EXPLORE
November 18, 2011
The Loverde Family Community Fund thanks donors and sponsors of the 25th reunion dance of the legendary Annapolis-based band, the Van Dykes. The dance was attended by 500 followers from around the country. It raised funds for the Loverde Family Fund's annual Thanksgiving Day dinner for neighbors in need in greater Catonsville. The dance also collected 1,000 pounds of food for the CEFM Network to fill the gap in many local pantries. The fund is especially grateful to Scittino's Italian Market on Edmondson Avenue for discounting food year-round and making it possible to serve additional dinners on a monthly basis.
NEWS
By Steve Kilar, The Baltimore Sun | November 5, 2011
The Baltimore man who traveled to Libya in February at the start of a political uprising there said he was never in the country as a journalist but as a supporter of the revolutionaries. "I was supporting the revolution when I got captured. My mother didn't know, my girlfriend didn't know [the real reason for going]," Matthew VanDyke said Saturday night on his return to Baltimore. "I wasn't going to sit back and let this happen to people I care about. " Dressed in fatigues, VanDyke, 32, arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport around 9 p.m. He was greeted by his mother, Sharon VanDyke, a retired principal of Federal Hill Preparatory School who lives in South Baltimore, as well as members of his church and friends.
NEWS
By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun | November 2, 2011
Matthew VanDyke — the Baltimore writer and filmmaker who was jailed in Libya for nearly six months and then remained to aid rebels seeking to overthrow dictator Moammar Gadhafi — is scheduled to return home Saturday. VanDyke, 32, is set to arrive about 7 p.m. at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, said his mother, Sharon VanDyke. He will leave Cairo on Saturday morning and fly to John F. Kennedy International Airport before coming to Baltimore, she said.
NEWS
By Steve Kilar and Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun | October 23, 2011
Matthew VanDyke - the 32-year-old Baltimorean who was jailed in Libya for nearly six months and then stayed on to join the rebels seeking to overthrow dictator Moammar Gadhafi - plans to come home "in a couple of weeks," said his mother, Sharon VanDyke, who lives in South Baltimore. She said that she spoke with her son for a few minutes around 9:45 a.m. Sunday, which was 3:45 in the afternoon in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. "They were having a big celebration today in Martyrs' Square," she said.
NEWS
By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun | August 24, 2011
Matthew VanDyke, the Baltimore man who went missing in Libya more than five months ago, re-emerged in Tripoli on Wednesday and told his family that he had been held captive by Moammar Gadhafi's government in one of the country's most notorious prisons. The 32-year-old VanDyke, who traveled to Libya in March to witness the then-fledging revolution for a book he is writing about the region, borrowed a cellphone and called his mother Wednesday afternoon. It was Sharon VanDyke's first contact with her son since he sent GPS coordinates March 13 that placed him near Brega.
NEWS
By Jean Marbella, The Baltimore Sun | August 23, 2011
Sharon VanDyke's phone rang Monday afternoon, but after quickly dispensing with the call, she said, sadly, "Well, it wasn't Matthew. " The wait continues for the retired principal, who has searched for the past five months for her son, a 32-year-old writer and photographer who went to Libya to chronicle the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi but is believed to have been imprisoned with rebel forces. Now, with those insurgents on the brink of toppling Gadhafi, VanDyke is bracing for whatever that means for her son. "I've been more worried in the last 24 to 48 hours than ever," she said Monday, after a mostly sleepless several days of monitoring the events in Libya from her South Baltimore rowhouse.