Recycled eyeglasses provide the gift of sight

Check The Weekly this week. Inside you will find a special collection bag for use in the Bangor Lions Club “Recycle for Sight” program being conducted May 13-17 with the help of Sawyer Environmental Services.

You are being asked to place used eyeglasses in this bag and put the bag on top of your trash. As Sawyer employees work their normal collection route next week, they will collect the bags of used eyeglasses.

Bangor Lions Club President Russ Lumley hopes Bangor residents will get behind this effort.

“There is no easier way to help people in need than to give up something you are not using,” he said. “The Lions Club will make sure those who are in need receive the donations that the community shares with us.”

Lions Club members will meet the trucks at the disposal site, assemble the glasses, and forward them to a southern Maine reprocessing center, Lumley said.

Those that can be used to help Mainers without glasses will stay in the state, and the excess forwarded to wherever the next-greatest need exists. “They could end up anywhere,” said Lumley of used glasses that are distributed worldwide.

All types of glasses for children and adults are acceptable, including exceptionally strong or weak prescriptions. Reading glasses and sunglasses are also in demand.

For more than 60 years, Lions Club International has been recycling used eyeglasses. The local program provides new glasses for 75 to 100 people a year in the Greater Bangor area.

Bangor residents who do not have trash collection, or those who live outside the area but want to participate, may leave the bag at any distinctly marked eyeglass collection point throughout the city.

They say it’s a “hairbrained” idea, and they are right. Bangor Mall Manager Roy Daigle and Marketing Director Karen Cole want to help raise funds for the Children’s Miracle Network and help Project Arian meet its $100,000 goal.

Here’s the plan. Several Bangor bigwigs agreed to participate in the Bangor Mall fund-raiser “Shave or Save.” Starting Friday, you will find photographs of those bigwigs mounted on a display at the Mall’s Center Court. Nearby will be envelopes for your donation. The envelopes will have the person’s name and “Shave” or “Save.”

You donate money to the person whose head you would most like to see shaved, or whose hair you would most like to save. Your donation is your vote. At 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29, the “votes” will be tallied and one person will end up in the barber chair.

Here are some of the candidates: Daigle, representing Bangor Mall; Bonnie Haghkerdar, representing Husson College and the mother of 12-year-old bone marrow transplant recipient Arian Haghkerdar; Joe Cyr, Cyr Bus Lines; Mike Crowley, Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce; Randy Harriman, Bangor Police Department; U.S. Rep. John Baldacci; Bill Cohen, Bangor Hydro; Mark Woodward, Bangor Daily News; Bangor City Manager Ed Barrett; Larry Mahaney, Webber Energy Corp., Ed Youngblood, Bangor Savings Bank; Richard Stone, Standard Electric; Gen. Wilfred Hessert, Maine Air National Guard; Steve Robbins, Steve Robbins Creative Services; Brewer Mayor Donna Thornton; and Joe Savoy, United Bikers of Maine.

When the $100,000 Project Arian goal is reached, Arian will finally shave the head of CMN director Pat LaMarche whose “hairbrained” fund-raising scheme this was in the first place.

We urge you to attend the eighth annual Yard and Bake Sale sponsored by the Duck Cove Community Club from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Little Yellow Schoolhouse on Route 46 in Bucksport. Browse, buy, or just make a donation. Every penny counts.

Some proceeds help maintain this century-old building that is on the National Register of Historic Places. Other proceeds benefit many community needs including Students Against Drunk Driving, Friends of Fort Knox, Bucksport Day Care, and Bucksport Community Concerns.

The sale takes place rain or shine. If you can contribute to the sale and want to know how to make a donation, financial or otherwise, call any of the following numbers: 469-2805, 468-2850, or 469-2197.

The annual Retired Senior Volunteer Program Celebrity Waiters Dinner and Auction the end of April was the most successful ever, according to staff member Bunny Barclay, raising $6,000.

“Everyone had a great time. The Roaring Twenties theme went over well, and the people at Pilots Grill, Bill Zoidis and his daughter, Paulette, were super,” Barclay said. “They fed our waiters free before the auction. Rory Johnston, our auctioneer was great. We thank them, and everyone who participated.”

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