March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Bangor Beautiful wants membership to grow

Let’s put it in its own terms: Bangor Beautiful is recycling itself. It is working to cultivate a new membership that will ensure the growth of the organization and fulfill its mission of providing leadership in voluntary recycling and beautification through education and example.

Program director Dick Stockford said, “We want our organization to become more membership-driven. In the past, it’s been driven by a board of directors concerned with recycling and beautification.

“But we would like to draw in more people, not necessarily people interested in serving on the board, but people who would like to have a little voice in the beautification and recycling programs in their city.”

Adult memberships are $10 a year; $20 for families; $5 for students and seniors; and $100 for a corporate membership.

An increased membership would bring together people “who could coordinate neighborhood or area cleanup efforts, small beautification efforts,” Stockford said.

“For example, if a group of neighbors have a traffic island that’s just bare dirt, they might decide to plant petunias there.”

Bangor Beautiful does have money to spend to help make the city more attractive. “We just need to know,” Stockford said. “We need to have it brought to our attention.”

The organization may be best known for sponsoring the annual Bangor Garden Show. This year’s seventh annual show is slated for April 4-6.

In addiiton to that effort, Bangor Beautiful has led three successful Kenduskeag Stream Cleanup efforts, removing more than 100 tons of trash from the area.

It helped organize Bangor’s Voluntary Curbside Recycling Program that Stockford describes “as one of the most successful in the state,” and published the quarterly Recycling Newsletter.

The Community Gardens at Bass Park is another project in cooperation with Penobscot Master Gardeners and BB imitated the local Outdoor Gardening Contest.

The new board includes President Jerry Hughes, Vice President Paul Pattison, Secretary Dave Wheelock and Treasurer Irv Marsters. Stockford, Bangor’s retired police chief, runs the program from the Bangor Beautiful office in the Public Works building at 350 Maine Ave.

“The message we would like to get out is that we are looking for the ideas and energy of people who are concerned about beautification and recycling issues,” Stockford stated.

“In return for a modest membership fee and a little time, we offer a chance to make a positive impact on the quality of life in Bangor.”

Direct inquiries to Stockford at 990-1201.

We love the mascot of Washington County organizations that helps promote their area. Even his name is great.

He is Mainer’d, a moose dressed in a southwester and boots with a lobster that could, frankly, pass as a large crab clinging to his pocket. Take your pick. We think it’s a lobster.

Anyway. Mainer’d and Joanne Williams, representing the Washington County Promotions Board, and Downeast Resource Conservation and Development, encourage Washington and Hancock county folk to contribute to the Downeast Calendar of Events, a project of the DRCD Vacationland Resources Committee.

The March to December calendar features local church suppers, festivals, concerts and other community events.

Towns, organizations and individuals are invited to provide listings for the calendar.

That information should include the name, date, time and location of the event, a brief explanation, and a contact phone number.

The calendar will be available to local media, chambers of commerce, and state tourism offices. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 1.

Send your information to Downeast Calendar, P.O. Box 605, Machias 04654.

Williams and Mainer’d will thank you.

Peter Phillips and Nancy Scovern, coordinators for the Penquis Dispute Resolution Center of Penquis Community Action Program in Bangor, wrote the Bangor Daily News to express thanks for a Jan. 6 article describing Foxcroft Academy’s Peer Mediation Program.

The training for students and student coordinator Doreen Emerson at the Dover-Foxcroft school was the first for PDRC.

Since then, students have been trained at Brewer High School, Penobscot Job Corps Center in Bangor, Penquis Valley middle and high schools in Milo, and middle schools in Dedham and Holbrook. Plans are under way for training at a middle school in Hancock County.

Phillips and Scovern want readers to know that services of PDRC are available to those who wish to take advantage of them. “Public awareness and education about alternative ways of resolving conflict is increasingly important these days,” they wrote.

For information, call them at 973-3585 or 973-3586.

The Standpipe, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.


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