The philosophy of giving and community participation, shared by the staff members of Orchard Development and Armiger Management, is led by the founder and COO of Orchard Development, L. Earl Armiger, and the founder of its sister company, Armiger Management, Mary T. Armiger. Their extensive community service and the continuing efforts of corporate staff as well as the staff at our communities, includes support of these and other organizations:

• Grassroots Crisis Center
• The Columbia Festival of the Arts
• The Vantage House Foundation
• Howard County Arts Council
• The Columbia Foundation
• Howard County General Hospital
• Howard Community College
• McDaniel College
• The College of Notre Dame
• The Domestic Violence Center
• The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
• Howard County Senior Expo
• Archdiocese of Baltimore
• Columbia Center for the Theatrical Arts
• The Silas Craft Scholarship Fund at Howard Community College
• Local Food Banks

Orchard Summer Camp

The Orchard Summer Camp was founded by Armiger Management in cooperation with the Department of Recreation and Parks, to provide a 6-week summer camp for children from one of the county’s public housing developments, in addition to two Orchard communities. The camp served the children of working families, many of them single-income households, who lacked the means or the opportunity for summer activities for their children.

“The combined efforts of so many caring people came together for the benefit of the county’s greatest asset, its children.”

Jim Rouse Theatre

Howard County, Maryland, has a new, 750-seat performing arts theater that has become a national model of how a suburban community of 200,000 can have such a facility that allows world class performances, is a venue for local nonprofit groups, and serves as a state-of-the-art teaching facility for high school students. The Howard County Chamber of Commerce asked Earl Armiger to spearhead fundraising from the business community to support its construction. Within six months, Earl had raised the required funds. For this effort, Earl was recognized by the Howard County Arts Council as the 1994 recipient of the prestigious “Howie Award” for outstanding business support of the arts.

The Jim Rouse Entrepreneurial Fund

While serving as President of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce in 1991, Earl Armiger perceived the need for a fund to help start up businesses financing. By the end of Earl’s term in 1992, the Jim Rouse Entrepreneurial Fund (JREF) had been chartered as a nonprofit, with Earl as its first Chairman of the Board. By the year 2000, the fund had provided over $1,000,000 in funding, leading to the creation of more than 250 new local jobs.

The Community Foundation of Howard County

During Earl Armiger’s two year term as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Columbia Foundation, he led the effort to change the name in recognition that the Foundation served the entire 300,000 population of Howard County. The Foundation had been started by Jim Rouse in 1969 and had reached $16 million in assets under Mr. Armiger’s leadership, serving 100 non-profit organizations in the County.