Bake Sale

MONROVIA - Five-year-old Garrett Wiehler was watching Lilo & Stitch a few weeks ago when he saw an advertisement that made him think. He thought for a while, until he was on a long car ride with his mother. "Mom," he said, "did you know that 13 children don't have enough food?" "Don't you mean 13 million?" Marie Wiehler asked. No, said Garrett. Just 13. Garrett had seen a promotion for the Great American Bake Sale, a fund-raising effort by Parade magazine and Share Our Strength, an organization that fights hunger.

Book signing, bake sale tomorrow at First Presbyterian First Presbyterian Church of Howard County's Christian Education Committee and the Rebekah Circle, a women's group, will sponsor a book signing and bake sale from 10 a.m. to noon tomorrow. Local authors Ron and Janet Benrey will answer questions and read from their recently published inspirational mystery novel, set in Maryland, "Little White Lies." Admission is free. Proceeds from the bake sale will be used for church activities.

Seventh-grader Janet Sale had finished her dinner and her homework one recent Wednesday night when she remembered something she had been meaning to tell her mother all week: "I have to make something for the bake sale tomorrow." Never mind that Janet had known about the bake sale for about two months. With just a couple of hours until bedtime, it was time for quick action. After a fast trip to the grocery store for a cookie mix and a decorating kit, Janet set to work. She finished baking and icing the pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies by 9 p.m. The next day, she put the cookies in plastic bags and took them to St. Pius X School in Towson for the monthly bake sale.

THE diminutive candidate with the tall principles stood on a chair to greet the faithful gathered last Thursday at the Rams Head Tavern in Savage. They had come to help with the quadrennial laying in of funds for a political campaign that will cost between $30,000 and $40,000 -- hard money for hard requirements: lawn signs, bumper stickers, phone calling and headquarters rental. Here, in a small corner of the democracy, money equals speech in ways the U.S. Supreme Court had in mind when it declined to reform the process by outlawing political action committees and the like.

SOCCER SEASON is once again in full stride. For those of us who are soccer moms and dads, that means shopping for new cleats, driving to practice and remembering the traditional orange slices for halftime.For the players, it's a chance to learn a little about soccer and a lot about life. I wasn't one of those parents who signed up their daughters hoping they'd garner a college scholarship one day. I encouraged them to play sports because of the lessons they would use throughout life.They've learned how to lose with dignity and win with grace.

LIVING IN an old town is like living in an old house -- there's always work needed to keep the joint up.Savage is no exception. Residents periodically invest sweat equity to make our town a pleasant place to live.Maintenance work, such as the cemetery cleanup last fall, is an example of that sweat equity.Now members of the Savage Community Association and the Carroll Baldwin Hall Committee have decided that it is time to do a little more. And, like all the best ideas, this one serves several purposes: to get rid of junk, bring in money and improve the appearance of Savage.

EVERYONE IS welcome to the flea market, bake sale and auction sponsored by Friendship Church of the Brethren, 217 Mansion Road in North Linthicum, from 8: 30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The auction is at 12: 30 p.m. Come and have lunch, try delicious baked goods, bring the children for face painting, and look for other surprises.Table rental is $10. Donations (no clothing) are being accepted for the flea-market table. Also accepted for auction will be baked goods, bric-a-brac and antiques.Proceeds go to the church building fund and church camps.

TAKE YOUR pick from a table of mouthwatering home-baked goodies at the Linthicum Lions Club's Bake Sale, which will run from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Shipley-Linthicum Shopping Center and again May 1.Club member Marlene Stivers will be there, in front of Charlene's Card Shop, with raffle tickets on another of her handmade quilts.Stivers was a familiar face at the shopping center last year. She spent many days selling tickets on the first quilt she made for a club raffle. And she is looking forward to it again.

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD offers a rainbow of interesting activities for the weekend.The Montpelier Mansion in Laurel is the site of Colonial Day from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.There will be a military encampment and a skirmish, demonstrations of Colonial crafts by basket-weavers, a seamstress, a soap-maker, a blacksmith, a candle-maker, a bobbin lace-maker, a gunsmith and a midwife. They will be available to answer questions.Children can grind corn, carry water buckets and write with quill pens.Information: 301-953-1376.

JAY WINER, chairman of the Odenton Town Plan committee, and Mike Fox, a county planner, will update the Odenton Improvement Association tomorrow on the plan, which is to be a blueprint for growth in West County for the next 20 years.County Executive John G. Gary, County Councilman Bert L. Rice and state officials also are expected to be at the meeting at 7: 30 p.m. in the Odenton Volunteer Fire Hall on Route 175.The Odenton Town Plan, almost 30 years in the making and covering 1,600 acres, is designed to focus commercial and residential growth while controlling sprawl.