Arnold Resident Is Dedicated To Serving Others

From classrooms to the Ballet Theatre of Maryland, Debbie Mayer never stops finding ways to support others.

After moving from New Jersey to the Annapolis area in the early ‘80s, Mayer worked as an airspace systems engineer at ARINC (now Collins Aerospace). Then, Mayer and her husband, Joe, started a family, and her priorities shifted.

“My husband and I have raised five children here and they all still live in the area - and we now have three grandchildren,” she said. “We lived in Annapolis until 2003 and then we moved to Arnold in the Glen Oban neighborhood. We just love the area, love the water, and it was a great place to raise a family - it’s home.”

Once her family started growing, Mayer stayed home to raise her kids, which is when she began volunteering. And once it started, it evolved and grew over the years.

“I started volunteering in the classroom, and then my daughter was a dancer and she started dancing at Maryland Hall, and that’s how I got involved there,” Mayer said. “So I started volunteering and then I became a board member, and that kind of evolved into the schools. I was on the board of the Severna Park High School Booster Club, and I did a lot of work at St. Mary’s with the athletic association and the classrooms.”

After raising athletic kids, Mayer has developed a distinct passion for the arts.

“I like what it does for the whole person - the well-roundedness of it - and I really just enjoy it,” she said. “Over the years, I've done many things. I’ve been on the board of the Ballet Theatre of Maryland. I’ve volunteered at all my kid’s schools. Right now, I am on the board of directors for the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts; I have chaired their Arts Alive fundraiser and will be chairing that again in 2020.”

She is also passionate about helping kids. She has supported a number of youth-oriented organizations, including The Summit School in Edgewater, which serves students with dyslexia and other learning disorders.

“Probably the best feeling was being able to help The Summit School,” Mayer recalled. “I do work with some of the kids there, and I've worked at their summer camp, and I tutor at the Summit Resource Center.”

Every year, the Severn Town Club organizes and hosts the Holly Ball, which collects thousands of dollars to donate to local nonprofit organizations. Money raised during last year’s Holly Ball was donated to support The Summit School’s scholarship fund.

“To be able to see the impact that going there can have on these children, and to be able to help them have the opportunity to get more kids at the school … It has an immediate impact on those kids,” she said. “They struggle; some of them have dyslexia and trouble reading; some have dysgraphia and can’t write, or dyscalculia and they can’t do math. All of that makes their self-esteem suffer and when you see that things are starting to click and you can see their confidence start to grow. The fact that we could help those children - help them get more kids in the classroom - that’s probably the best thing.”

The Severn Town Club is a group of active, diverse women whose goal it is to contribute to the greater Annapolis community through service projects. Their 56th annual Holly Ball will be Friday, November 22, at the Westin Annapolis Hotel. This year’s gala is themed “Unfold the Child Within” and will support several nonprofits throughout the county. The event’s major beneficiary is Anne Arundel County CASA, which provides Court-Appointed Special Advocates for children across the county.

“CASA is a really incredible organization that provides a constant for these children in foster care who are experiencing tremendous and almost unspeakable difficulties in their lives,” Mayer explained. “The CASA who is assigned to them will stay with them throughout their entire time in the system - they are the constant. The judge may change, the social workers may change, the lawyers may change, but their Court-Appointed Special Advocate is there to know everything: to know their teachers, to know their family, to know everyone on the legal side and report to the judge.

“It’s really amazing,” she added. “I've done a lot of volunteering from elementary schools to chairing arts events, but the people who volunteer to take this task on, these CASA volunteers, are amazing. It costs a lot to train them, and the cost of employing supervisors at CASA who work with the volunteers is enormous.”

The money earned from the Holly Ball will help them hire more people. The people they have, the more volunteers they can supervise, and the more children that can be served.

“They’re giving their all to these kids 24/7 and it’s really amazing,” Mayer said.

Along with volunteering, the Catholic University and Johns Hopkins University graduate still finds time to be a preschool teacher at Severna Park United Methodist Church. How she finds the time or energy seems unimaginable - but it’s the only way she knows how.

“I don’t think I know any different,” she said. “I just do it.”

And Mayer encourages anyone considering volunteering with any organization to just do it as well.

“Just leap in. If there's an organization you’re interested in, just pick up the phone and ask if there’s a way that you can help.”

The Holly Ball will include hors d'oeuvres, dinner and dancing, along with a raffle and silent auction. For more information, or to purchase tickets to the event, visit www.severntownclub.org/56th-holly-ball-information or email SevernTownClub@gmail.com.

To learn more about CASA, visit www.aacasa.org.