There’s No Place Like Homewood

Thanks for the feedback on yesterday’s post about the unsolved goings on at Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park. It seems that some of my readers are quite knowledgeable on this particular topic. 

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I’ve been seeing some folks spouting uninformed views about the Homewood Center lately. There seems to be a misconception that Homewood is where we isolate undesirables that “decent people” want to separate from the general population. Maybe Homewood needs to rebrand itself with a series of adverts that proclaim: Homewood. We’re not what you think we are.

Or perhaps all those “decent people” could do the work to become better informed. Speaking of which, 

Did you know that there are three different educational programs including three high school programs and two middle schools at Homewood Center? We would like to invite you to consider supporting two upcoming things that benefit the Homewood Center. Please consider sharing these upcoming opportunities with your workplaces, your friends, your churches and community groups too.

Most importantly, if you are curious about Homewood Center, reach out to learn more about ways to get involved in supporting our community school!

I’ve written about Homewood before. Because they enroll students from all over the county, they have no dedicated PTA to do the kinds of volunteering and fundraising that can be so crucial to support students and school programs. Above you will see two ways that you can help. 

1. Purchase food to support Thanksgiving meals for Homewood families.

2. Contribute to their Holiday Treasure Sale.

Both of these initiatives hint at what many students bring with them to Homewood. It’s not some innate “undesirable” quality that merits separating them from their home school. It’s poverty.  More than 60% of Homewood's alternative education students qualify for Free and Reduced Meals. Chronic poverty and food insecurity does not make one a bad kid but it certainly can make it hard to be the kid one wants to be.

Over the past several weeks I’ve seen some impassioned posts from parents of Homewood students. They’d like the rest of us to know that Homewood is a place that makes room for kids who are in crisis, who are struggling, or who just plain fell through the cracks at their home school and had no network of support. They don’t want their children to be endangered by the possibility of violent offenders any more than you do.

The Homewood Center website can tell you a lot about what goes on there. I’d love to see a comprehensive description of the process whereby a student is enrolled at Homewood. I wish the general public were better informed as to who goes there and why. I think they’d find that their preconceived notions are grossly inaccurate and that Homewood is a resource we all should be supporting.

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In keeping with my Local HoCo recommendations, here’s one from Western Howard County. 

In Western HoCo at 13554 Triadelphia Rd, Glenelg (Ellicott City, MD  21042) in an old church there are 3 independent shops worth visiting:

1. Twin Thrift Vintage (vintage and pre-loved decor)

2. Cultivate Garden & Goods at Lauren’s Garden Service (home/gift/ bath, etc.. all nature inspired theme) 

3. Westwood Unique Furniture & Home (home furnishings & antiques)