Families in the area that are caring for a relative who has memory loss or confusion from Alzheimer’s disease or related memory disorders have a wonderful new opportunity to provide that individual with social and recreational activities, and provide respite for caregivers.

My Friend’s Place is a nonprofit adult day care center that will welcome its first participants from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, beginning mid-April, in the Fireside Room of the First United Methodist Church, 703 Essex St., in Bangor.

Barbara Fister of Hampden is director of My Friend’s Place, which is funded by a grant from the Brookdale Foundation, local support and minimal participant fees.

Eastern Agency on Aging, the First United Methodist Church and the Maine Alzheimer’s Association are providing in-kind support.

Members of the church are making the facility available.

As a way of introducing this new service in the community, and a way to raise funds for a program meant to serve those not yet at the stage where they must move into a residential care facility, My Friend’s Place is planning a fund-raiser. A bean supper to benefit My Friend’s Place is planned for 5 p.m. Saturday, March 31, at the First United Methodist Church.

Featuring baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, casseroles, rolls, bread and dessert, the cost is $5.50 for adults and $3 for children under 12.

Here you will have an opportunity to enjoy a meal prepared by the wonderful cooks of the church and to learn more about this program, which will be a blessing for many local families.

The mission of My Friend’s Place is “to provide adults a safe, supportive and friendly environment that offers life-enriching social and recreational activities and respite for caregivers.”

If you have not visited the FUMC, you will find it a most welcoming environment.

And whether you or a family member could benefit directly from this new service, attending the bean supper would be a fine way to show your support for this grass-roots, community-based program.

For more information about the supper, or about My Friend’s Place programs, call Fister at 945-0122.

Because many families and students in our circulation area have participated in the American Field Service Intercultural Program by hosting or being an AFS exchange student, Mary Jo Sanger of Orono invites others to learn what it means to become associated with AFS.

Sanger is the local AFS representative, and she writes that AFS, the oldest and largest existing youth exchange program with more than 50 years’ experience, is inviting area families to open their homes and hearts to an AFS exchange student.

Students age 15 to 18, from one of 55 countries, spend one school year with a local family.

Many of the students form lifetime bonds with their host family as they keep in touch through the years.

For example, Sanger said, “In 1954, my husband’s family hosted an AFS student from Germany.”

Mike Mueller attended Bangor High School and has always kept in touch with his “Bangor family.” He most recently visited in 1999, and the Sangers will visit him and his family this summer. For more information about hosting an AFS student, call Nancy Grant in Orono at 866-4542 or (800) 876-2377.

If your child is interested in becoming an AFS student and going abroad for a year, a semester or the summer, call the above number for information.

We hope interested Piscataquis County high school juniors and seniors have signed up at their guidance offices to attend the Career Fair from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, at Tri-County Technical Center in Dexter.

More than 30 individuals and business representatives have volunteered to answer questions about what they do and what it takes to work in their chosen careers.

Among those volunteers will be people who work in the fields of insurance, manufacturing, banking, medicine, publishing, teaching, logging, public safety and the military. The snow date is Thursday, March 29.

Many homes and offices will be much brighter places this week as the American Cancer Society celebrates Daffodil Days today through Saturday, March 31.

The traditional “first flower of spring” is also considered the “first flower of hope” since contributions of those purchasing the flowers benefit the ACS.

While most of the flowers have been preordered through the ACS for delivery this week, other bunches of ACS daffodils will be sold at locations throughout the circulation area.

For example, Bill Knight of Hudson said that he and fellow members of the Penobscot Voiture Local 427 of the 40-8 of the American Legion would sell daffodils for the ACS.

Members of the 40-8 will be at Marden’s in Brewer during regular business hours Wednesday, March 28; Thursday, March 29; and Friday, March 30.

The goal of the ACS this year is to raise $3.2 million through sales of the bright yellow flowers throughout New England.

Since it is estimated that more than 7,000 Mainers are living with cancer, we hope if you haven’t already ordered your ACS daffodils, that you will purchase them where they are available, and help support the work of the ACS.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402;

990-8288.