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RoCo discovers a community organization whose home is Howard County or whose reach extends into it.

Community Organizations

RoCo discovers a community organization whose home is Howard County or whose reach extends into it.

Diane Penkova Fink Helps Maryland Women Emerge

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I was sitting at a table for two at The Turn House in Hobbit’s Glen when I saw a woman in a blue dress approaching my table out of the corner of my eye. I knew from her dress–Democratic blue–that it was Diane Penkova Fink, the Executive Director (ED) of Emerge Maryland. “Hi, Colleen!” she said. I got up and we hugged. Emerge is, as its website states, an organization with a threefold mission: 1. Finding Democratic women who should run for office and get them into a training program. 2. Training Democratic women in the cutting-edge campaign tools they … Read more

Am I Doing Any Good? A Conversation With Becca Niburg, Esq.

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Despite that she’s as slim as can be, fit as a fiddle, and runs on little sustenance or water most days, even though they’re packed with professional and service work and mom duties and being there for her friends and keeping up with her big family, Becca Niburg asked me a couple times last week for recipe recommendations. She cooks too! But me–of all people. I’m a horrible cook. The only thing I can “make” is Basmati rice in a rice cooker. Oh, and I can boil water, too. Anyway, I decided to order Becca a cookbook online called Pakistani … Read more

A D’votional to Sustainability With Chiara D’Amore

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I was a few paragraphs into reporting on a few lovely hours I spent with the founder and president of the Community Ecology Institute, Chiara D’Amore, when it hit me–I was inside. You dolt, Colleen, I thought! I should have been writing this from the outdoors, a bench in a local park, perhaps. A bird would alight on my shoulder, and I’d smile at it. As I looked down at my computer screen, a rainbow would shoot across the sky behind me. I’d take a deep breath in, inhaling the a slightly spicy freesia scent, as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons played and…okay, … Read more

On Gun Violence Prevention In Central Maryland and Beyond

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While Colleen and I have pretty much all the same opinions on political issues, there are some that one or the other of us is more active in than the other. Gun violence prevention is sort of my thing. Soon after the wife and I came to Howard County, there were two shootings in Maryland, at Great Mills High School and the Capitol Gazzette. And while there’s something awful in its own way about violence in places that it’s less common, the long-term story of gun violence is how it harms communities of color and economic disadvantage on a daily … Read more

On Labor Organizing With Bryan Coster

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A few months back, dear readers, I sent a Facebook direct message to Sue Geckle. She’s the president of the Ellicott City and Western Howard Democratic Club (EC&WHDC) and someone we can always turn to for help of any sort. The day I messaged her, though, I was inquiring about the position of Vice President of EC&WHDC. Colleen and I had heard both that position and that of secretary of the same club were available. “Robert, I was just going to message you about the same thing,” Sue said to me. It’s funny how these things work out, I thought … Read more

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