When Louise Holmes saw a flier in her mailbox saying Civic Works staffers would help Baltimore County seniors with errands and home repairs, she called the news a "godsend."
Suffering from diabetes and a recent foot injury, Ms. Holmes, 65, didn't have transportation to a doctor's appointment. She called the number on the flier.
A dozen workers from Baltimore County Civic Works -- almost the whole crew -- showed up at her Woodmoor home last week. Three piled out of a 15-passenger van and held her firmly by the arm as she walked gingerly from her house. "You all right coming across the grass?" asked Curly Faison, Baltimore County crew supervisor. "They'll hold you. They got you. You're not going to fall."
So far, the demand for the new program's services in the county has been so light that sometimes the entire crew will go out on only one job in a day or have idle hours.
Civic Works is part of AmeriCorps, President Clinton's service program, which was signed into law in September 1993 and launched a year later. High school graduates and dropouts and college students can earn $4.30 an hour and $4,725 for further education by doing a year's worth of service-oriented work.
Nationwide, 20,000 people will be in the program for the first full year.
An office to serve Baltimore County opened Nov. 21, based in a classroom of Campfield Alternative Center in Villa Nova. It is to expand on services offered by the 50 Baltimore participants who work out of Clifton Park Mansion, said Dana Stein, executive director of the Baltimore City and Baltimore County branches.
Optimally, county crew members would do service work four days a week, then go to Clifton Park Mansion once a week for "Life-Skills Day," which combines GED instruction (about half the Baltimore County participants are high school dropouts) and exposure to health, communications and money-management skills.
Since opening a few weeks ago, however, the new satellite office, which specializes in providing free safety services to seniors, has escorted only Ms. Holmes.
In the meantime, workers have been learning more about Civic Works and the geography of the county. A phone line finally was installed Monday. Workers have done some projects, including chopping down overgrown vegetation, visiting the infirm in hospitals and repairing locks, but more in the city than the county. "That's because we're just getting out here," Mr. Faison said.
"Since the Campfield office is a new location, it's taking us a
while to establish the visibility," Mr. Stein added.
Mr. Faison has been working on just that as supervisor of the Baltimore County office. "I know we went door-to-door, car-to-car [distributing fliers] and we've been to the senior centers and all," he said, adding that workers gave out several thousand fliers in northwest Baltimore County.
In red and black letters, the fliers say: "Seniors!! Are You Concerned About Crime!? Civic Works is hosting a year of safety!" The fliers list free services, such as replacing a broken lock or window pane, cutting back vegetation that is a sightline barrier, escorting seniors to the bank and grocery store and presentations on safety issues.
"I'll be glad when we get a lot more [response] from the county," said Mr. Faison, who also has had difficulty finding county youth to work in the program. Thirteen currently are enrolled, one more than the 12 required to open the office. Of those, seven live in Baltimore and initially were in the city's program. Mr. Faison said he drives them to Campfield each day.
The remaining six participants entered the program after responding to his recruitment efforts, which included handing out fliers and knocking on doors.
"By AmeriCorps starting after the start of school, we missed out on a lot of people," Mr. Faison explained. While recruiting, however, he came across many youths "hanging around doing nothing," he said.
But to Ms. Holmes, who was living in fear with no front door lock until the workers installed one, Civic Works made a real difference. "I live on a very limited income," she said. "I didn't even have money to buy a new lock."
Young people are gaining from the program as well.
"I didn't know a lot of this existed, that there were older people scared to come out of their homes," said Latoya Hope Parker, 19. She lives in Randallstown and attended Frostburg State University for a year. "Before this, I was kind of self-centered. I wanted to get ahead and get mine."
Being in the program has raised her self-esteem, she said, and now she is applying to University of Maryland Baltimore County.
For information, call Curly Faison at 602-3017.