Around Maryland

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) says he plans to use an additional $33 million in reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to fund resident services and programs, including food distribution and small business support funding. The county had already received $117 million in reimbursements for COVID-19 pandemic related expenditures, and has applied for a total of $280 million.

Last fall, Hagerstown officials asked the Washington County Community Lobbying Coalition for help in securing state money for a needed study of water system needs. The coalition is a group spearheaded by the Greater Hagerstown Committee and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce to support local interests with the state government. And the water study was an issue with broader implications than just for the city, as more than half of Hagerstown’s water customers are outside the city limits.

Harmer’s Town Art Center, Inc., is one step closer to its goal of becoming a first-of-its-kind regional art facility and art incubator in Havre de Grace after receiving $3.35 million in federal funding to begin rehabbing a vacated Market Street space. The nonprofit arts center aims to renovate a 34,000-square-foot space at 119 and 123 Market St., which will become its new home.

Fifth-grade teacher Melissa Carpenter works a 10-hour day on average during the week, and her job sometimes requires her to put in hours on weekends, too. “I feel like teaching is one of those jobs where we go to work to do more work — to do work after work,” said Carpenter, who teaches at William B. Wade Elementary School in Waldorf, in Charles County. Carpenter’s long hours are far from unique among Maryland’s educators, as the state and nation grapple with a teacher shortage.

Every Tuesday evening, Hannah Choi jumps online to join two-dozen high school students for lessons in advocacy. They are all interns with BIPOC [biracial, indigenous, people of color] Montgomery County Green New Deal, a program created by the nonprofit National Institute for Peer Support, which organizes the weekly training workshops. It’s here where Choi and her peers learn to strategize to advance the environmental and social change they want to see.

In June 2022, a month after human monkeypox cases began spreading around the world, Baltimore City Health Department workers looked to scale up their inventory of test kits, informational handouts and vaccine supplies to prevent the infectious disease from gaining a foothold in the city. Within a month, the World Health Organization would declare the spread of the disease a global public-health emergency, and President Joe Biden’s administration followed suit a month later.