Community Action Council

The Laurel Museum, 817 Main St., Laurel, is holding an orientation for volunteers at 2 p.m. today. Volunteers are needed to work one Friday or Sunday a month as docents or in the museum's gift shop. Information: Shari Pollard, 301-776-5229. The Laurel Historical Society, which operates the museum, will present a talk by Charles Camp about "The Importance of Supper" at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at First United Methodist Church, 424 Main St., Laurel. The free program, which is sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council, will be preceded by a potluck supper.

The Howard County Community Action Council has established a fund to help pay the medical expenses of Gwendolyn Hebron of Ellicott City, who was injured in a shooting three weeks ago.Police say Antwan Morgan, 24, shot his 40-year-old mother several times as he held off police about 2: 35 a.m. Feb. 26 in an apartment in the 300 block of N. Chatham Road. Morgan refused to leave for 14 hours, drawing county negotiators and tactical units, police say. Officers rescued Hebron, a county Head Start teacher, and she was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

The executive director of the Howard County Community Action Council says she plans to revive a mentoring program for at-risk young African-American men."We've got to find a way to keep our young black men out of jail," Dorothy Moore said, recalling a recent visit with inmates at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup. "I thought we could start working towards that goal here in Howard County."The African-American Male Mentoring Program will help them "develop and strengthen the tools they will need to become successful and responsible adults in our community," Moore said.

Affordable housing activist May Ruth Seidel's Columbia neighborhood is how she'd like all of Howard County's developed areas to be -- a lot of homes on a little bit of land.An activist for almost all of her time as a Columbia resident, Seidel, 73, has been closely involved in shaping the county's housing policies since 1979, fellow activists and county officials say.She will be honored Friday for her work by Howard County Community Action Council -- a nonprofit help organization for low-income people -- at the group's fifth annual Rev. John W. Holland Humanitarian Award Dinner.

Antione and Tivonne Harris were surrounded by drugs and violence from childhood -- problems that began with their parents and later became their own.Now Antione, 21, and Tivonne, 19, of Ellicott City are trying to escape the trap that ensnared their parents, and Howard County social service agencies are trying to help.The agencies hope to make the young men's holidays and their futures brighter. It's an unusual tale of two young men who are trying to make good of a bad situation at a time of increasing violence and trouble among the county's youths.

When a Massachusetts family was found stranded on the side of a Howard County road two weeks ago with no money and no food, local police were called -- and so was Dorothy Moore.From her home in Columbia's Long Reach village, the executive director of the Community Action Council made arrangements that night to ensure that the family was fed and had transportation back to Massachusetts.Her work in such situations over the past 26 years has earned her this year's Living the Dream award from the Howard County Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission.

Low-income residents in Howard County and throughout the state would have a harder time paying their heating bills this winter if Congress goes ahead with threats to cut a $1.3 billion federal fuel assistance program.State officials project a $5 million cut to the Maryland Energy Assistance Program (MEAP), which helped 85,000 households in the state last year, about 1,300 of them in Howard. That would represent a 25 percent cut in the program's fiscal 1996 budget, which begins Oct. 1.For Howard residents, it would reduce the one-time fuel assistance check by 15 percent to an average of $195, say officials at the nonprofit Community Action Council of Howard County, which administers the program locally.

Last winter, Dornise Dixson hit the streets of Ellicott City's Hilltop community, with her baseball cap turned backward, ready to pick a fight with the Howard County government.A sign had been posted above the door on one of Hilltop's townhouses that read "Family Support Center." She was among the residents who feared it was a ploy by the county to "spy" on their community -- a county-owned housing project.Instead, she found a place where Hilltop's poor can get help for a variety of needs, including drug and alcohol counseling, classes for parents, activities for children and tutoring.

As far back as he can remember, Morris Woodson had the will to push ahead.It steered him toward college despite the obstacles that faced poor African-Americans during the Great Depression. It propelled him to commute via public transportation from Howard County to New York University on Saturdays during the 1960s to earn his doctoral degree in education."There was always something deep down inside of me that kept me pushing," said the 80-year-old resident of Columbia's Long Reach village.

