Montgomery County Councilmember (and now Council President) Evan Glass’s former employer, a 501c3 charity called Gandhi Brigade Youth Media or GBYM, has raked in State of Maryland and Montgomery County grants, records show.
Gandhi Brigade Youth Media states that its mission is to: create communities where young people build the confidence and media skills to express themselves and to promote community building, multi-cultural understanding, and the common good.
But its ‘social justice values’ and ‘films and programs’ priorities listing seems to simply follow a grab-bag of trending lefty culture labels. There are calls for racial, environmental, and other “justices”.
Council President Glass was the Executive Director of Gandhi Brigade Youth Media until December 2018, when he resigned to join the Montgomery County Council after winning an At-Large election. Recall, it was CM Glass who foiled the Nine Districts citizen-led referendum in 2020 to abolish At-Large Councilmembers in favor of strict geographic representation.
Below is a screenshot directly from CM Glass’s LinkedIn page as of this March, 2023.
In March 2018, Evan Glass’s group got $150,000 from the state taxpayer courtesy of ‘bond bills’ pushed by Silver Spring area delegates. From ‘Source of the Spring / Mike Diegel’: Gandhi Brigade signed a 20-year lease (with option to renew) to move into the library’s lower level. The organization plans to begin construction in July and complete the project in late August.
Then, in FY 2020, the non-profit CM Glass just departed a few months prior conveniently got an “Advancement Grant” for:
Gandhi Brigade Youth Media, Silver Spring, Maryland ($16,000) – Grant funds will be used to develop and implement a plan to help guide Gandhi Brigade Youth Media as the organization expands programming in its new space at the Silver Spring Library. The move into the Library offers the organization a unique opportunity to both expand and diversify programming. Gandhi Brigade will hire consultants to assist in developing a plan that will guide funding, staffing, and programming decisions.
And… an “Operating Grant” for:
Gandhi Brigade Youth Media, Silver Spring, Maryland ($21,000) – Gandhi Brigade Youth Media prepares young people, particularly those from underserved and immigrant neighborhoods, to become leaders through a community engagement process that uses digital media.
This is all directly lifted from a document in FY 2020 produced by the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County.
The Gandhi Brigade Youth Media seems to sponsor a ‘youth media festival’ every year as part of its programming. Last year (2022) the winner of the High School level “fine art and design” category produced the following (again, lifted directly from GBYM website):
For this depiction of what appears to be a police officer, the winner took home $300. What will 2023 bring in as far as “fine art”? Are Montgomery County Police Unions okay with their tax dollars being thrown, in the thousands, at such an organization?
