Walk A Thon

Members of a local community service organization, The Links Inc., raised $8,700 to help feed homeless and hungry people in the Baltimore area during a walk-a-thon at Milford Mill High School yesterday.The walk-a-thon was sponsored by the Baltimore, Harbor City and Patapsco River chapters of the organization, which seeks to improve the quality of life for the African-American community. About 250 people participated in the walk.Pub Date: 9/22/96

Does Kurt really want to be remembered as the mayor who drove the Walk-A-Thon out of town?For its next number, Sears, Roebuck will eliminate 50 floors of the Sears Tower.Bill plans a modest stimulus to the economy, lest anyone get the idea it could recover without his help.

The March of Dimes walk-a-thon was a harbinger of the spring in Baltimore City for 22 years. By bringing as many as 30,000 walkers to the streets every April, it produced crowds and enthusiasm not often seen since the memorable Easter Parade promenade tradition ended in the 1950s.This wonderful event -- one of the most successful walk-a-thons in the nation -- has now fled the city. The local March of Dimes says it cannot afford to share the costs of policing and cleanup required under a new city policy.

Walk-a-thon planned for Mo. victimsOther fund-raisers include yard saleThe Mount Airy Flood Relief Committee, which has raised $6,388 for the residents of Alexandria, Mo., has planned a series of fund-raisers, including a walk-a-thon, yard sale and a dance.A walk-a-thon is scheduled for Sept. 19. The walk will begin at the train station off Main Street. A route has not been determined. A yard sale is scheduled for Oct. 17 along Main Street.The town also is looking for volunteers to take part in a builders convoy.

To some people, walking in the rain is romantic. To others, it's invigorating.To Tom Wargin, it's "yucko.""I looked out my window when I got up [yesterday] morning, and I saw all that rain and thought, 'Oh, yucko,' " said the 52-year-old Parkville resident.Of course, Mr. Wargin faced more than a brief stroll amid the raindrops. He was among some 3,000 people who trucked 15 miles through the muck and the yuck yesterday in the 22nd annual Baltimore March of Dimes Walk-A-Thon.Ranging from grade schoolers to gray-haired seniors, the walkers raised $362,200 in pledges for the organization's "Campaign for Healthier Babies," which provides community-based services for the prevention of birth defects and infant mortality.

To her grandparents, Michelle Matteson is a 5-year-old medical miracle worth a little self-promotion.Born with spina bifida, the kindergarten student at Joppatown's Riverside Elementary School had surgery moments after her birth to close the hole in her spine.Three weeks later, she had surgery to insert a plastic tube -- or shunt -- in her skull to prevent it from filling with fluids and killing her. At age 2, she had surgery to correct visions problems, and in the past year, she has had two procedures to repair the shunt.

Harford County's 25 veterinarians have been involved in community events that assist animals for some time.But starting today with a pet walk-a-thon they've organized, Harford's animal doctors launch aneffort to become involved in civic causes that affect people.The pet walk-a-thon, which starts at 1 p.m. at the Harford CountyEquestrian Center near Bel Air, will raise money for research on cerebral palsy, a muscular disease caused by brain damage that afflicts about 700,000 people in the United States.

Fans of Freetown Elementary School will be walking to cool off the school tomorrow.The Parent Teacher Association hopes its walk-a-thon and family fun day will raise $1,150 to buy 25 fans. The school does not have air-conditioning."I am excited about this, real excited," said Chelly Roberts, vice president of the school's PTA. "I've been here five years. They've had fund-raisers, but this is really different."Students have spent three weeks collecting pledges of $1 or more from their neighbors.

THE CROWD OF nearly 300 cheered and clapped raucously as two men hoisted the giant check into the air. They presented it to Dr. Joyce Payne. The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund was some $5,000 richer.The crowd had good reason to cheer. They had raised the money, saving it from their jobs that pay them only 90 cents to $1.30 an hour. These fund-raisers, you see, were all inmates at Patuxent Institution in Jessup.Payne started the scholarship fund 11 years ago. Recipients get four-year merit scholarships to one of about 40 historically black colleges or universities.

THUS IT WAS on a rainy, foggy, slippery morning after Thanksgiving that Saraunda Loughlin found herself sitting at a table inside the lobby of Polytechnic Institute. In our more jesting moods, City College graduates would call the school "Polywreckit Institution for the Cognitively Challenged and Criminally Insane." But when we return to reality, we know students at our esteemed rival known as Poly have the highest SAT scores in the city, higher even than the state average. Loughlin, an English teacher at Poly, said that some 77 percent of students who take the advanced placement American government test score above the national average, as do 80 percent who take the advanced placement English exam.