Members of the Newburgh Volunteer Fire Department need your help to enable them to more effectively protect the property and lives of those they serve in this small community.

Volunteer firefighter Skip Smith called me recently to explain that the NVFD is holding an auction at 7 p.m. Friday, May 31, at the Town Hall on Route 9 in Newburgh.

“We are raising money to purchase equipment for a new fire truck” the department recently acquired, he said. “We were unable to get all the money we needed for that equipment.”

Smith said the department would like to be able to add “more hoses and pumps,” for example, “which we have on our older truck, but we would like to really get the new one outfitted well, and this will help get some of it.”

And while the members of the NVFD want people to attend that auction at the end of the month, what they need now is your donations and contributions.

They want to have a wide variety of items to put on the auction block so that Frank Coombs, of the Hampden Fire Department, will have a great time getting your bids up really, really high.

Coombs “is good at it,” Smith said, “and he is more than willing to run it for us.”

Individuals and businesses have already made donations to the auction, Smith said, including such items as savings bonds and 100 gallons of heating oil.

But many more donations are needed for this event to raise funds to help purchase equipment for that new truck.

Products large and small, and gift certificates to everything from theatres to restaurants would be greatly appreciated.

If you have something you can donate to the Newburgh Volunteer Fire Department for its auction, call Smith at 234-4475, or Assistant Fire Chief Glen Williamson at 234-2599.

From Walter Cook of Brownville comes an invitation for you to attend a chicken pie supper from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 11, at the Brownville Junction Methodist Church.

Admission is $6.50 for adults and $3 for children. The menu features chicken pie, peas, mashed potatoes, carrots, rolls and an assortment of desserts.

If, by chance, you or your mom has to work on Mother’s Day, here’s an opportunity to treat her the night before.

To raise funds to help members of Cub Scout Pack 64 of Enfield attend Camp Roosevelt this summer, a pancake breakfast is planned for 7 to 10 a.m. Saturday, May 11, at the Enfield Station School.

The menu is pancakes, sausage, milk, juice and coffee, and admission is $5 for adults and $2.50 for children.

This sounds like a lot of fun for the kids.

Bernie Hussey of the Ellsworth Highway Department is bringing some of the department’s big machines to the Ellsworth Public Library for a “Special Storytime” at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 11.

The machines will be in the library’s parking lot, and youngsters will have a chance to get right up close to them and learn what these powerful machines can do.

Brewer Middle School teachers Kathy Schwigan and Brenda Meehan are hosting a benefit yard sale from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, May 11, at BMS, 5 Somerset St., Brewer.

Proceeds will help purchase trees for Chamberlain Park, and purchase plants and landscaping items for the school’s yard.

For the last three years, Schwigan’s science classes have ended their unit on ecology “by using what we learned about sustaining a healthy environment to create an environmentally safe schoolyard habitat,” she explained.

Her students “have established flower beds, made steppingstones, purchased bird feeders and purchased trees and shrubs,” she wrote.

The Carmel Fireman’s Auxiliary is hosting a benefit supper beginning at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 11, at the Golden Harvest Grange in Carmel.

The meal includes ham, potatoes, corn, and pie for dessert.

Admission is by donation, and three baskets will be raffled during the benefit.

Verna Nelson has donated a Pamper Me basket; Arlene Newey donated a basket of Avon items; and Opal Smith donated a basket of Hanna’s Pancake & Syrup products.

Raffle tickets are $1 each, and are available from any Auxiliary member or by calling Anne Crowley, 848-3877 or Suzan Bowers, 848-3322.

Funds raised will help with the purchase of a thermal imaging camera for the department.

Crowley, who is president of the Auxiliary, extends the group’s thanks to everyone who attended, and donated to, its recent Basket Beano, at which more than $3,800 was made, bringing the total to $7,715 the group has raised towards the purchase of the camera.

Sandy Fortin, one of those working to raise funds to enable the fourth-grade Destination ImagiNation team from Weatherbee School in Hampden to compete in the DI global tournament May 22-26 in Tennessee, called to report a couple of changes in fund-raising plans.

First, rather than there being four winners of the lobster raffle, now there will be only one winner of 20 pounds of lobster. Raffle tickets are $1 each and can be obtained from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 18, at the Children’s Fair yard sale at Hampden Academy.

And, she said, the date for the silent auction and a “contributors thank-you” ice cream social, originally Friday, May 31, has been rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 29, at Weatherbee School.

Fortin added that the ice cream social at 6:30 tonight in the Weatherbee School Gym, features a live Pampered Chef demonstration.

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