Girls Club

Demontrae Easton was doing his best Martin Lawrence impression when one of the owners of Filmsters Academy dropped by the Bates Boys & Girls Club in Annapolis. Patti White wanted to offer scholarships to a few kids for her two-week summer film camp. White liked his energy and selected the 11-year-old for camp. Four years later, the outgoing kid from Glen Burnie seems to have caught the acting-singing bug.

A 28-year-old employee at a newly opened Boys and Girls Club in Annapolis has been charged with raping a 13-year-old girl there, police said yesterday. Joey D. Wise, an assistant program director at the club, was arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree rape, sexual solicitation of a minor and other offenses, Annapolis police said. The girl was alone with Wise at the club, in the 100 block of South Villa Ave., about 11 a.m. July 29, the day before the club was to open, when Wise told her he wanted to have sex with her and she agreed, according to charging documents.

For six weeks, 11 young people will meet every day at 9 a.m. at Havre de Grace Elementary School. Some of them will go to work on an outdoor garden project, while others will be working with children at the school. Then at 2 p.m., the young people will head to the Boys and Girls Club of Havre de Grace, where they will play games and act as mentors for the children there. Although their roles are different, they have a common goal: to make a difference in the world. "There aren't many projects like this; it's very unique," said Danielle Ludwick, 24, who was born in Portland, Maine, but calls Toronto, Canada, home.

Until recently, Darrell Waddell, 16, and Kevin Baldwin, 15, say they had no place to hang out but the streets. The teenage boys live in Brooklyn Homes, a sprawling public housing development in South Baltimore with 500 homes and more than 1,000 children. Yesterday, they played bumper pool as music thumped in the background. Younger children swarmed around them, playing pool (or attempting to), pingpong and air hockey. Nearby, two children watched The Little Rascals. The Brooklyn community center was officially christened a Boys & Girls Club of Metropolitan Baltimore yesterday, making it one of three clubs the national group will have opened in less than a year in an effort to boost its profile in Baltimore and provide youths a safe space to hang out and benefit from its education, prevention and other programs.

New computers donated by the state comptroller's office sit side-by-side in the teen center at the Boys & Girls Club of Anne Arundel County at Bywater, which is also adorned with a big-screen TV and two couches. The adjoining game room, its walls painted bright hues of red, yellow and blue, is filled with the luxuries of an arcade: a pingpong table, a pool table and an air hockey table, which was donated by the Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis. The donations and renovations to the building - including a new ceiling, floor, bathrooms, paint, windows, light fixtures and a rear deck - will be unveiled to the public today during a rededication ceremony from 6 to 8 tonight at the club, 1903 Copeland St. The club sits among the Bywater Mutual Homes community in Annapolis.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Harford County, which serves youth at sites throughout the county, is taking its successful after-school programs to Baltimore. The club accepted a $200,000 Neighborhood Excellence Initiative grant Tuesday from Bank of America's charitable foundation. The funds will help start clubs in two city neighborhoods. "The grant recognizes organizations that have already had success and helps them build capacity and do greater work," said Laura Gamble, Bank of America's Maryland president.

Fundraiser prom -- The Anne Arundel County Youth Advocates' will host an '80s Prom from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Bates Boys and Girls Club, 121 S. Villa Ave., Annapolis. The Reagan Years will perform. There will a dance and costume contest, appetizers, cash bar and prizes. Costumes are encouraged but not required. Tickets are $65 for singles and $115 for couples. 410-263-2542 or www.eightiesprom.com.

Donald W. Mathis dwells on the success stories. And in 10 years as executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harford County, he has seen his fair share. A Marine showed up at the Aberdeen club around Christmas with a fistful of miniature U.S. flags for the children. She wanted to spend time with the kids at the place she had called her second home. A woman whom Mathis had tutored at the club called on the day she earned her badge as a New York City detective. A man Mathis steered away from trouble and into community college wrote to say he had become a member of an elite Navy security force.

On February 23, 2007, DAVID S. JENKINS, beloved husband of Felicia Jenkins. On Friday friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES 5151 Baltimore National Pike from 3 to 8 P.M. On Saturday, Mr. Jenkins will lie in state at Columbia Community Church, 8516 Thomas Williams Way, where the family will receive friends from 10 to 11 A.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410)233-2400. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to any local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club.

Launching an effort to raise the profile of the Boys and Girls Club in Baltimore, club officials held a lunch yesterday at a swanky downtown restaurant to garner support to open a center in Park Heights this year. More than 50 of the city's movers and shakers attended the Capital Grille luncheon hosted by the Boys & Girls Club of Harford County and Neil Katz, CEO of Corridor Reznick LLC, a commercial real estate firm. Katz and the Harford County group split the $2,500 cost of the lunch.