Although your days are fully occupied with preparations for the holidays, when Valentine’s Day rolls around you might be awfully happy that you participated now in the diamond ring raffle being conducted by the Health Services Foundation, affiliated with Houlton Regional Hospital.

Glynn Porter of New Limerick, an HSF committee member working on this fund-raiser, believes the raffle tickets “would make good stocking stuffers,” and she is right.

Imagine a simple, plain stocking-stuffer turning into a beautiful diamond ring, which it will, for some lucky individual.

The 1.04-carat solitaire diamond, in a gold setting, “retails for $6,750,” Porter reported. “And we are selling only 750 raffle tickets at $20 each. The drawing will be on Valentine’s Day [Thursday, Feb. 14, 2002] or when all the tickets are sold.”

Porter said sponsors are “pretty excited” about this fund-raiser.

“The ring is absolutely gorgeous,” she said. “It’s a real beauty.”

All the money raised will benefit Health Services Foundation, which provides equipment, program and educational support for area nonprofit health care agencies.

If the fund-raiser proves successful, Porter said, “it might become a yearly event.”

The diamond is on display at Goodrich Jewelers on North Road in Houlton, where raffle tickets may be purchased.

Diamond ring raffle tickets also may be purchased at Modern Beauty and Aroostook Milling in Houlton, at the HSF office at Houlton Regional Hospital and in the HRH gift shop.

Information about this fund-raiser or about obtaining tickets is available by calling Elizabeth Dulin, HSF executive director, at 532-9471, Ext. 147 or Ext. 403.

Porter reminds readers that only 750 tickets will be sold, and that the exact time, day and date of the drawing “is yet to be announced.”

Through the efforts of country musician Tom Salisbury of Ellsworth, 130 children will have a happier holiday this year.

Salisbury performed recently at a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, raising $4,500 for the “Christmas is for Kids” program sponsored by KISS 94.5 and Lucky 99 radio.

The annual program, which purchases Christmas presents for needy children living in Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis and Waldo counties, is expected to bring holiday cheer to 1,200 needy young people this year.

This is the sixth year that Salisbury has performed for this benefit.

His fund-raiser has been so well-received that he is planning to move it, next year, from the VFW Hall to the larger Ellsworth Middle School, to accommodate more comfortably all who wish to attend.

Salisbury graciously shares credit for the success of this event with other volunteers in the area who assisted in the fund raising.

The Maine Association of Nonprofits reminds you that by visiting its Web site, you can give “Gifts that Give Twice” this holiday season.

The MANP Web site features a section by that name which allows MANP members to post items being sold as fund-raisers during the holiday, as well as information about gift membership and donation programs.

MANP project coordinator Brenda Peluso explained that “when people buy an item from a nonprofit for holiday giving, they are really giving twice” since you are not just purchasing something for someone on your holiday list, you also are providing financial support to a nonprofit organization in Maine.

Nonprofits with information on the “Gifts that Give Twice” section of the MANP Web site are the Pine Tree Society, Shalom House, Friends of Casco Bay, Theatre at Monmouth, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, Maine Cancer Foundation, Maine Children’s Alliance and the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute.

The MANP Web site is www.nonprofitmaine.org.

The gifts link is www.nonprofitmaine.org/gifts.html.

The mission of the MANP, now in its eighth year, “is to strengthen the leadership, voice and organizational effectiveness” of Maine’s “nonprofits so that they can better enrich the quality of community and personal life in Maine.”

Janet Spencer, director of Bangor Region Partners for Health, proudly reports that representatives of several area businesses attended a “No Buts” program sponsored by her organization recently at the Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business at Husson College in Bangor.

She explained that the program was designed to help teach small business owners “how to identify underage tobacco purchasers” and, thus, avoid a fine.

“It was well-attended,” Spencer wrote while adding that many of those taking part “commented on how valuable the training was to them.”

Small-business owners represented at the “No Buts” program include Reid’s Confectionery Co. of Bangor, with 21 locations statewide; Main Street Discount Tobacco and Burby and Bates Beverage, both of Orono; C&K Variety of Levant; TJ’s of Orrington; R&K Variety of Hampden; Tozier’s Market of Brewer and Searsport; Young’s Market and Hammond-Ohio Street Variety of Bangor; and Dysart’s of Bangor, Newburgh, Hampden, Holden and Orono.

Mike, Janice and Traci Rainone of East Greenwich, R.I., wrote the Bangor Daily News recently to report that when Traci was returning to the University of Maine on Sunday evening, Nov. 11, she experienced car trouble.

She left her car on the ramp at Exit 32, and walked, in the dark, only “to find that there was nowhere to get help at that exit,” they wrote.

“We notified the Maine State Police and want to sincerely thank them for promptly sending an officer to wait with Traci until AAA arrived.”

The family also extends its thanks “to the tow truck driver for taking her safely to her dorm in Orono.”

“Maine is a beautiful state, and we know firsthand it is full of wonderful people. Much thanks!”

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.