Community centers turn to cooling centers

The Baltimore Sun

The sign on the wall read: "Look what's happening at Western Community Action Center."

Underneath sat the largest cooler available in stores, crammed with ice and bottles of water. And yesterday, as area temperatures climbed to a high of 97 degrees at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and 100 in the city, the water was indeed the main thing happening at the center.

With the addition of the cooler, the center was transformed from an ordinary office into a "cooling center" run by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, where the hot and weary could stop in for a rest, a bottle of water and some paper towels to mop up all the sweat.

The housing authority's six Community Action Centers become cooling centers every time the city issues a Code Red Heat Alert, the most recent of which went into effect Sunday and lasts through today. Those centers are often joined by three senior centers run by the Commission on Aging and Retirement Education.

By 5:30 p.m. yesterday, the Pennsylvania Avenue center had given water to 80 people. One of those was 3-year-old Kainya Brunson, who stood barefoot in the office, staring as her siblings requested water for her.

"I'm not hot," Kareem Brunson, 5, informed the office workers. "She is."

The children wore shorts and summery clothes, but some visitors hadn't dressed as appropriately. Jonathan Mauldin, a salesman for Advance Business Systems, came to pitch a sale in a dark three-piece suit, laughing at the irony as he realized he was "cold calling."

"I always pick the hottest days to canvass," he said. "You'd think I'd learn to pick a light-colored suit on the busy days."

Mauldin, who was covering the area on foot, grabbed some water for the road even though he had already drunk his fill.

"For lunch I sat down with a huge bottle of water and basically pounded it all," he said.

Elwood Dorsey, 55, came to the center to apply for help with his $1,600 BGE bill and was pleasantly surprised to find water there as well.

"It's hot out there," Dorsey said. "I got 57 more blocks to go."

Make that eight, he later corrected himself. But he said it felt like 57 when he was walking in the sun.

"I wanted to turn back," he said.

Since BGE rates went up, the office has been flooded with people requesting forms for subsidies, said Aline Kirk-Watson, the center's acting manager. When the office doubles as a cooling center, it gets even busier, she said - on Sunday, when the temperature rose to 94 degrees, more than 100 people came in requesting water.

"When we get a number of over 25 by 9 o'clock, I know we have a cooling center operation," she said before heading out at 2 p.m. to buy three more bags of ice.

This is the third year that the city has opened cooling centers, Scriber said. This fiscal year, there is a $5,000 budget for the centers, he said.

"We're probably going to need more than that, 'cause it's probably not going to last," he said.

The three senior centers have not seen such an influx of business, said Frank Johnson, deputy executive director of the city Commission on Aging and Retirement Education. Typically, he estimated about a dozen additional people come to the senior centers when they double as cooling centers.

Dorcina Moulden, who works in the Western Community Action Center, said she didn't mind the extra work on cooling center days.

"I have no problem giving 'em water and having 'em sit down and cool off," she said. "It don't stress me out at all ... it's terrible out there."

alia.malik@baltsun.com

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