Smith brought a different professional background to the job from Moore, a Howard native who rose through the ranks after starting as a community organizer in the 1960s.
His youthful energy and experience put together interest in helping the poor with a background in business, which was what CAC leaders thought was needed in an era of corporate and private fundraising. Smith had been a senior program director at the Baltimore Community Foundation and before that worked at the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore. He was chosen for the CAC job from among 110 applicants.
Meanwhile, CAC's work goes on, Dayhoff said.
The agency recently installed signs on Route 108 near Thunder Hill advertising the location of the food bank in an effort to raise its profile and spur donations, which are often slow in summer.
She was especially pleased last week, she said, to get a $2,500 check and 300 calculators for the agency's Prepare for Success school supply program from Baltimore Ravens running back Willis McGahee, who made the presentation Monday at the Ravens training camp in Westminster.
Dayhoff said the program has helped more than 16,000 county students get needed school supplies since it began in 2002, and McGahee's donation will help 1,600 students get ready for the opening of county schools Aug. 31.
"Willis has given the children a voice and a sense of hopefulness that they have the support of the community that believes in them," Dayhoff said.
On July 27, Dayhoff said, Ayla Hoffheiser, 15, a rising sophomore at Marriott's Ridge High School, solicited 300 cloth grocery bags from area supermarkets to donate to the CAC's food bank as a way of helping the environment by cutting use of plastic bags. She also made a poster explaining the advantages of reusable grocery bags and attached a tag to each donated bag repeating the points.
