Classroom for homeless youths gets grant help

Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center Inc. has been awarded $8,000 from the Columbia Foundation to support a classroom for a transient population of homeless children in kindergarten through high school who are living in a motel on U.S. 1 in North Laurel. About 15 children are living at the motel on any given day.

Howard County teachers provide the children with after-school tutoring three days a week in the classroom, a motel room furnished with worktables, bookshelves, a computer with Internet access, schoolbooks and supplies.

The grant, the center's second, will be used primarily to rent the classroom for a year. Grassroots received a $15,000 start-up grant for the program from the Columbia Foundation last year.

The tutorial program is a partnership between Grassroots and the Howard County school system. Grassroots operates the county's shelter programs for the homeless and offers 24-hour crisis intervention services to the public.