Collegebound

The CollegeBound Foundation, an independent endowment fund used to encourage city high school students to go to college, has reached the halfway point in its $25 million fund-raising drive.The fund-raising effort, which is aimed at local corporations and foundations, began last year, and so far $12.8 million has been raised, according to J. Thomas Hooper, CollegeBound's director of marketing and development.While the recession has hampered fund raising, the effort is still considered a success, said Joyce A. Kroeller, CollegeBound's executive director.

Ever want to shoot hoops with Terps basketball coach Gary Williams? How 'bout lobbing a few with tennis champ Pam Shriver? Maybe shoot pool with the Ravens' Tony Banks, or the Orioles' Brady Anderson? The Mid-Summer Fest "SportsORama" was a chance to party and play various games with sports celebs and raise money for the Joe Sandusky Fund of the Baltimore Community Foundation and the CollegeBound Foundation. The partygoers browsed a bountiful buffet from Baltimore restaurants and danced to the music of O'Malley's March, starring none other than Charm City's hip (in black T-shirt)

The CollegeBound Foundation, a non-profit group that has helped hundreds of Baltimore students pay for college, has run out of grant money for new students this year -- the first time in its four-year history that demand has outstripped supply.That means that CollegeBound could be forced to turn down some two dozen eligible students, said Joyce Kroeller, its executive director.Ms. Kroeller said more students than ever sought help from CollegeBound this year, in part because more are learning about its existence.

Acquisitions Macfadden & Associates Inc., a Silver Spring-based professional services company, acquired engineering and information support services firm Systems Integration Group of Lanham. SIG will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. Financial terms were not disclosed. Accounting and consulting firm Clifton Gunderson LLP acquired the Arlington, Va.-based federal practice of UHY LLP. Contracts Hughes Network Systems LLC, with headquarters in Germantown, received $2.6 million in orders from the Defense Information Systems Agency and other participating government agencies to provide digital compressed satellite services for the Government Education and Training Network.

The idyllic campus of St. Mary's College is a long way from Baltimore, in more ways than one. Situated on the St. Mary's River at the southernmost point in the state, the small, public liberal arts college often finds itself overlooked by prospective students from the city. But as part of its drive to attract city students, St. Mary's is offering scholarships and grants to a handful of Baltimore students - an effort set to grow next year through a scholarship fund set up by a 1941 graduate.

Non-profit groups that provide services to disadvantaged children, elderly residents and neighborhoods are among recipients of $631,000 in grants announced by the Morris Goldseker Foundation of Maryland Inc.The foundation awarded a $150,000, two-year start-up grant to the Resource Center for Neighborhoods.As part of its mission, the center, sponsored by the Citizens Planning and Housing Association, seeks to educate the broader community about pertinent issues affecting Baltimore neighborhoods.

THEY USED to call it College Awareness Week. Now it's College Awareness Month, and it begins tomorrow with activities at the Port Discovery children's museum directed not at teen-agers about to make the leap, but at elementary and middle-school kids for whom college at this point in their lives lacks size, shape or color. Or even possibility. The adults who run the CollegeBound Foundation, the primary sponsor of tomorrow's affair, realized a couple of years ago that the high-schoolers they were helping with college applications and scholarships hadn't had the lifelong prepping for higher education enjoyed by their peers in the suburbs.

Guidance Isn't All about Choosing a CollegeAs coordinator of guidance services for Baltimore public schools, I need to respond to the article of July 6 on the CollegeBound Foundation.I was quite disappointed to read Jean Thompson's article and find repeated and inexplicable negative references to the Baltimore City public schools and the work of the school guidance counselors.I am particularly concerned because I have felt that the working relationship between CollegeBound and the Office of Guidance Services has been a highly positive one over the past two years.

Bright and motivated college-bound immigrants will do Maryland proud ("A flawed compromise," March 8). These young people came here as children, are fully assimilated into American culture and want to be contributing members. We are lucky to have them working for our future. The Central Americans come from countries torn apart by wars paid for by the United States. Paltry aid for rebuilding is nothing in comparison to what we spent to damage Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. These countries are still recovering from the murder and destruction we rained on them.

GOOD LUCK to all those now shopping for a computer for college-bound scholars.Parents of the Class of 2000 probably made it all the way through college without a personal computer. But as parents have no doubt heard by now, times have changed. For one thing, a computer linked to the Internet is the most powerful research tool available to students today. For another, most jobs involve computers either directly or indirectly, and personal computer skills are a definite advantage. And, electronic mail is a much superior way to write home for money.