early 2022 and to women with children in January 2023.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Frank and Gayle’s service and support of HUM as featured in the Baltimore Sun’s recently released 2021 Charitable Giving Guide.