Starting today, the multimillion-dollar Safe and Sound campaign plans to show a more public face -- one its organizers hope will persuade more Baltimoreans to sign onto its mission of improving life for the city's children.

The effort will include a new Web site, a toll-free number, billboard advertisements and teen-age "ambassadors" doing educational theater in the streets. The drive began last night with a celebration at the Senator Theatre, where business leaders, young people and politicians said statistics show conditions for children are improving.

The outreach push coincides with another advertising effort, "Baltimore Believe," that also tries to motivate faith in a community where history -- with high rates of homicide, drug abuse and infant mortality -- has inspired little.

"What we hope to be is a catalyst and a conveyor and really help create a movement," said Arnold Richman, campaign chairman. "It'll be the community that makes this happen."

The group released statistics, collected by the Baltimore City Data Collaborative, which showed declines of greater than 20 percent since the campaign began in 1996 in incidents of child abuse and neglect and students dropping out of high school. Fewer city babies die before their first birthday, and the number of third-graders who can read has increased by almost 50 percent.

Campaign leaders don't take full credit for those numbers, because their efforts are just beginning. But they say the data show a positive trend that they hope to build on.

The Safe and Sound campaign started when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected Baltimore as one of five cities for its Urban Health Initiative, a project to improve the health and safety of children over 10 years. The cities were to collect statistics affecting children and bring together disparate groups, from schools to doctors to families.

The campaign in Baltimore has raised $60 million to spend on projects such as improving after-school programs and teaching child-rearing skills to young families. But the effort has been quiet, concentrating on gathering data to measure the work.

That's going to change, organizers said at last night's rally.

Teen-agers passed out "pledge cards" at the event, asking not for commitments of money, but of time from people who would agree to do something for children this summer.

Members of a corps of youth "ambassadors" -- the campaign hopes to recruit 200 -- will take to the streets this summer with brooms and play equipment, clearing off vacant lots to set up on-the-spot playgrounds. They will encourage adults to invite neighborhood children for reading sessions on the steps of their homes. And community leaders plan to hold "fellowship dinners" that will reintroduce ex-prisoners to society.

Ti Awna Moffatt, a City College sophomore who is co-chairwoman of the Safe and Sound advance team, said she was heartened by the turnout and the hope she felt in the theater.

"I've seen firsthand the pain and devastation the children in our community have experienced for too long," she said. "I am fired up to make this movement grow."