Rescue Mission

The Westminster Rescue Mission Store will have to sell a lot of donated goods to pay for the rubble it just sent to the county landfill.The demolition of the old two-level store on Main Street added 415 tons of construction debris to the Northern Landfill. The nonprofit mission must pay a private contractor $34,000 for the demolition and can ill afford a $19,500 bill for landfill use, one of the largest in memory. It has asked the county for a waiver of the landfill-use bill."We really could not afford this whole thing," said the Rev. Clifford Elkins, mission executive director.

Crumbling walls have forced the Westminster Rescue Mission Store, a popular and profitable thrift store that turns donated discards into revenue for the needy, to close for repairs.A structural engineer and the county inspector ruled the building unsafe last week. Visible cracks snake down a bowed brick wall. The back and side walls could fall and the interior floors could collapse, said Ralph E. Green, chief of the county Bureau of Permits and Inspections."There is a bulge in the wall, and it could continue to push out further," said Green.

A public hearing on a petition to rezone 38 acres on a farm owned by Westminster Rescue Mission is scheduled Tuesday.The rezoning from residential to industrial is necessary for plans by Random House Inc. to turn Westminster into its sole national distribution center. The company is planning to build a 325,000-square-foot warehouse next year.The hearing, to be conducted by the county commissioners, will be at 9 a.m. in the Carroll County Office Building.The warehouse is planned for a portion of the Rescue Mission Farm at Lucabaugh Mill Road near Route 27 outside Westminster.

The Westminster Common Council saved the Westminster Rescue Mission last night.The board voted to extend water and sewer lines outside city limits to the mission property on Lucabaugh Mill Road. Without public utilities, the mission cannot build the 65-bed shelter it has planned for substance abusers and alcoholics.Although the measure passed unanimously, councilmen Kevin E. Dayoff and Gregory Pecoraro agreed that the water and sewer expansion should be done "carefully" -- especially during the statewide water shortage.

Westminster Planning and Zoning Commission rescued Westminster Rescue Mission last night.The panel voted to extend city water and sewer service outside city limits to part of the rescue mission's land on which the nonprofit group plans to build a 65-bed facility.Coliform bacteria has shown up at the site and the county Health Department has said it would withdraw approval for the new shelter, said David Bowersox, representing the mission."The rescue mission is looking at a significant possibility that we may not be able to complete the facility in the absence of water and sewer," he told the commission.

The county commissioners heard no opposition yesterday to a request to rezone a 39-acre farm owned by Westminster Rescue Mission, a step necessary for a major expansion by Random House Inc.With the rezoning of Shalom Farm from residential to industrial, Random House Inc. can proceed with its plans to turn Westminster into its sole national distribution center.A handful of people attended a public hearing yesterday in a small conference room at the County Office Building to hear testimony about the proposed land-use change.

MEMBERS OF THE interdenominational Kittamaqundi Community Church invite Columbia residents to search for flea market bargains and enjoy contemporary music while helping the needy at Hope for the Homeless on Sept. 26.The all-day event will be held, rain or shine, at Oliver's Carriage House, 5410 Leaf Treader Way in Town Center.Proceeds will benefit Frederick Rescue Mission, a Christian-based homeless shelter and addiction recovery center in Frederick.Coordinating the event is Swansfield resident Frank Turban, a church member who works as a probation agent in the state's Drinking Driver Monitor Program.

Margery "Midge" Sleeper knits woolen slippers.A man they call Jack the plumber fixes toilets.Dr. James Greeley takes aim with his dentist's drill.They and scores of other volunteers form a web of support that sustains one of the largest Gospel missions on the East Coast -- the Baltimore Rescue Mission for as many as 200 homeless men and its next-door Karis Home for as many as 36 homeless women and children.Sleeper, 72, is the kind of person on whom some shelters and nonprofit agencies rely, no matter what governments decide about social service funding.

The Board of License Commissioners of Carroll County has approved a request by the Westminster Rescue Mission on Lucabaugh Mill Road for an addition to its building.The multipurpose building would house an additional 25 dormitory beds.Although the Rescue Mission is a nonconforming use on the land, the board found that the mission's programs have benefited the community.Nearby properties would not be adversely affected by the addition, the board concluded.PoliceWestminster: A resident of East Green Street told city police at 8: 41 p.m. Monday that someone broke a window on his vehicle while it was parked at Cranberry Mall and removed personal property.

Marine Cpl. Joseph P. Bell, son of Patricia A. Bell of Taneytown, recently provided support for the dawn rescue mission of the U.S. fighter pilot, Air Force Capt. Scott F. O'Grady, who was shot down over Bosnia-Herzegovina.Corporal Bell provided support while assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge.Corporal Bell helped fellow Marines from the 24th as they planned and executed the rescue.Members of the 24th were notified immediately to be ready for a rescue mission in case Captain O'Grady still was alive.

