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The Mpambara-Cox Foundation has met its goal of collecting 1,000 used or new backpacks for school children in Africa with help from schools, businesses and individuals in Montgomery County.

The Pack a Backpack program provides school supplies and personal items to economically disadvantaged children in Africa, said founder and President Anita Mpambara-Cox of Derwood.

Mpambara-Cox said the program started in 2009 — an outgrowth of the Mpambara-Cox Foundation, which began in May 2008 — with several Maryland schools being partnered with schools in Uganda. During the first year, the program collected 406 backpacks with help from Sequoyah Elementary School in Derwood, Piney Branch Elementary School in Silver Spring and Journey's Crossing of Gaithersburg.

This year, the program collected 1,000 backpacks. Deloitte Consulting LLP employees from Rockville, Gaithersburg and Bethesda have volunteered to sort and assemble the backpacks on Friday.

Students from participating schools included personal messages and additional supplies in the backpacks.

"We're letting children know that by recycling their backpacks, they are helping a child across the world, and helping them to understand that they are part of something greater than just a backpack itself," Mpambara-Cox said.

Mpambara-Cox said students often stop going to school for long periods of time or drop out of school altogether due to the lack of resources, the long walking distances to schools or having to help out the family financially with work such as subsistence farming.

Six elementary schools participated in the backpack drive. The foundation also received donations from Bob and Ann Dickman of Rockville and groups and businesses such as Deloitte, Bag Republic, Hill's Gymnastics Training Center, Kicks Karate, Church of Christ at Manor Woods and Scout Bags by Bungalow.

The non-profit Mpambara-Cox Foundation provides basic needs and supplies to African children through partnerships between primary schools in Africa and the United States.

For more information, visit www.mcoxfoundation.org or e-mail info@mcoxfoundation.org.

A mitzvah for wife

of fallen officer

Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac held a baby shower May 23 for the wife of a Montgomery County police officer who died in the line of duty in April.

Officer Hector Ayala, who worked in the police department's Fourth District, which serves Aspen Hill, Olney, Wheaton and other communities, left behind a wife, pregnant with triplets, and a 14-month old son. Last fall, Ayala helped provide security for the synagogue during its High Holy Day services. Not only did the congregation have a personal connection with him, but they were touched by the story of the Ayala family, said congregant Barbara Kaplowitz.

"A lot of the conversations were just about how sad it was that the widow is not only grieving, but she's going to have four children under the age of 2," Kaplowitz said. "We wanted to offer support and do anything we can to help her."

Members of the congregation donated diapers, clothes, toiletries, toys, equipment, gift cards and money to the family.

The shower was held as part of the Ilene Abrams Spring Mitzvah Day program and also fulfilled a religious mandate to support widows and orphans.

"I just think it touched a chord with our community just as it did with the general population," Kaplowitz said.

Bringing his father's work

to Aspen Hill church

Conductor and music director John Edward Niles will lead a special choir performance of his father's work at 11 a.m. Sunday at Millian Memorial United Methodist Church in Aspen Hill.

Niles, of Silver Spring, is the son of late American composer and folk artist John Jacob Niles, and will conduct a performance of his father's 1951 "Lamentation: A Biblical Oratorio." The work is based on Old Testament texts and poetry by John Jacob Niles.

Millian's Chancel Choir and soloists will perform the rare piece, which includes John Jacob Niles' songs "Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head" and "I Wonder as I Wander."

Niles said he never conducted the work. "It's a new experience, and I'm really looking forward to it," he said.

John Edward Niles received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1967 and a Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music in 1969. He has been awarded grants from the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation, and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study advanced conducting in Hamburg, Germany.

He has studied with world-renowned conductors and has conducted for playhouse and opera house productions in the United States and Germany. Niles served as director of the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge, Va., since 1978, and is the artistic director/conductor of the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia.

A biography of his father titled "I Wonder as I Wander" is set to be released in September.

For more information about the event, visit www.millianchurch.com or call Elaine Dalbo, director of music, at 301-946-2500. The church is at 13016 Parkland Drive.

Partying for a cause

Four Robert Frost Middle School sixth-graders teamed up recently to collect items for the homeless, and all in lieu of birthday gifts.

The four girls banded together to celebrate their 12th birthdays, but rather than asking for presents, they collected more than $1,300 in monetary donations and gift cards to Giant, Safeway, Target, CVS and Toys ‘R Us, along with toiletries and sports equipment to donate to the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless.

The girls — Sara Keller, Emma Strauss, Shelbie Fishman and Lindsey Capitelli — organized the donations as they were hatching ideas for service projects for their bat mitzvahs. They also plan on taking a prepared meal to the coalition's Men's Emergency Shelter.

Pitching in to help out

The Progress Club Foundation of Rockville held a Baseball Dinner in April, raising enough money to divide $10,000 among the Rockville Baseball Association and Gaithersburg and Col. Zadok Magruder high school baseball programs.

The club gave $3,000 to help replace the press box at Gaithersburg High School after burned down a few months ago, organizer David Meyers reported.

More than 150 people attended the April 26 fundraiser, whose guests featured former Washington Senators baseball players such as Frank Howard and Fred Valentine, Meyers reported.

Next Science Café to discuss space program

The Rockville Science Center will hold its next Science Café at 7 p.m. June 16, featuring a discussion by Sten Odenwald titled "Where Next NASA?".

The event will be held at Branded 72 restaurant, 387 E. Gude Drive in Rockville.

A tour of Aeras Global TB Foundation in Rockville will be held 2 to 4 p.m. June 23. Reservations are required by calling Ruth Hanessian at 301-674-7884.

The Rockville Science Center is a nonprofit organization intended to develop a facility that presents science to people of all ages. For more information, visit www.RockvilleScienceCenter.org or call Hanessian.

Items appropriate for this column should be sent to Mimi Liu, Staff Writer, or Judith Hruz, Editor, The Rockville/Aspen Hill Gazette, 9030 Comprint Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20877; faxed to 301-670-7182 or 301-670-7183; or e-mailed to mliu@gazette.net or jhruz@gazette.net. Deadline is Thursday at 5 p.m. for consideration for the following week. Items are used on a space-available basis.