Foundation

Linthicum Heights-based Foundation Coal Holdings Inc. and its affiliates have struck a deal with the United Mine Workers of America, ending a weeklong strike at mines in Pennsylvania. An agreement also was reached with workers at its Wabash mine in Keensburg, Ill., which Foundation Coal shuttered April 4 after the union announced that workers there and at the two Pennsylvania mines would strike. Foundation Coal said it was no longer financially feasible to keep the Wabash mine open, after it posted a $26 million loss last year.

The Baltimore branch of the U.S. Postal Service is collecting back-to-school supplies and clothing for students ages 5 through 17 who live in city shelters. Customers can donate items at any area post office in a 212 ZIP code area. Containers will be set up to collect donations. The Postal Service said it is partnering with the Preston Mitchum Jr. Foundation, which will distribute the items to area shelters. The foundation is named after a news photographer in Baltimore who, according to the institute's Web site, promotes the use of documentaries to highlight tragedies.

A central location, landscaped lawns and a gracious stone residence have made Rockfield Manor in Bel Air a popular venue for weddings, festivals, reunions and holiday get-togethers. The events, nearly all on weekends, bring in about $100,000 annually and allow the town-owned property, managed by the Rockfield Foundation, to pay expenses. But supporters want to expand the 1921 home to accommodate the growing community it serves. "I would love to see an addition to enhance this property," said James Hamilton Jr., president of the nonprofit foundation.

A nonprofit group proposing to build 345 apartments, dozens of stores, a multiscreen theater and parking garages on the west side of Baltimore's downtown wants tax breaks from the city to help pay for the project, according to details released yesterday.The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is also asking the city to reopen a pedestrian-only section of Lexington Street to traffic and remove dozens of lighted arches over Howard Street, according to the proposal.City officials have not decided whether to approve the proposal.

We have PSINet Stadium. Could we handle a PSINet Constellation Pier on the Inner Harbor?The Constellation Foundation has enlisted the Baltimore Ravens' sales and marketing team to help find a corporate sponsor to donate $1 million to the old warship in exchange for the right to bolt its name to the ship's Visitors Center on Pier 1."We believe this naming opportunity offers significant marketing value," said foundation Chairwoman Gail Shawe. "The recent Ravens deal with PSINet demonstrates their expertise and we are confident they will be equally successful on behalf of the Constellation Foundation."

Maryland's efforts to boost teacher quality received a grade of C yesterday from a school-reform research group, which said there is too little accountability across the state and nation for teachers and principals.But the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation praised Maryland for its programs to hire teachers from places other than traditional college education schools, and the state's grade was above the national average of D-plus."Maryland is one of the friendliest states in the nation to would-be teachers," said the foundation's report, titled "The Quest for Better Teachers: Grading the States."

Short of cash and long on oil paintings, the Constellation Foundation has turned a Montague Dawson oil painting from its collection into $38,000 in cash at Christie's auction house in New York.The painting's donor learned of the sale this week and called it "contrary to the intent of the gift."The 1954 painting -- once owned by former Maryland Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin -- shows the frigate USS Constellation in action against the French ship La Vengeance in 1800.The winning bidder at an auction last week was an unnamed American art dealer.

Howard County officials have put on hold their plans to turn the former Smith farm into a regional park because of a lawsuit that could void their costly purchase of the coveted 300-acre property in the middle of Columbia.The committee charged with developing a master plan for the property, which is slated to become a mixed-use park with soccer fields and nature trails, has not met since October.After canceling a meeting in January, Recreation and Parks Department Director Gary J. Arthur said no planning sessions would be held until the litigation is resolved -- which is expected to take months.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The government is broke. Parliament is paralyzed. The president is politically crippled. And the country has been without an official prime minister for more than 18 months.So where is an ordinary Haitian to turn when the hamstrung bureaucracy can't help?Try knocking on Jean-Bertrand Aristide's door. That's where thousands of poor Haitians are finding help.The former priest and president -- who likely will run again next year -- operates an all-purpose foundation that in effect substitutes for at least four key ministries of government.

Mission: Sharing the love and power of music as a conduit to raise funds and public awareness for worthwhile charitable causes. Founded by Kenn Roberts and his Hard Travelers Band 11 years ago, the Baltimore-based M.U.S.E. (Music Unites the Soul of Everyone) Foundation organizes charity concerts that are headlined by international stars. Since its inception, the foundation's annual Hard Travelers Benefit Concert for Cystic Fibrosis at the Baltimore Arena has raised more than $3 million for CF research.

