Ywca

OH, I SEE YOUR family has finally taken the leap into cyberspace," noted my friend as she peered into my den.Her presence went unnoticed by my sons, their faces illuminated by the eerie blue light emanating from the 14-inch, full-color VGA computer screen."I think you're going to be surprised by how much the children use it," she said."Why, just yesterday our Sarah wrote a program to graph algebraic equations. And Mary's French has improved dramatically since we accessed Paris on the Internet.

Dolores Bail is an administrator, a fund-raiser, a real estate broker, a financial planner.She has played all those roles as executive director for 17 years of the Anne Arundel County YWCA, a post from which she'll retire at the end of the year.But Bail says she sees herself not as the executive of an organization but as the leader of a movement."The image people have of the Y is that it's the place they learned to swim," she said. "But there is serious empowerment that goes on here. Our motto continues to be the empowerment of women and the strengthening of families."

A new leader is taking the helm of the YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County as the fiscally challenged group prepares to reopen its Odenton education and child care center. Molly Knipe, who starts Monday, comes to the YWCA from Family Services Agency Inc. in Montgomery County, where she was chief operating officer. She replaces Janice Harvey, who resigned in December shortly after a funding shortage forced the YWCA to close its facility in Odenton. "We're very, very excited. She brings a new energy and new ideas to the organization," said YWCA spokeswoman Kristin Fleckenstein.

Offering free breast cancer exams to low-income women is one thing. Getting them to sign up for them is another.The state health department has had trouble getting enough eligible women to take advantage of the exams, so it will soon be enlisting the help of the YWCA.Using its own money and federal funds, the YWCA plans to comb low-income neighborhoods, senior centers and churches to persuade Marylanders to sign up for free exams at clinics and hospitals. The nonprofit group will even provide vans to take the women to their mammograms and cancer education seminars.

Noting a shortage of funds, the YWCA of Greater Baltimore said yesterday that it can no longer afford to run its 33-bed family homeless shelter in the 12000 block of Reisterstown Road, one of two homeless shelters for families in the county. Baltimore County officials said they plan to keep the shelter open, that none of the more than 30 residents will be put out on the street and that they will find another operator after the YWCA vacates the county-owned property at the Hannah More complex June 30. "We're in the process of looking for a replacement to operate that facility on an interim basis while we find a permanent operator," said Maureen Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore County Department of Social Services.

The Baltimore YWCA is moving to shut its downtown women's shelter because of a reduction in funding from the United Way of Central Maryland and other sources, including money distributed by the city. Even though the shelter, which houses about 90 women and children, will close Oct. 1 - resulting in a significant loss in Baltimore's overall shelter capacity - YWCA officials are trying to stay positive. The organization's other two shelters - one in Baltimore County - will remain open, and the closure of the shelter at 128 W. Franklin St. next month will allow the YWCA to return to its roots: fostering economic success among women through education and job training, said Dawn Fisk Thomsen, former chief executive officer of the YWCA of the Greater Baltimore Area Inc., which was established in 1883.

The local YWCA -- traditionally run by women -- has turned over to 23 men the task of planning a party -- an October gala at the Crofton Country Club for the benefit of domestic violence programs and services.The unusual advisory committee -- Men Against Domestic Violence -- began meeting last month to plan the 1999 YWCA Week Without Violence campaign Oct. 17-23. The weeklong public awareness campaign will begin Oct. 15 with La Fiesta de la Familia, a Celebration of Family, at the country club.

When a young waiter approached Janis Harvey at a Tennessee restaurant last year, she did not recognize him. Even as he sat down and began to talk, she struggled to place his face. Considering the circumstances, who could blame her? It had been almost a decade since Harvey - then the chief operating officer of the YWCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee - had seen the man, then a troubled boy being helped by the organization and who had been shuffled among dozens of foster homes. At the time, his behavior was so disruptive that most of the people who cared for him had given up hope.

Lena York Roth, a devout, soft-spoken activist from New York who became a key official for the Young Women's Christian Association in Baltimore during the 1960s, died Wednesday at Wilson Health Care Center in Gaithersburg. She was 93.Mrs. Roth directed the International Center of the YWCA in East Baltimore -- which provided social activities and immigration services for thousands of women -- from 1959 until her retirement in 1970. She lived the past 29 years at Asbury Methodist Village in Montgomery County.

The new head of the YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County hates being bored. Good thing.For the past several weeks, Karen R. Winne has been working 12- to 14-hour days six days a week, learning the ropes of the county's leading organization for service to women and families. The Y also is a prominent advocate on issues such as domestic violence and abortion.In her spare time, Winne is looking for a house she and her husband can rent, a place where she can plant a garden."I can't stand to be bored," the former Charlottesville, Va., resident said in a recent interview in her corner office at the YWCA building on Ritchie Highway.