"I have a friend who had a situation where she was being abused and nobody knew," said Laura Wright, an Annapolis resident who owns Liu Liu Salon in Eastport. "A lot of times these women have to run out of their house, grab their kids and get out of there ... they don't even have night clothes to wear." This holiday season, Wright and her employees at Liu Liu Salon are giving back to women in need by collecting nightgowns for victims of domestic violence. The salon will donate items to Arden House, a local women's shelter for those suffering from domestic violence run by the YWCA.  So far…

Joe Van Deuren, owner of the Balanced Life Skills studio, knows that martial arts are all about self-defense. It's just that he's broadened the definition of self-defense to include a wide variety of assaults, not only the physical ones. That's the hallmark of his martial arts business on Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, a studio that offers classes to kids and adults. He teaches that self-defense is more than kicking and punching; it includes anger management, healthy eating and environmental protection. Helping others also plays into the self-defense equation, so Van Deuren makes sure …

Joe Van Deuren, owner of the Balanced Life Skills studio, knows that martial arts are all about self-defense. It's just that he's broadened the definition of self-defense to include a wide variety of assaults, not only the physical ones. That's the hallmark of his martial arts business on Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, a studio that offers classes to kids and adults. He teaches that self-defense is more than kicking and punching; it includes anger management, healthy eating and environmental protection. Helping others also plays into the self-defense equation, so Van Deuren makes sure …

Perhaps you've seen crowds of people gathered at the Farmers Market on the corner of Riva Road and Harry S. Truman Parkway close to Christmas and wondered what they were doing. 'Tis the season of giving and there's one organization that is known countywide for doing just that – Giving Back, Linda's Legacy. Started 20 years ago by a former Annapolis resident, Linda Greenberg, the charitable organization is now headed by Steve Anstett of Severna Park. For this nonprofit group, providing warm clothing to the homeless has grown to become a production of massive proportion this time of year with…

Murray Hill resident Lynne Davidson was one of the founding members of a giving circle in Annapolis that helps people all over the county. A giving circle is such a simple, yet powerful, concept. A group of individuals pool their donation dollars and direct this money towards causes chosen by the group. Over the past several years, the giving-circle concept has swept across the country. As of 2007, a Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers' study identified more than 400 circles encompassing 12,000 donors. Collectively, these circles had donated about $100 million. That was three years …

A giving circle is such a simple, yet powerful, concept. A group of individuals pool their donation dollars and direct this money towards causes chosen by the group. Over the past several years, the giving-circle concept has swept across the country. As of 2007, a study by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers identified more than 400 circles encompassing 12,000 donors. Collectively, these circles had donated about $100 million. That was three years ago; the phenomenon has only grown larger since then. Anne Arundel County hasn't been left behind in this new wave of philanthropy. …

You go to the Angel Tree at the mall and donate a toy, a coat, or hat and gloves. You go to the Food Bank and drop off canned goods. Or you donate money to the Light House Shelter or to a family in need in your church. Yet, you wonder whether it has made a difference.  You never get the opportunity to see the faces of the recipients throughout the holiday season so you have no way of knowing the impact you have had on their lives.  Your generosity makes all the difference in the world. The gifts you give this year will be remembered years from now.  I can tell you this because I have been on …

For what seemed like hours, I stood in the middle of a toy aisle with my son and two daughters. They were each holding up school supplies, books, trinkets and puzzles. We were trying to determine which ones would fit in a shoe box. When I had to put a puzzle back on the shelf because it was too wide, my son looked defeated. "I thought a boy would really like that one as a gift," he said. "I wish we could send a bigger box." My family and I participated in packing shoe boxes full of tiny gifts as part of Operation Christmas Child (OCC) through Heritage Baptist Church in Annapolis. More than …