Maryland Safe Haven Serves 500 Free Meals, Haircuts at Annual Fish Fry

Keisha Howard's volunteers fed 500 people in a single afternoon last Thursday, free of charge, at Maryland Safe Haven's third annual fish fry on North Collington Street.

The Baltimore nonprofit, which operates a drop-in center on that same block, held the April 3 event as a one-stop hub for wraparound services. Beyond the 500 free meals, organizers set up haircut stations and staffed a fully supplied onsite food pantry, with outreach tables running alongside the food lines to connect guests to additional resources.

Howard described the animating logic behind the effort. "Each one of us help each one of us and we keep that going in," she said. "So we do this to meet the holistic needs of all people, not just your physical needs, but your mental needs, also your social needs and any other needs that you have."

That commitment to addressing more than hunger has shaped the fish fry since its first year. The format, hot food alongside haircuts, pantry goods, and direct outreach, allows Maryland Safe Haven to reach residents who might arrive for a meal and leave connected to services they hadn't known to seek.

The group isn't stopping there. Organizers announced plans to launch a new mental health program later in 2026, a step that would shift Maryland Safe Haven from a group defined by its annual events to one delivering integrated, year-round services.

Food insecurity persists across several Baltimore neighborhoods, and community organizations operating at the block level often fill gaps that city and state programs leave open. Getting 500 people fed, cut, and stocked with pantry goods in one afternoon, with no cost and no barrier to entry, is the kind of direct impact larger institutions rarely match at the neighborhood scale.

The fish fry's third consecutive year on North Collington Street signals it has become more than a seasonal outreach push; it is a fixture.