| Volunteers spend 300 days repairing homes  LUTHERVILLE For the 19th year the Baltimore County Christian Workcamp reported a successful week of repairing homes and providing services in impoverished areas of the county.
This year, from July 21-27, more than 200 volunteers, ranging in age from 10 to 80, worked at 24 sites, repairing homes in Landsdowne, Catonsville, Milford Mill, Parkville, Essex, Middle River and Turner Station. Altogether, they worked an estimated 300-350 days, reported Steve Lippy, secretary of the non-profit organization. Each day volunteers were served breakfast at Hunts Memorial UMC, prepared by different churches. When they returned in the evening, dinner was waiting at Loch Raven, Hiss, Mays Chapel, Mt. Carmel or Towson UMCs. Regardless of all the prosperity in the world, there will always be the other end of the scale, those who need help, said Chip Day, a member of Catonsville UMC and organizer of the workcamp. The 20th commuters workcamp, to which volunteers can commit one day or every day, will be held July 20-26, 2003. For information contact Lippy at
.us or (410) 296-9150. Historians trolley comes home  COLESVILLE After 47 years, Eds streetcar has returned home. The Rev. Ed Schell, conference historian, spent years as a volunteer with the Baltimore Streetcar Museums library and still volunteers a half day each week at the museum.
I was in love with streetcars before either the Lord or my wife, Schell said. Through his efforts, in 1945, trolley car Capital Transit Company #884 was acquired by the Electric Railroaders Association and shipped to New York City. Schell rode the car from its storage spot at Glen Echo to Washington, D.C., the last time the car ran on its own power, according to Wesley Paulson, a member at Millian Memorial UMC and secretary to the National Capital Trolley Museum. Schell never lost interest in the streetcar and in 1990, he and other members of the National Capital Trolley Museum began the effort to return it to the Washington area. It needs a lot of restoration, Schell said. The museum is at 1313 Bonifant Road in Colesville. Teen shooter sentenced BRUNSWICK Charles Andy Williams, the 15-year-old who went on a shooting spree at a Santee, Calif., high school March 5 last year, was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison Aug. 15. Two students died in the shooting rampage and 13 others were injured. Prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence of 425 years. Prior to a move to southern California a year or so before the shooting, Williams had lived in Brunswick where members of the Brunswick Cooperative Parish knew him, according to the Rev. Clark Carr. Newspaper reports indicated he had a difficult home life and no history of criminal behavior, but he offered no explanation for the shooting. At the court hearing in El Cajon, Calif., Williams tearfully apologized to the court and the victims families. If I could go back to that day, I would never have gotten out of bed, he said. Williams said he plans to complete college while in prison and that he hopes someday to be a prison chaplain. Alleviating poverty from Mexico to W.Va. MARTINSBURG, W. VA. Nancy Ryan and Amber Townsend, 16, spent their vacation time on two Volunteers in Mission trips to poverty-stricken areas of the world Sonora, Mexico, and McDowell County, W.Va. Sixteen other members of Trinity UMC made the mission trip to Mexico, where Townsend helped with a Kids Kamp for 150 children from the Bueno Visa Colonia. Some of the members ran a dental clinic and others worked on an agricultural project. It was so hot, the volunteers slept on mattresses on the sidewalk each night, Townsend said. Ryan and Townsend were two of 14 church members who, a week after returning from Mexico, went to the West Virginia site. My favorite activity was tearing out drywall, Townsend said. The group split into teams and worked at several sites. In addition to running a vacation Bible school for about 50 children, the VIM team reconstructed homes that were heavily damaged by floods a year ago. | 
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