The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA) and the Baltimore City Chamber of
Commerce held a happy hour reception on Thursday, March 30, at Urban Reads Bookstore on
Greenmount Ave., Baltimore to launch their partnership, which provides reciprocal membership
benefits between the two organizations, such as access to networking and educational opportunities,
member directories, special discounts, funding, and other curated benefits from each service
organization.
Present at the partnership launch were Carla Du Pree, Executive Director for City Lit Project and GBCA
Board Member; Baltimore City Councilwoman Odette Ramos; Tia Hamilton, Owner of Urban Reads
Bookstore; Jeannie Howe, Executive Director of GBCA; Lenora Henry, Executive Director of the Baltimore
City Chamber of Commerce; and dozens of GBCA and Chamber stakeholders, volunteers,
businesspeople, and entrepreneurs in the city.
“GBCA is excited about the ways in which our new partnership with the Baltimore City Chamber of
Commerce will benefit its members and create stronger connectivity with the business community,”
said Jeannie Howe, Executive Director at GBCA. “The comments of our passionate speakers, Carla Du
Pree, Executive Director of City Lit Project, and Tia Hamilton, owner of Urban Reads, perfectly
demonstrate the ways in which arts and culture lead, strengthen, and build communities, and we are so
grateful to them and to City Councilwoman Odette Ramos for joining us to show their support.”
“…This partnership between Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce and Greater Baltimore Cultural
Alliance is a promising affair,” said Carla Du Pree, Executive Director at City Lit Project. “GBCA is the
pulse of the arts community. We can’t afford to separate art from the business of our city; we make it
our business to understand the challenges and triumphs, the breaking point and impact of the arts.”
In addition to Carla Du Pree’s remarks on the literary history and artistic prowess of Baltimore creatives
and artists, Urban Reads Bookstore owner Tia Hamilton spoke about her mission and efforts to provide
support to incarcerated individuals in prisons across the U.S. through her book donations.
The goals of the partnership between GBCA and the Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce are to create
value for each service organization’s members, catalyze the exchange between business professionals,
creatives, artists, and arts organizations in Baltimore, and to teach skills across sectors and drive
innovation in the workplace.
To learn more about the partnership between GBCA and the Chamber of Commerce, please visit
www.baltimoreculture.org/GBCAchamberpartnership or www.baltimorecitychamber.org.
