The Baltimore Child Abuse Center wants your vote in its quest to win $500,000. The organization is the only Maryland nonprofit competing in Chase Bank’s community giving program.

BCAC is competing with 100 other nonprofits from across the country for funds for a “Big Idea.” The organization’s Big Idea is “No child should be the victim of child abuse.” It would use the half-million dollars to “offer free sexual abuse prevention education to all local kindergarten classes, parents and teachers, as well as nationally offer online education and mobile applications at no cost to everyone who wishes to keep their children safe and build a better community.”

The funding is given out based on the number of votes the nonprofits receive on Facebook. BCAC received $25,000 for making the Top 100 after Round 1. For Round 2, the charity with the most votes gets $500,000, with the next 24 receiving between $400,000 and $20,000.

As of Tuesday afternoon, BCAC was well out of the Top 25, but voting does not end until Wednesday night, so there is still time to catch up. City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld cast his vote for BCAC on Monday, calling it a “critical and vital partner” to his department.

“It’ s a great opportunity for us to do something good for the city,” he said.

You can vote for BCAC and its Big Idea here.

And watch a short video of BCAC’s Big Idea below:

“If this were play’d upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”
- Twelfth Night

Alas, Fabian, it’s true: the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival is folding after 17 seasons. When I heard the news, I thought of Tom Schetelich, the BSF’s business manager I profiled last year.  Schetelich saw his first BSF show in 2004 and joked that he became such a regular presence at the nonprofit that it either had to give him a job or a restraining order.

Schetelich told me Thursday afternoon he’s helping the organization wind down. He declined to go into detail about the financial problems that reportedly led to the BSF’s folding but said theater companies like the Shakespeare Festival “need everything to go right to survive.”

“I enjoyed the process of making this work so much,” he said. “It was just a good thing for the city.”

Among Schetelich’s favorite things was getting to know the actors, directors and technical staff behind the productions and attending the popular outdoor stagings every summer in the Meadow at the Evergreen Museum & Library.

He also believes a new organization could step in to fill the cultural void left by the BSF and has even had some preliminary discussions about doing just that.

Until then, Schetelich has a new goal. Thanks in part to the BSF, he estimates he’s seen live performances of about half of the Bard’s plays. But he wants to see all of them, which could prove challenging.

“You can always go see a production of ‘Hamlet’ somewhere,” Schetelich said. “But if you want to see The Two Noble Kinsmen, you’ve got to look for it.”

The Huffington Post reported last month that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure has filed trademark infringement lawsuits against other charities that use “for the cure” in their names. The story alleges Komen spends a $1 million a year in donor funds on such litigation.

The foundation has more than 200 registered trademarks, and I didn’t even know you could protect a phrase like “for the cure,” hon.

Even though the HuffPost story was published in December, I first heard about it Monday night from Stephen Colbert. Enjoy his take here.

Juan Williams made the headlines last week speaking at Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service’s pro bono reception. But almost all of what Williams said about the NPR controversy was to reporters after he gave a keynote address that looked at the value of pro bono work through the story of Thurgood Marshall, which Williams himself has told.

Williams talked in his speech about the influence of Charles Hamilton Houston, Marshall’s dean at Howard University’s law school who became a mentor and friend. Two of Houston’s sayings became mantras of sorts for Marshall as he pursued the civil rights cases that made him a household name:

• All people need good lawyers when their lives are on the line.
• A lawyer who is not a social architect is nothing but a social parasite.

Karl-Henri Gauvin was honored by MVLS as its volunteer of the year. Gauvin, a Baltimore solo practitioner, has handled 44 pro bono cases since 2008, primarily foreclosures. That Gauvin has so many foreclosure cases to work on in the first place is why he called the honor a “mixed blessing.” But Gauvin described the pro bono cases as a natural extension of his public policy background.

“Once you get your hands dirty, it’s very rewarding,” he said.

Connie Hare and Gary Greenblatt often see the rewards from pro bono cases more clearly than from their regular cases. The husband and wife team, of Mehlman, Greenblatt & Hare LLC in Baltimore, were honored as law firm of the year for taking 15 bankruptcy cases from MVLS this year and 58 total since 1993.

The couple has seen the impact of helping a pro bono client get rid of creditors and end up in a better place financially and mentally.

“They have hope now,” Hare said.

Both described the work as an obligation and “the least you can do” to give back.

MVLS also honored three lawyers – Thomas R. Simpson Jr., Elva E. Tillman and Randy S. Wase – for taking at least one pro bono case in each of the last 10 years.

(Full disclosure: The Daily Record was a media sponsor for the event.)

One voice we could not fit into today’s story about the changes to the state’s foreclosure law was that of the Foreclosure Prevention Pro Bono Project.

Since its inception two years ago, the project has placed more than 900 cases with volunteer lawyers across the state. More than 1,500 homeowners also have been advised through foreclosure solution workshops staffed by volunteer attorneys.

Jennifer Larrabee, manager of the project with the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, said officials are still trying to determine how, if at all, its system will change under the new law. The workshops will continue, she said, but one possible alteration might be volunteer lawyers shifting their focus toward representing clients in mediation sessions, she said.

