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Elkridge Horizon Council and Howard High Sponsor Grassroots Benefit �Change Matters� Campaign Will Raise Funds for Shelter Playground

The Elkridge Horizon Council and Howard High School are joining forces to raise funds for Grassroots, which provides Howard County’s only emergency shelter program and 24-hour crisis intervention services.

Howard High students Che Brown, Walker Smith and Alison Spatz, who are members of the Elkridge Horizon Council, are leading the drive to purchase playground equipment for homeless children who are sheltered at Grassroots. The campaign, called Change Matters, will be launched in the Fall and will involve collection of coins from students and school staff at Howard High and elsewhere in the community.

Change Matters is a pilot philanthropy initiative which, if successful, may be replicated in the Spring of 2009 at other Howard County schools, according to Cathy Smith, a coordinator of the Horizon Councils.  The project has the support of the Howard County Association of Student Councils, the umbrella organization for all student government associations.

The student leaders and other members of the Change Matters Committee have set public awareness of Grassroots, homelessness in Howard County and crisis intervention as a major focus of their efforts.  In addition, committee members hope to increase philanthropy by young people in the community.

Grassroots is staffed by professional crisis counselors who answer 24-hour hotlines, see walk-ins in need of immediate counseling assistance, operate the mobile crisis team which responds to community emergencies, and manage the county’s emergency shelter for homeless men, women and families. In addition, Grassroots manages the Cold Weather Shelter Program, housed in the area’s faith communities, for people who are unable to find emergency shelter when Grassroots is full.

In addition to Brown, Smith and Spatz, Change Matters committee members include former Deep Run Elementary School Principal Fran Donaldson, Marriotts Ridge High School junior Adejire Bademosi, Wilde Lake High School senior Dylan Singleton, Howard High School guidance counselor Sonya Sutter and seniors Lunden Hawkins and Amy Sichler and junior Corinne Tomaszewski, and Grassroots board members Mimi O’Donnell and Steve Koren.  Donaldson and Sutter are members of the Elkridge Horizon Council.

Last year, Grassroots had 23,474 Hotline contacts and 468 personal contacts. The Mobile Crisis Team made 331 community responses, serving 856 people.  The shelter programs housed 389 people, 165 of which were children. Grassroots is housed in newly expanded and renovated quarters on Freetown Road in Columbia, where it has operated for 18 years.

The Elkridge Horizon Council is an advisory group made up of people who live and/or work in the Elkridge area. The group advises The Horizon Foundation about issues of significance to the community and makes recommendations about ways to address those issues. For the past year, the Elkridge Horizon Council has been focusing on poverty, hunger and homelessness in Howard County.

The Horizon Foundation, Howard County’s largest philanthropy, addresses community health issues through a strategic grants program and partnerships with private and public institutions.  As a community health foundation, it takes a broad view of health and wellness and is committed to helping build a healthy and resilient community in Howard County.