Your participation in the H.O.M.E. Inc. annual Craft and Farm Fair Saturday, Aug. 17, and Sunday, Aug. 18, in Orland, means more than you can imagine.

“As you recall, we sustained a pretty bad fire here,” Sister Marie Ahern said of a fire at the end of July that destroyed the facility’s shingle mill.

“And even though this whole fair is to help [support] our shelters, it will also help our spirits if people will support us.”

Ahern added that “insurance will rebuild the buildings and maybe replace the shingle building, but we lost all our chain saws, weed whackers, and everything else.”

For more than three decades, H.O.M.E. has served as “a cooperative community dedicated to economic and social reconstruction.”

Originally an outlet for home workers’ crafts, H.O.M.E. now has seven shelters, a free health clinic, a soup kitchen, food bank and learning center. It offers job and craft training as well as an alternative high school and college-level programs.

Among the Saturday activities are a blueberry pancake breakfast at 7:30 a.m., a clinic and demonstration by well-known equestrian Lawrence Poulin, and a fish fry at 5:30 p.m.

You can also enjoy “a big barbecue starting at 11 a.m. both days,” Ahern added.

The public is invited to attend chapel service at 9 a.m. Sunday, “and our giant auction is Sunday at 1 p.m.”

Reports are that the auction is going to be the biggest and best ever, and items will be on display beginning at 11 a.m.

Up for auction will be a Hitchcock side chair, an antique Victorian oak commode, an antique floor-model doctor’s scale and a new mahogany bedroom set.

Home furnishings from a Connecticut estate, household goods, gift certificates, children’s items and food are among the multitude of bidding opportunities available to you.

Ahern added, “The whole theme of the fair is helping the homeless,” which people can do “by coming here and supporting us.”

The Ellsworth Garden Club’s third annual Garden Sale is 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at Shaw’s Supermarket in Ellsworth.

The club’s Second Vice President Betty Ray, who also serves as the club’s ways and means chairwoman, wrote that proceeds from the sale will help the EGC “to maintain the Donald A. Little Memorial Park.”

And, she added, club members extend their grateful appreciation to the staff at Shaw’s “for their assistance in this annual event.”

The sale will feature fresh flowers and vegetables, dried and fresh flower arrangements, as well as “wreaths and dried flowers for those who like to make their own arrangements,” she wrote.

You can also purchase baked goods, jams and jellies and gardening items.

And, for today’s history lesson, Ray explained that, in 1949, the EGC “secured ownership of the half-acre of land bounded by State, Birch and School streets” in Ellsworth.

That acquisition came about through donations of funds and materials and the “dedication of many [club] members, individuals and community businesses,” as well as the assistance of civic organizations and contributions from the city of Ellsworth and the town of Lamoine, Ray added.

After two years of development, the park was dedicated in July 1955, in honor of 1st Lt. Little, who was killed in action in October 1952, while serving with the U.S. military in Korea.

Fifty-six young people attending China Lake Music Camp are appearing in Marty Haugen’s “Agape, the Stories and the Feast,” in three area performances.

Their first performance will be 7 tonight, Aug. 16, at First Baptist Church of Bangor, 56 Center St.

Under the leadership of Michelle Wakeman, choral director of the First Baptist Church of Belfast, the campers also will appear at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at First Baptist Church of Gardiner, and at 10:55 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 18, at Littlefield Memorial Baptist Church in Rockland.

Visitors and residents are reminded that the Show, Sale and Auction of quilts and related needlecrafts, sponsored by the Bagaduce Quilters Guild, begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at two sites in Castine.

A large collection of craft boutiques will be found on both floors of Emerson Hall on Court Street, and a show of quilts will be located at the Trinitarian Parish Church on Main Street, where the quilt auction begins at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Vendors include quilters, bag makers, fabric dyers, knitters and jewelry makers.

For more information, call Peggy Rogers, 326-8020 or Charleen Wiseman, 326-4105.

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