Manna House

Arthur R. Harvey, 52, a supervisory engineer for the Westinghouse Electric Corp. at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, died Saturday of a heart attack in an ambulance en route from his home on Ethland Avenue to the Liberty Medical Center.Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 7902 Liberty Road.Mr. Harvey entered a Westinghouse graduate student program in 1960 and worked on computer modeling and programming for aerospace projects, including the simulated flight of an air-to-air missile.

A press release we received to announce the kick-off of the 1992 Bags of Plenty campaign included a Q&A about hunger in Maryland.The most difficult question to answer was also the most basic: "What does it feel like to be hungry?"Not what does it feel like to be three hours late for dinner?Not what does it feel like to settle for leftovers because one can't get to the market?What does it feel like to be hungry?Adults who are hungry suffer from headaches, fatigue, depression, stomach aches and nausea, the Maryland Food Bank answered in its release.

Henry L. Segal, a retired attorney who formerly represented the National Labor Relations Board and was a community volunteer, died Friday of acute leukemia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 85. Born in Minneapolis, he earned his bachelor's and law degrees at the University of Minnesota. During World War II, he served in Army intelligence at Camp Ritchie in Western Maryland. He attained the rank of master sergeant. Mr. Segal joined the NLRB in 1948 and moved to Baltimore two years later, becoming assistant regional attorney in its downtown office.

Donald and Brigitte Manekin first met Charlie Barber as he lay curled up on an outdoor bench at Greenspring Station. Toothless and gaunt, Charlie shivered in the winter night as he talked to them. Brigitte worried for his health. Later that evening, she returned with a pillow and blanket -- and slipped him her phone number in case of an emergency. The anonymous call came days later: "Charlie wants to come live with you." Within hours, the homeless man was at the door of the wealthy but unassuming heirs to a Baltimore real estate empire.

Maryland is preparing to cut welfare benefits to poor families by 10 percent to 30 percent beginning Jan. 1 as the state absorbs "the first wave" of anticipated federal budget cuts, state Human Resources Secretary Alvin C. Collins said yesterday.The exact amount of the reduction will depend on which of two welfare reform bills pending in Congress -- or some compromise version of the two -- is ultimately signed into law by President Clinton, Mr. Collins said.He made clear, however, that even under the "best case" scenario, grants to the 80,000 Maryland families who receive monthly benefits from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program will be cut by 10 percent.

And now we're telling the panhandlers to smile.You! Over there! The one with the wrinkled cardboard sign -- snap out of it! Don't be down and troubled, angry and gruff. Put on a happy face. It'll make you a more effective panhandler.Is this beautiful? This must be why I call Baltimore the Oz of the Chesapeake.A zillion tourists are coming to town for All-Star game festivities, and once again Baltimore must wear a big smiley face. Record-setting temperatures and record-setting homicide rates -- we have both!

Most days, Manna House manages to serve breakfast to 250 hungry people with as few as four volunteers. On Thanksgiving Day, though, the number of volunteers at the Baltimore soup kitchen swells to an unwieldy 65 -- and there would be even more if director Esther R. Reaves hadn't put her foot down 11 years ago."We don't accept anyone new," she said. "I've got the Loch Raven Optimists manning the kitchen, bless their hearts. Everyone else goes out front."The story is the same all over the Baltimore area.

After several disappointing years, the Maryland Food Bank reported a hefty boost in donations of canned and nonperishable goods during its 2003 holiday drive season - although officials said the increase will be used up quickly by people who need it. A "Stuff-a-Bus" drive conducted last month took in 85,591 pounds of food for the bank, which serves 900 soup kitchens and food pantries around the state. That take was 50 percent greater than the 56,990 pounds collected last year. The Ravens Family Food & Funds Drive brought in 15,604 pounds, compared with 13,158 last year and 4,179 the year before that.

When volunteers arrived at the Midtown Churches Community Association on East 25th Street to prepare breakfast for the needy yesterday, they discovered that the group's offices had been burglarized over the weekend.Officials said it was the third burglary in the last month at the association, which runs one of Baltimore's oldest soup kitchens. In addition, Brown's Memorial Baptist Church in Northwest Baltimore, where Midtown operates a year-round homeless shelter, has been broken into twice since mid-June.

Harriet Jane Leidig, 76, longtime teacherHarriet Jane Leidig, a retired teacher, died Monday of heart failure at Heron Point Retirement Community in Chestertown. She was 76.The former Severna Park resident taught business courses at Southern High School in Baltimore for 31 years and retired in the late 1980s. She moved to Chestertown in 1991.The former Harriet J. Donelson, who was born in Camp Hill, Pa., earned a bachelor's degree from Findley College in Ohio in 1943. That year, she married G. Dale Leidig, who died in 1973.