Larrabee supports the new law but said it does not lessen the need for volunteer lawyers.

“The intention behind the law is that homeowners be provided a face-to-face, meaningful opportunity to meet with the lender and negotiate with someone with decision-making authority,” she said.

We’ve documented the struggle for funding of legal services in Maryland, but there’s been news in the last week about federal funding for legal services.

It began Thursday when the House approved $440 million in funding for the Legal Services Corp. for Fiscal Year 2010, a $50 million increase from the current fiscal year. The bill passed after an amendment to eliminate LSC was defeated 323-105, according to LSC.

Rep. Allan B. Mollohan, D-W. Va., said the amendment was “the wrong place to try to balance the budget,” echoing Maryland Sen. Bobby Zirkin and Del. Jon Cardin, the Baltimore County Democrats who led the fight to prevent a $500,000 cut to the Maryland Legal Services Corp.

The U.S. House measure also removed a restriction barring lawyers paid by legal services from collecting attorneys’ fees from opposing parties. As the U.S. Senate begins discussing LSC this week, the The Washington Post and The New York Times editorial boards both urged the Senate to lift two additional restrictions: one prohibiting legal services clients from participating in class-action lawsuits; the other extending the federal restrictions to money legal services providers receive from other sources. 

Incidentally, the Senate subcommittee that will be first to take up LSC funding is chaired by Maryland’s own Barbara Mikulski. Stay tuned. 

The Golf Fore Heart charity tournament has grown steadily in its first two years, raising $30,000 in 2007 and $51,000 in 2008. The fundraiser is just hitting its stride, so I was curious as to how the current economy is affecting plans for the third tournament, scheduled for June 17 at Mountain Branch Golf Cub in Joppa. (Proceeds benefit the Society for Heart Attack Prevention and Eradication  — SHAPE – and several local charities.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the economy “was a worry and has proven to be an issue,” according to JoAnne Zawitoski, the event’s founder. “It’s going to be a challenge this year.”

Zawitoski, of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, said some people and businesses want to participate but have already exhausted their charity budget – if they had a charity budget at all this year. Others have dropped down a sponsorhip level.

Zawitoski said she and other event organizers will be making “personal appeals” as June 17 draws closer.

“I’m hoping to have as good a turnout as last year,” she said, adding she anticipates the event raising “a little less” than it did in 2008.

Despite the economy, Zawitoski said the cause has made strides. SHAPE helped pass new legislation in Texas that would require insurance companies to pay for heart scans of people at risk for heart disease, and President Barack Obama has made improved preventive care a priority.

“We think this is a good year for heart attack prevention measures in state legislatures,” she said.

This morning I visited the Southwest Senior Center in West Baltimore. It was the site of a free financial clinic hosted by the Baltimore CASH Campaign, an outreach group that’s comprised of nonprofits, community-based organizations and city agencies.

This past Monday, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Congressman John Sarbanes launched the CASH campaign’s effort to help underprivileged people apply for economic stimulus payments.

Altogether, 36,000 eligible residents from Baltimore city and county (many of whom are senior citizens or are disabled) have not filed a tax return and therefore have not received a stimulus payment.

Before I arrived at the senior center — which is one of three sites set up for free clinics — I envisioned the tax return process to take at least half an hour. But with a tax professional on hand, the applicants were out the door after five minutes.

About 50 people have come to the free clinics so far, according to Pam Cheney, the Director of the UMD Law School Tax Clinic.

Cheney said media exposure and word on the streets should increase awareness and draw an even bigger turnout to the clinics planned for September.

The deadline to file for a stimulus check is October 15th and the payments are worth a minimum of $300 per person.

RICHARD SIMON, Multimedia Reporter

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Karen Buckelew reported today on the finances of the Salvation Army’s Baltimore Area Command, which focuses its charitable efforts on area schoolchildren, the homeless and disaster relief.

From the story:

It also is a charity that has been stretching its resources to meet evolving needs. Its $504,802 deficit for fiscal 2006 was a 70 percent jump over the previous year’s shortfall.

The growing deficit was a wake-up call for administrative cuts, said Lafeea Watson, development coordinator for the Baltimore Salvation Army. “There was some belt-tightening,” said Watson.

During the past year, the organization has cut programs, closed its Highlandtown Boys and Girls Club and turned over management of its residential camp in Monkton. It has replaced paid contractors for maintenance and informational technology services with volunteers. It has secured corporate grants for services that once taxed its operating budget.

Almost 700 children participated in the Boys and Girls Clubs in Middle River, Glen Burnie and South Baltimore last year. Operating the Glen Burnie club costs just over $11 per child per day during the academic school year.

Many of us attended after-school programs or clubs or visited rec centers as youth. For me, it was Longwood Recreation Center in Brookeville, MD.

What about you – any memories from after-school programs to share?

Above: Wanda Newton, executive director of the Salvation Army Baltimore Area Command Boys and Girls Clubs, plays with 5-year-old Mikayla Gonzalez at the club in Glen Burnie.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Daily Record Multimedia Editor