Black ministers and a county social service agency expect a new program to assist up to 60 young black men in the next year who authorities say need guidance to keep out of trouble.Called Men Equipped to Achieve (META), the program was officially inaugurated Saturday at a prayer breakfast attended by about 50 local and state government officials, judges, county police and program participants."We really needed this a long time ago," said Guilford resident Troy Wise, 25, a participant who sang the "Lord's Prayer" during the breakfast.

Sometimes, politics is so entwined with community-based good works and elected officials' public service that it can be hard to separate them. The eighth annual Howard County Muslim Council food drive and picnic last week is a good example. The event, conceived after the Sept. 11 attacks to help combat stereotypes, combined the local Muslim community's desire to help the poor and be a vital part of the county's public life with the Community Action Council's need for help with its food bank.

After four years as executive director and president of Howard County's nonprofit anti-poverty agency, James B. Smith has resigned and a search will soon commence for a new leader. Smith, 40, of Owings Mills, resigned from the $88,828-a-year post Aug. 7. The Community Action Council's vice president, Bita Dayhoff, a 20-year veteran of the agency, is serving as acting president, board members said. His resignation letter gave no reason for his departure, CAC board members said, and they offered no explanation.

The number of families seeking help from the county's primary food bank rose by one-third last fiscal year, which officials attributed to the rise in foreclosures and the price of gas and utilities. The Community Action Council food bank served 4,200 families in the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to Bita Dayhoff, vice president of the nonprofit agency. Funded mainly by government and housed in the county's Gateway building, the food bank distributed more than 392,000 pounds of food, Dayhoff said.

After years of providing discounted diesel fuel and repairs for Head Start buses, Howard County officials have told the nonprofit the practice must end, raising fears that increased costs will hamper educational programs for 264 children from low-income households. The announcement came in a letter from a top county official that gave Head Start a one-week notice. The notice angered parents of Head Start children and the chairman of the county's Community Action Council board, which administers the $1.8 million-a-year program.

Howard County has the highest median household income in Maryland and third highest in the nation, but 6,478 county families collected 288,000 pounds of free food distributed through the nonprofit Community Action Council during the past fiscal year. The average price of a new house in the county in October was $458,725, but the month before, about 460 people in Howard were homeless or on the verge of it, a survey estimated. Starting tomorrow, up to 20 homeless people can stay at night in the church-run cold-weather shelter that moves from place to place each winter.

The Laurel Museum, 817 Main St., Laurel, is holding an orientation for volunteers at 2 p.m. today. Volunteers are needed to work one Friday or Sunday a month as docents or in the museum's gift shop. Information: Shari Pollard, 301-776-5229. The Laurel Historical Society, which operates the museum, will present a talk by Charles Camp about "The Importance of Supper" at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at First United Methodist Church, 424 Main St., Laurel. The free program, which is sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council, will be preceded by a potluck supper.

The South Laurel Recreation Council will hold its 31st anniversary Holiday Craft Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Deerfield Run Community Center, Laurel. Admission is free, and door prizes and refreshments are planned. Continuous free shuttle service will be offered from Towne Centre Shopping Center on Route 197 and Contee Road. Artists and artisans will display and sell their work, demonstrate their crafts and accept commissions. Gifts and decorations for the home will be available.

Grants of $65 to help with utility bills are available for those ages 62 and older, and disabled people in Howard County, through the Community Action Council. People in those categories who are receiving money from the Maryland Energy Assistance Program automatically are being enrolled by Community Action Council staff . Those not receiving aid, but who are eligible for help under that program, will qualify for the supplemental $65 from Howard County, according to agency director James B. Smith.

Benefit 5K walk, run is Sept. 16 The second Donate Life 5K Walk and Run to benefit the National Transplant Assistance Fund will be held from 8:30 a.m. to noon Sept. 16 at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia. The event, which supports the Mid-Atlantic Liver Transplant Fund and honors Oakland Mills resident David Hillen, who recently had a liver transplant, is sponsored by the Oakland Mills High School PTSA and local businesses. The cost is $15 in advance; $17 at the gate. Information: Karen Hillen, 410-964-1175.

Family and Children's Services is expanding its services at Whiskey Bottom Shopping Center in North Laurel with the goal of creating a "one-stop shop" of services for individuals and families in need of counseling or other assistance. The organization opened its North Laurel office two years ago. Among the nonprofit organizations to join Family and Children's Services in North Laurel will be Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, the Domestic Violence Center, FIRN (a Howard County nonprofit organization providing services to immigrants)