Grant

THE ROLAND PARK Second Presbyterian Church looked absolutely stunning last Saturday for the wedding of Natalia Pia Melanie Sommer and Richard Matthew Dohler. Thousands of wildflowers, miles of lace ribbons and tulle, and window sills decorated with Singapore orchids set the stage for the nuptials of the daughter of pop music star Donna Summer and her first husband, Helmut Sommer,and the son of Dick and Bonna Dohler, he's an Ellicott City builder.The church was filled with the music of German trumpeteer Langston Fitzgerald and selections of Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi, played by the church's music director Margaret Budd on the organ.

John Grant Jr. had two goals and five assists in his Chesapeake Bayhawks debut and Michael Kimmel (Johns Hopkins, Loyola High) added six goals and two assists Friday in a 20-7 rout of the host Hamilton Nationals. Grant, a two-time Major League Lacrosse Most Valuable Player who played three seasons for the Nationals in his native Canada, revived an offense that was held to eight goals last weekend. He came in with plenty of motivation as he played three seasons with the Nationals before being traded to Long Island.

A major grant to help kindergarten teachers learn more about incorporating science into their lessons will provide training this summer, plus a "science camp," for about 75 first-graders.The science camp will be a way for the teachers to try out some of the new methods and projects they learn.Elementary education supervisors Bo Ann Bowman and Michael Perichspent six months writing the application for the $250,000 grant fromthe National Science Foundation.Gary Dunkleberger, director of curriculum and staff development, urged them to apply for the grant, they said.

Susan G. Komen for the Cureon Thursday announced $58 million in grants to support breast cancer research.  The 154 grants were given to researchers in 22 states, including Maryland, and 7 countries. The grants will cover a wide spectrum of breast cancer research, including prevention, environmental issues, more sensitive screening, personalized treatments and factors that lead to worse breast cancer outcomes in minorities and special populations. Maryland grants were given to: Dr. Preethi Korangath of John Hopkins University, $120,000 Angela Brodie of the University of Maryland, $250,000 Vered Stearns of Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, $175,000 Sarah Sukumar of John Hopkins University, $250,000 Antonio Wolff of John Hopkins University, 62,500 grant  

Harford County has won a $750,000 federal grant to improve emergency communications. Officials said the funding, announced Thursday at the county's Emergency Operations Center, would pay for upgrades to communications used by first responders, including several hundred volunteer firefighters. They said the technology would help police, fire and emergency medical services workers share videos, images and data securely. "This technology will allow our volunteer fire departments to communicate better with our own county agencies, like public works," said Rich Gardner, spokesman for the volunteer fire departments.

Harford Community College was recently awarded a $46,690 Developmental Math Course Redesign Grant by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. The state is partnering with Complete College America to support the redesign of developmental math courses to improve completion rates at state colleges and universities. Harford's project, Reshaping Classroom Instructional Delivery Mode to Shorten the Developmental Math Course Sequence, focuses on developmental (remedial) math, which can be a major roadblock to student persistence and advancement to college-level math courses.

The Belair Edison neighborhood was awarded $31,100 to develop a design for a heavily traveled portion of Erdman Avenue to green the street and control polluted runoff. The neighborhood will work with partners, including business owners, residents and environmental groups on the plan for the grant, administered through the Chesapeake Bay Trust, an independent grant-making organization chartered by the state. The program, paid for by the Trust and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was created to support street greening projects by urban communities.

The Baltimore City Health Department will receive a $1.75 million federal grant to help prevent teen dating violence. The grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be used to develop a program to stop teen dating violence before it happens. It is part of CDC initiative called Dating Matters: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships. Three other cities will also participate in the five-year initiative. The CDC will use the results from the cities to look at the cost, feasibility, sustainability and effectiveness of a comprehensive approach to teen dating violence.

The Orioles granted Chad Moeller 's request for an outright release Thursday, allowing the veteran catcher to become a free agent. Moeller was beaten out this week for the backup catcher job by Craig Tatum . The Orioles had hoped that Moeller, a popular figure in the clubhouse, would go to Triple-A and catch some of the organization's top pitching prospects. However, Moeller told Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail that he wasn't interested and wanted to explore other opportunities.

