Shelley Morhaim is an award wining independent filmmaker and long time community activist. Throughout the 1980s, Morhaim volunteered in a number of Jewish community organizations in Baltimore, including the board of CHANA (Counseling Helpline and Aid Network for Abused Women) and as Chair of the Metropolitan Issues Committee of the Baltimore Jewish Council. Morhaim also served as an officer of BLEWS (Black/Jewish Forum of Baltimore., Inc.), an organization founded for the purpose fostering connections between African Americans and Jews.
In the mid-1980s, Morhaim also began her involvement with the Beyond War Foundation, a national grassroots education movement that arose in response to the threat of nuclear war. Morhaim participated in Beyond War's "The Earth in Every Classroom" project that placed some 7500 framed NASA photographs of the Earth seen from space in classrooms in Baltimore City and County. The photograph, along with supporting curriculum materials, was used by teachers to provide a visual expression of the interconnectedness of our planet's people and living systems. In 1992, Morhaim's leadership was recognized when she was named by the Baltimore Jewish Times as one of the ten individuals who will lead Baltimore Jewry into the 21st century.
In 1995, Morhaim co-founded Earthome, Inc., a Maryland non-profit whose mission is to promote a sustainable relationship between the human community and the natural world. One of Earthome's major projects has been the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at Cromwell Valley Park in Baltimore County. The first CSA on public land in the United States, the Cromwell Valley project provides fresh organic produce to 120 shareholder families and educates the approximately 4,000 students who tour the park each year.
Combining her interests in film and ecological issues, Morhaim founded Earthome Productions in 2000. In 2002, Earthome's first film, The Next Industrial Revolution premiered at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Documenting how major corporations like Ford, Nike, and Herman Miller Furniture are re-designing buildings and industrial processes and products to follow natural principles. The award winning film has been broadcast on Maryland Public Television, presented at the Smithsonian and National Building Museums, and has been hailed as an inspirational look at a hopeful vision of the future, presenting both theory and real world examples of a design revolution that has the potential to re-make our world.
Morhaim lives in Baltimore County, Maryland with her husband Dan. They have three grown children.
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