Donate Food

Partners in Care needs drivers Partners in Care seeks volunteers to help transport seniors to appointments and to help with domestic needs. Drivers earn volunteer credits and may receive reimbursement for mileage. Orientation will be provided at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday and Jan. 18 at 348 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park. Registration is suggested. Information: 410-544-4800 or www.partnersincare.org. Sponsors sought for the holidays The Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services seeks volunteers to provide Christmas meals and gifts for low-income families.

PUPILS AT MOUNT Airy Middle School have once again proven that when they rally together they can meet nearly any challenge. The middle school recently wrapped up a two-week, schoolwide fund-raising effort to benefit Mount Airy NET. Mount Airy NET provides emergency assistance to those in need throughout the Mount Airy area. Tied into the school's Character Education Program, the fund-raiser incorporated December's emphasis on service to others into the holiday community service project.

Santa Claus in Howard County is named Daniel W. Bennett Jr."If I can find no one else to help a senior, I always can call Dan because he always comes through," said Vivian L. Reid, director of Howard County's Office of Aging.Mr. Bennett, an architect with Howard County's Public Works Department, was busy this week, purchasing yams, greens, corn and fruit at Produce Galore in Columbia for gift baskets that the Howard County Office of Aging will distribute to needy elderly people at Christmas.

WEST COLUMBIA'S diversity is mirrored in the multitude of ways residents observe the December holidays. But the generosity and compassion of local people of every religious and ethnic background unite us.Here's a sample of how some of our neighbors celebrated the season while helping others.The Doyle family of Harper's Choice -- part of an extended family in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Florida -- took part in an experiment this year.Each branch of the family made a list of the Christmas gifts they usually would buy for one another, estimated the price of each item, then donated the total to Habitat for Humanity, a housing program that is the favorite charity of patriarch Lloyd Theimes.

In Baltimore County Randallstown man crossing Liberty Rd. killed in hit-and-run RANDALLSTOWN -- A man attempting to walk across Liberty Road near an auto dealership was struck and killed by a car last night in a hit-and-run incident, county police reported. The car was found abandoned a short distance away, but the driver had fled, police said. The victim -- described as a Randallstown resident in his 50s -- was walking north to south across the 9300 block of Liberty Road in front of Universal Ford and was not in a crosswalk when he was struck about 7:20 p.m. by a westbound convertible, police said.

Talking with a physician one day, Cindy Carter discovered that a patient with terminal lung cancer was looking for a companion, a cat. Without hesitation, Carter made some telephone calls. She found a shelter with available felines - and located a volunteer willing to donate food and kitty litter. "I can get him a cat if it makes him feel better for the last few months of his life," said Carter, co-founder of the Cancer Support Foundation Inc., which was formed last summer to help improve quality-of-life support for cancer patients and their caregivers.

Call it special delivery for the needy.A Postal Service appeal for donations to area food banks -- with home mailbox pickups by letter carriers -- has had an unexpected, huge response."

The bus seats were packed yesterday -- not with people, but with food -- as residents, spurred on by a friendly rivalry between two radio disc jockeys, dropped off donations to the Bags of Plenty campaign.The "Stuff-a-Bus" event filled 1 1/2 Mass Transit Administration buses with food for the needy at each of two sites -- in Glen Burnie and Carney -- in the weekend campaign for the Maryland Food Bank. MIX 106.5's two morning drive-time announcers vied to see whose location could net a larger haul, and it was a close contest.

Before the soup kitchen opened at Brooklyn Church of the Nazarene, Robin and Sherry O'Hara dreaded the end of the month, when the food ran out and the food stamps were gone.The young couple spent days walking from church to church, pushing the youngest of their four children in a stroller, asking if anyone could spare a meal. Some churches helped, but others refused unless the disabled truck driver and his wife joined the parish.Then, in August, their own church began offering meals after Sunday services at the church on Audrey Avenue on the last two weekends of the month.

Edward Lewis Byer, who presided over a Cross Street Market cheese stall for a decade and was on a first-name basis with the divas of opera, died Wednesday of an undetermined cause at his South Charles Street home. He was 60."My favorite cheese," he said in 1983, "is whichever one I'm eating at that particular time, just as my favorite opera is the one I'm listening to."Customers at the Cross Street Cheese Co. bought their goat cheese while savoring gossipy tidbits of the musical stage during his tenure at the popular South Baltimore market.