Sandtown Habitat for Humanity in Baltimore is getting more than $100,000 from the Home Depot Foundation to add "green" elements to 45 homes. The foundation, which said Thursday that it is awarding grants to Habitat affiliates across the country, will give Sandtown Habitat $3,000 to $5,000 per home. The amount depends on the amount of green upgrades — such as energy-efficient appliances — the nonprofit chooses to add to the properties it rehabs or builds. That means the value of the grant could range from $135,000 to $225,000.

Despite financing more than $140 million city contracts in the past 12 years, donating tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and being a member of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's inner circle, J.P. Grant III has largely avoided the limelight. Then this week Grant, a West Baltimore native, stepped into the public glare as one of the latest saviors of the troubled Baltimore Grand Prix. City leaders, of course, already knew him. When he walked into a meeting of Baltimore's spending board this week, they greeted him warmly.

The Ravens have had 20 un-drafted free agents working out at their team facility at a rookie mini-camp that started Friday and ends today. If anybody knows what they are going through, from the burning desire to make a strong impression to the bouts of uncertainty to the nerves and fatigue, it is LaQuan Williams . Williams, who played his high school football at Poly before moving on to the University of Maryland, reported to training camp...

Et cetera Bayhawks activate three, including Grant The Chesapeake Bayhawks activated high-scoring attackman John Grant Jr. and long-stick midfielder John Orsen , whose indoor seasons ended Saturday. Chesapeake also activated former Virginia goalkeeper Kip Turner , the 2010 Major League Lacrosse Goalie of the Year, who was unavailable for the first two games of the season. Grant is a former MLL Most Valuable Player and three-time Offensive Player of the Year.

Local homeland security officials in Baltimore and across the country are fighting a proposal to change how $2 billion in federal emergency management money is distributed — a change they say would jeopardize regional efforts to respond to terrorist attacks, major storms and other disasters. The proposal by the Obama administration would require local governments to compete more for homeland security money rather than receiving it based on population and risk. It also would shift oversight to states, taking control away from major cities and their surrounding counties.

Profectus BioSciences Inc., a Baltimore-based biotechnology company, said Wednesday that it won a $5.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support the development of a vaccine for a pair of contagious and deadly viruses that the U.S. government has classified as biological and agricultural threats. The viruses are found in other parts of the world. The viruses — Nipah and Hendra — are closely related and cause respiratory and encephalitic disease in humans and animals.

A Baltimore campaign to reduce the city's high rate of infant mortality got a $1 million boost Wednesday that will enable it to continue its efforts. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield awarded the renewal grant to sustain the B'more for Healthy Babies campaign.  The grant builds on CareFirst's initial $3 million grant, extending the program through 2013. The money was approved during Wednesday's Board of Estimates meeting. B'more for Healthy Babies, launched in 2009, seeks to prevent infant deaths through policy changes, by educating providers, and through community outreach and mobilization.

The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm of UPS, recently awarded the Hospice of the Chesapeake a $25,000 grant to support the organization's youth programs and services to include their bereavement camps for children and teens, Camp Nabi and Phoenix Rising. The foundation is committed to funding programs that make a meaningful difference in supporting children and teens experiencing grief and loss.

The Baltimore County planning board on Thursday approved the rezoning of a 52-acre site in Owings Mills to allow for a large-scale development project that will include a Wegmans grocery store, according to a news release from the developer. Foundry Row, a 385,000-square-feet mixed-use project to be built on the former Solo Cup property along Reisterstown Road, will also include a fitness center, a sporting goods store and shops, restaurants and offices. The project, estimated to cost $140 million, is being developed by Greenberg Gibbons and Vanguard Equities.

For the first time since 1977, the Pulitzer Prize Board has not chosen a winner in the fiction category. Susan Larson, one of three fiction jurors who each read 300 submissions prior to forwarding three finalists, announced that the jurors were "shocked," "angry," and "very disappointed. " She added that the jurors felt so strongly about all three finalists — "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell, "The Pale King" by David Foster Wallace, and "Train Dreams" by Dennis Johnson — that they would have been happy had any been selected.