Sandtown

A few weeks ago, some 200 volunteers gathered each morning under a tent at Gilmor and Presstman streets for 30 minutes of singing and inspirational messages. They then dispersed throughout Sandtown-Winchester to work on 20 vacant rowhouses Habitat for Humanity plans to rehabilitate this year in its effort to turn that West Baltimore neighborhood around.Although they came from many religious backgrounds, all Sandtown volunteers had received Prophet Nehemiah's call, "Come, let us rebuild." As a result, 15 rowhouses were rehabilitated last year and dozens more are slated for repairs in years to come.

A man was shot in the face in West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood Thursday evening, police said. The shooting occurred in the 1300 block of N. Stockton Street. The victim checked himself into an area hospital, where he was receiving treatment for a gunshot wound to the face late Thursday, officers said. The incident took place minutes after an armed robbery of the UPS Customer Center in Southeast Baltimore. Around 8:45 p.m., two people entered the business in the 6500 block of Quad Ave. in the Pulaski Industrial Area and took an "unknown amount of property" from the business, police said.

Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester, the Schmoke administration model renewal project, will get up to $8 million in loans from NationsBank to help buy and renovate the 670 vacant houses that blight the neighborhood."

Three people were shot in separate incidents in Baltimore Monday, police said. Officers found a man shot in the face at the intersection of East Federal Street and Erdman Avenue, in Orchard Ridge just before 10 p.m., police said. Anyone with information may call Northeast District detectives at 410-396-2444. Another man walked into an area hospital with a gunshot wound to his elbow about the same time, and detectives have not determined where that incident happened. In West Baltimore about 7:15, police found a man 21-year-old man shot in the leg in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.

Outsiders may say there is no reason to sing God's praises in Sandtown. The place that in its heyday was known as the Harlem of Baltimore and the home of Billie Holiday is singing the blues of drugs, crime and unemployment. But for the past 12 years, hope has lived in Sandtown through the voices of children in a gospel choir named after their neighborhood. "We are a bunch of kids," says Sade Douglas, 14. "We can praise God instead of being on the streets." Sandtown choir's 55 members face a struggle daily to stay on the right path.

House by house, family by family, LaVerne Cooper wants to rebuild the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown as she remembers it from childhood: safe, close-knit, hard-working.The renewal of Sandtown, a community of more than 10,000 people southwest of North and Pennsylvania avenues, has already changed her life. She became a homeowner two years ago through Sandtown Habitat for Humanity, took a job with the nonprofit group and in April was named its co-executive director.Today Sandtown Habitat caps its third annual "blitz-build" week.

The Enterprise Foundation has received a $500,000 grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation for its "neighborhood transformation project" in West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester area.The grant will be used as the Enterprise Foundation and the city, in partnership with community leaders, try to improve housing, schools, health care and other services in Sandtown.The gift comes as former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are to be in Sandtown today to help renovate vacant houses as part of a Habitat for Humanity International project.

VISTA, the 1960s-flavored anti-poverty agency, is coming to the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester to aid a 1990s-style assault on urban problems.The Enterprise Foundation and Volunteers in Service to America are to announce in Washington today a partnership that would bring 17 VISTA volunteers to Sandtown, a community of 10,000 people beset by poverty, joblessness and crime. Seven other cities would receive two volunteers each under the plan.Most or all of the Sandtown volunteers would be recruited from people already living in the neighborhood, said F. Barton Harvey III, chairman of Enterprise, the Columbia-based nonprofit group founded by developer James W. Rouse.

The city housing commissioner has selected a Pasadena operator of three suburban nursing homes to complete and manage a boarded-up West Baltimore facility that was originally to be Baltimore's first black-owned, nonprofit nursing home.FutureCare Health and Management Corp. was chosen over four other developers -- two of them nonprofit -- to run the N. M. Carroll Health Care Facility at 1000 N. Gilmor St. in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood."The city's priority was to provide quality health care to the community while avoiding any drain on the city's coffers," Daniel P. Henson III, the commissioner, said through a spokesman.

Twenty-eight young people started rehabilitating homes and building their leadership skills yesterday as part of an effort to revive the troubled, 72-square-block Sandtown-Winchester area of West Baltimore.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke stopped by yesterday for the ceremonial opening of YouthBuild Sandtown's first two projects, rowhouse renovations in the 700 block of Cumberland St."This project shows that what others see as signs of despair, we see as signs of hope," the mayor said.YouthBuild Sandtown is a two-year project funded by a $995,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A man is dead and a woman is in critical condition following a multi-car crash at the intersection of North Fulton Avenue and Presstman Street in Baltimore on Sunday morning, Baltimore police said. Monday morning, police identified the man who died as Tevin Ridgely Hall, 26, of the 500 Block of Sanford Place. The four-car crash at the intersection in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood occurred at 11:32 a.m. Sunday, according to police. Police said an Acura TL sedan hit a Mercury Marquis, killing the Mercury's driver and critically injuring a woman in the passenger seat.

Four men were injured in three separate shootings and a severe stabbing in Baltimore City Monday night, according to police. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., homicide detectives were called to a scene near Mount and Mosher streets in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood after a man was shot in the chest, police said. Police said the vicitm was a 54-year-old man who died shortly after he was taken to the hospital. Around 8:45 p.m., a man was found stabbed in the head in the 900 block of Coppin Ct. in Cherry Hill.

A train derailment this week near Pennsylvania Station showed me how confused we are about the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, where the mishap occurred. This 1873 work of engineering burrows under West Baltimore neighborhoods for 1.4 miles, but its role in local transportation remains little known. I winced when a radio news reader described its location as "south of Baltimore. " Though many assessments say that this 140-year-old engineering relic needs to be replaced, it has not happened.

Charlie "Fruit Man" McLean has been "a-rabbing" in Baltimore for more than 40 years, and he still can't think of a better way to spend his time. As a boy, he rode with the men who sold fresh produce in the streets from their brightly colored horse-drawn wagons. He made the job his life's work. Even now, he says, he can get fresh food to people who might otherwise never see it. McLean, 53, is one of only about 10 people still "a-rabbing," as Baltimoreans have long called his line of work.

Baltimore police are investigating the death of a young child in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Police spokeswoman Detective Angela Carter-Watson said police responded to the 1600 block of Mountmor Court at 10:01 a.m. to investigate the death. She said she didn't know the age of the child or any details about the death. Police will release more details as they become available. jgeorge@baltsun.com Twitter.com/justingeorge

When passersby drive through West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester community, they won't see flags symbolizing unity or notice traces of an affluent town. What they will see is a neighborhood once riddled with drug trade and prostitution, now being transformed with the help of activists like Pastor C.W. Harris. A native of Sandtown-Winchester, Harris is one of 15 BMe Leadership Award recipients being recognized as black men doing their part to better Baltimore. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, BMe (Black Male Engagement)

The husk of the old Schmidt's bakery used to lie in the heartof West Baltimore, belly-up like a rotting carcass. The building was surrounded by abandoned, boarded-up row homes, overgrown vacant lots and trash in the streets. Winos and drug addicts leaned against its weathered walls. Pigeons nested inside.Yesterday, I drove over to the Sandtown-Winchester community, where the Schmidt's bakery used to be. Now, there are blocks of single-family row homes with neat little back yards. The streets are clean.