Nonprofit Finds a New Home at Irvington Parish,Music Teacher

Nonprofit finds a new home at Irvington parish By Elizabeth Skalski [email protected] A Baltimore nonprofit that provides shelter for the homeless is one step closer to securing its new home, making use of a vacant Catholic school. The Baltimore City Planning Commission voted unanimously at an April 5 zoning hearing for conditional use of the former parish school at St. Joseph Passionist Monastery Church in Irvington as a convalescent home, said Mary Slicher, executive director of Project PLASE (People Lacking Ample Shelter and Employment), a nonprofit that provides housing and supportive services to the homeless. Project PLASE works with people ages 18 and older who have depression, HIV, alcohol and drug addiction and other mental health issues, Slicher said. The nonprofit also offers education and job counseling programs. The building would house people with “some sort of disability,” Slicher said. “The need is great,” said Slicher, who said Project PLASE has a waiting list with 500 people. The nonprofit is working to transform the former school building on the grounds of the Irvington parish into 60 convalescent units and 30 permanent apartments and offices for the nonprofit, Slicher said. “The buildings we are in (five throughout the city) are inadequate,” said Slicher, a parishioner of St. Joseph’s Passionist Monastery. “We want a better space to expand.” The parish school, established in the 19th century, became St. Bernardine Catholic School in 1997 and was one of 13 schools closed in 2010 as part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s school consolidation. The building has been vacant since 2010, said Passionist Father William Murphy, pastor of St. Joseph’s Passionist Monastery. Project PLASE offered the parish $1.42 million for the former school building and signed a contract with the parish and the archdiocese in November 2011, Slicher said. Once Project PLASE obtains the special use variance within the current zoning, the sale can go through. The next hearing will be before a committee of the city council, Slicher said. A date has not yet been set. “If you have the community support and you fit what’s allowable in different regions you should be able to get the zoning,” Slicher said. Initially, in January 2011, Slicher said the project faced resistance from the community, which stalled the project. The nonprofit has since received support from residents in the Irvington and St. Joseph communities after going door-to-door, to neighborhood meetings and community forums, Slicher said. “There’s a lot of people who have changed their opinion,” Slicher said. Resistance, Slicher said, was the result of misinformation as to the type of facility and people who would be moving into the neighborhood. Tim McCarthy, a parishioner of St. Joseph Passionist Monastery, estimates that parish volunteers knocked on about 500 doors in the community and more than 300 residents signed a petition in favor of the project. “We did everything we could to win the neighbors over during a several-month period,” said McCarthy, 69, of Catonsville. “I always felt that if we could just get the truth out there to the people that opposed us, that they would come across.” The project is “about rehabilitation, getting their lives back on track,” McCarthy said. Karen Taylor, president of the St. Joseph’s Community Association, said she initially had “mixed feelings” about the proposed project but has changed her mind. Project PLASE is “a great asset to the community,” said Taylor, 43. “It is a need. If people want to realize it or not, it is a need.” Taylor said some community residents still have “mixed feelings” about the project, which Taylor suspects will change once Project PLASE moves into the community. Father Murphy said the vacant building costs about $100,000 a year to maintain. “We can’t maintain this building,” Father Murphy said. “We’d like it to advance the agenda of doing good.” Slicher said she expects renovations to cost about $6 million. “I just need money,” Slicher said, of that cost. “I know homeless people, I know poor people.” “This is Mary’s vocation – social work,” Father Murphy said. “You can just see God’s grace working in that way.” Copyright (c) April 24 CatholicReview.org Music teacher keeps others singing By Maria Wiering [email protected] “Feet on the floor. I see some legs crossed.” Helen Brown turns to the upright piano and plays the opening chords. The choristers diligently follow their parts in “Singing in the Rain,” one of five pieces they were preparing to perform at an upcoming luncheon. Halfway through the song, Brown waves her hands and sends her choir back to page five, where they resume the chorus: “What a glorious feeling ….” Brown retired from the music classroom in Baltimore City’s public schools more than 30 years ago, but she never really stopped teaching. Now 90, she gives music courses, takes classes and directs the choir at Notre Dame of Maryland University’s Renaissance Institute, which offers peer-taught courses and social activities for seniors. She joined the institute the year it was founded, in 1989. An alumnus of what was then the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, she was eager to teach others about music, her lifelong passion. She earned her degree in music and taught at four of Baltimore’s public schools while raising five children. Even when she retired after 35 years, she worked with Baltimore County Library’s music collection. Since beginning with the Renaissance Institute, Brown estimates that she has taught 35 courses on topics ranging from American wartime music to opera. It was in that opera class that she asked her class to sing from George and Ira Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” After hearing the result, she decided to form a choir three years ago. The choir now performs for the institute twice a year – at a spring luncheon marking the end of the semester, and at a Christmas-Hanukkah-Holiday celebration. Brown carefully selects the music for each show according to the choir’s ability, and tries to add a more challenging piece each time. A person has to share his or her talents, Brown said, a belief she applies to her students as much as to herself. When Brown wished aloud for a flute to accompany a piece, a student who had once played it volunteered to pick it up again. That student now takes lessons and plays with the choir, but she doesn’t think she would have played again if Brown hadn’t urged her to, she said. At 61, Vickie Lapicki is the youngest in the choir, which has about 25 members. Before joining two years ago she had never read music, but she has learned a lot, thanks to Brown’s kindness and patience, she said. “Its fun,” Lapicki said of the choir. “It’s like we’re learning an art; it’s not like we’re learning a subject.” “Life is beautiful if people would just wake up and smell the roses. There’s so much to do,” Brown said. And Brown does plenty. She attends the symphony, the opera and the theater, and plays for most Masses at Mercy Ridge, the retirement center where she lives. She also organizes social events for Renaissance Institute participants and serves on three of its committees. “I just love it,” she says. “This is my life and I love it.” Copyright (c) April 24, 2012 CatholicReview.org Stage Fright When Leo’s preschool had their Spring Concert last week, our son performed on stage for the first time. Leo is not a shy child, but we were not sure how he would handle this entirely new situation. It turned out to be very difficult for him, and he was clearly miserable the entire time. So were his parents. I wanted so badly to rush to the front and pull Leo off the stage, but I realized that would call even more attention to his misery—and he would fear it even more the next time. And so John and I sat and prayed for the end to come—which it did, at long last. Minutes later he was confidently escorting us downstairs to show us his classroom. It was merely being on stage, and with all those people watching him, that made him anxious. Seeing Leo’s unhappiness during his performance was especially painful for me because I was terribly shy as a child. At age 4, I might have sung songs in front of my brothers and sisters, but more likely I would have entertained my doll and stuffed cow. I didn’t speak to adults besides my parents and grandmother. During my first two-and-a-half years of school I didn’t talk to any of the teachers. I still remember my first grade teacher losing her temper and yelling at me for not answering a question. She later apologized, but the incident didn’t make me any more inclined to speak to her—and I never did. For me, it was a blend of shyness and stubbornness. It took me years before I would volunteer in class. I always resented that “class participation” meant raising your hand and saying something even if you had nothing to contribute. Can’t a student participate without taking the floor? Over time I have become much less shy, though I am still very stubborn. But that happened naturally as I gained confidence along the way, not because I was forced to appear on stage. Watching Leo last week made me wonder why we insist that every child has to be a performer.

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