Navy Lt. Melvin Spence Dry dropped out of a helicopter into choppy waters off the coast of North Vietnam in June 1972. On a highly classified mission to rescue two escaped American prisoners of war, he died the moment he hit the water. But because the mission was top-secret, Dry's valor went officially unrecognized. No medals, no commendations and no place of honor among the fallen at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1968. Even his parents were told that he died in a training exercise.

HAGERSTOWN -- Inside the Hagerstown Rescue Mission, up the stairs, into the dormitory, next to a bed with a thin tan coverlet, atop a dark locker -- this is where Donnie Green keeps his memorabilia. He has three tiny plastic helmets, one for each of the National Football League teams he played on: the Buffalo Bills, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions. Behind those -- he has to groan and stretch to reach it -- is a blue, loose-leaf binder filled with photographs and articles. He turns the pages matter of factly, betraying little.

In a darkened White Marsh movie theater last month, a mother and son quietly watched John Dahl's The Great Raid, a feature-length film about one of World War II's most daring and nearly forgotten rescue missions. What brought them there was the memory of August T. Stern Jr. -- husband and father -- who as a member of the Army's elite 6th Ranger Battalion was one of 121 volunteers who embarked on a secret mission in 1945 to liberate American and a handful of British, Dutch and Norwegian POWs held by the Japanese in the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

THIS IS about the time we were expecting a rescue mission to be announced that would save two popular space programs. A space shuttle team would be dispatched to repair and update aging equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope, thus extending the life of an invaluable scientific tool. And the shuttle mission would mark the resumption of manned space flight, which has been halted for two years, since Columbia's explosion over Texas. Experts have cleared the safety risk; Congress has voted its approval.

Clarification An article in Sunday's editions of The Sun that reported that the Westminster Rescue Mission has converted its homeless shelter into an alcohol-rehabilitation facility should have stated that the mission keeps a reduced number of beds for emergency shelter. The mission provides three days of shelter to homeless men who have the option to stay longer if they are willing to join the rehab program. A longtime homeless shelter in Carroll County that was co-founded by a priest who pleaded guilty last year to child abuse is closing, a development that is likely to worsen a shortage of emergency housing in the county.

Clarification An article in Sunday's editions of The Sun that reported that the Westminster Rescue Mission has converted its homeless shelter into an alcohol-rehabilitation facility should have stated that the mission keeps a reduced number of beds for emergency shelter. The mission provides three days of shelter to homeless men who have the option to stay longer if they are willing to join the rehab program. A homeless shelter in Carroll County that was co-founded by a priest who pleaded guilty last year to child abuse is closing, a development that is likely to worsen a shortage of emergency housing in the county.

John F. Ehlers, a businessman who founded an open-to-all gospel mission in the era of racial segregation, died Monday of heart failure at Ginger Cove Health Center in Annapolis, where he had lived for 12 years. He was 98 and had lived previously in Baltimore's Windsor Hills neighborhood. When he learned in the mid-1950s that Baltimore had no shelter for homeless black people, Mr. Ehlers established the Baltimore Rescue Mission, which today houses more than 200 people a night and is one of the largest gospel missions on the East Coast.

Two years after razing its East Main Street thrift shop because of structural damage, the Westminster Rescue Mission is looking to move out of leased space and into a permanent store on the other side of Railroad Avenue. The Rev. Clifford Elkins, the mission's executive director, said he is confident that the nonprofit organization will complete the purchase of a building at 28 and 30 W. Main St. The building houses Time-ly Gifts, which is closing, and was the home of Leister Gallery. The space, Elkins said, will require only minor renovations and the addition of a loading dock to open by late fall.

Chris Warner is not the same man he was before he left in March for Mount Everest. For one thing, he's a member of an elite club of 1,000 climbers who have made it to the top of the 29,035-foot mountain. For another, he's 30 pounds lighter for the effort. And, after a near-disaster just below the summit that almost took the lives of two climbing friends, he says, "I'm not the optimist I was when I left home." But he still has his sense of humor, answering the satellite phone yesterday at his tent at 17,200 feet: "Everest Base Camp Pizzeria."

Some nights, Timothy Dale Lewis makes it to the downtown Baltimore Rescue Mission - which offers a meal, a shower and a bed for a few dollars. Other nights, despite having a wad of cash from his temporary construction jobs, he doesn't. "I sleep on the streets sometimes," the 44-year-old Navy veteran said. "If I do drugs and use all my money, I can't stay at the mission because it costs $3. You get off work with $40 or $50 in your pocket, and the crack man's sitting on the corner with that good feeling."