Foundation to honor students at Leith Walk on Saturday The Community Outreach Team Foundation will celebrate on Saturday the achievements of 300 students of Leith Walk Elementary School who have an A average and perfect attendance. Foundation President Harold L. Diggs Jr. said the event from noon to 3 p.m. at the school, 1235 Sherwood Ave., will feature music, games, contests and a special feature called "Story Book." Diggs said children attending the event will be encouraged to dress up like their favorite characters from storybooks they've read.

A graphic program showing the physical and emotional consequences of traffic crashes would be offered in public high schools statewide as part of a new partnership of trauma specialists and highway safety advocates. The University of Maryland Shock-Trauma Center and the Maryland Highway Safety Foundation will announce their joint effort tonight at Gilman School before a presentation of the driver safety program. The partnership is aiming to expand a program that Shock Trauma has been offering at private schools to the state's public school systems.

A foundation run by Cal Ripken Jr. and his family plans an estimated $6 million project to build five state-of-the-art youth ballparks in distressed Baltimore neighborhoods - including one at the old Memorial Stadium site that would resemble the former ballpark's field. The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation's Swing for the Future campaign envisions turning the little-used field at the redeveloped Stadium Place on 33rd Street into a multipurpose, artificial turf sports complex with a running track and exercise stations.

The fight over the proposed buyout of a huge, Maryland-based coal mining company is interesting for its own sake. Wall Street egos, including a hedge-fund manager and would-be buyer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, are battling over control of the country's fourth-biggest coal producer. But the contest for Linthicum Heights-based Foundation Coal, which comes to a vote Friday, sheds light beyond Wall Street and the job of extracting soft black rocks from the Appalachian ground. It's no less than a referendum on the future of energy, the environment and the American economy.

The Marriott Waterfront mezzanine was a mob scene. About 800 folks filled the floor for the cocktail hour of the fifth annual Aspire Gala benefiting the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. "It warms my heart that, in an economy like this, we still sell out," said foundation executive director Steve Salem. "That's not an easy thing to do." Among the guests were almost 50 current and former pro baseball players and coaches, including the evening's honorees, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer and former University of Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz.

Biotechnical Institute of Md. awarded Bauer grant The nonprofit Biotechnical Institute of Maryland, which trains unemployed and underemployed workers for entry-level technician jobs at bio-pharmaceutical companies, has been given a four-year, $1 million grant from the Charles T. Bauer Foundation. The institute has placed more than 200 graduates in life sciences organizations and companies throughout the Baltimore area, including the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland Baltimore, Osiris Therapeutics and Human Genome Sciences.

At KCI Technologies, a large engineering firm in Hunt Valley, employees know one of the rules is not to talk on a cell phone while driving a company vehicle. Not even if it's the boss calling. Pull over at a safe place and take the call. The 1,100-employee company is one of an apparently small number of businesses outside the core transportation industries that have adopted stringent employee codes requiring safe driving practices while using company vehicles - a practice that a new safety advocacy group is calling upon other Maryland employers to adopt.

The president of the Baltimore City Council was there, promising to work on her bad habit of texting while driving. The Baltimore and Howard county executives also showed up. The chiefs of the Motor Vehicle Administration and State Highway Administration attended, along with the guy who runs the state's toll bridges and tunnels. A slew of police chiefs, highway contractors, public works engineers and other movers and shakers took part. The cause was that important. The event was last Tuesday's inaugural public meeting of the Maryland Highway Safety Foundation, an organization launched this year with the worthy - and attainable - goal of cutting the state's annual toll of traffic deaths in half.

Two weeks ago, this column suggested that cutting Maryland's highway death toll of more than 600 a year in half would be a worthy -- and achievable -- goal. It turns out that Fred F. Mirmiran, who built many of those highways, was thinking along the same lines. And he's fixing to help do something about it. Mirmiran is president of Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, a Sparks-based engineering company known for its work on such megaprojects as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement and the new interchange of Interstates 95 and 695 taking shape in Baltimore County.

Carey Street, named after 18th-century port merchant, councilman and Quaker abolitionist James Carey, runs through some of the most challenged neighborhoods of West Baltimore. A mile and a half east in the downtown commercial district stands the gleaming Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, which is celebrating this week the inauguration of its first dean, thanks to a $50 million gift in 2006 from William Polk Carey, the merchant's great-great-great-grandson. The New Yorker's commitment to his hometown and family legacy does not end there.