Here is a very important request for volunteers that covers a very specific time frame and one, I hope, that some of our readers may be able to fulfill.

Roberta Macko, director of volunteer services for Eastern Agency on Aging in Bangor, contacted me with news that Cleo Sheehan, dining room manager for the Bucksport Meals for Me program, needs volunteer drivers, for just a six- to eight-week period, beginning Monday, Oct. 21.

The need is for volunteer drivers to pick up mid-day meals at the Bangor Meals for Me kitchen and transport them to the Bucksport meal site at Bucksport Square Apartments.

The Bucksport Meals for Me program operates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only.

It is just one of many sites that, annually, provides meals for more than 200,000 individuals age 60 and older, living in Penobscot, Piscataquis and Hancock counties.

If you can volunteer for this very short period of time (perhaps just until you become a “snowbird” heading south) please call Sheehan at 469-3632 or Gail Ward at 941-2872 and tell them you would be happy to help out in this way.

What more could you ask for than a wonderful evening of entertainment, and an opportunity to help further the education of deserving Mainers?

Three tables remain for the Eastern Maine Technical College Foundation and the EMTC Advisory Council Annual Scholarship Dinner & Auction Fundraiser, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at Rangeley Hall on EMTC’s Bangor campus.

The evening features an elegant Maine meal prepared by the college’s catering service, appetizers and desserts by its Culinary Arts students, entertainment by comedian Gary Crocker, the excitement of “The Head Over Heels Dancers,” plus the live auction!

Ann Erickson of EMTC reports that among the auction items are several pieces, in a series, by Monroe sculptor Forest Hart; a Moosehead Mfg. Co. mirror, a handcrafted hutch, an Old Town Otter kayak and paddle, and a Fisher plow, with installation.

For tickets, or for more information, call Erickson at EMTC, 974-4691.

Pete Edwards of Pembroke, president of the Schoodic Chapter of the Maine Audubon Society, invites you to hear a presentation about a project on the East Machias River to encourage the return of spawning salmon.

The program will be presented at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the recreational building of the Calais Housing Center, off Palmer Street past the Calais (Regional) Hospital, he wrote.

Featured guests will be Donald Spranger and several students from Washington Academy in East Machias.

Edward reports that Spranger, a science teacher, is also vice president of the East Machias Watershed, and secretary of the Washington County Salmon Federation. Spranger and several of his students presented this program in Washington, D.C.

“Their program is an ambitious project to restore a spawning salmon population in the river,” Edwards added, emphasizing that “the public is cordially invited to attend.”

Pathfinders: Support for Grieving Children is a local program that assists children and family members experiencing the death of a loved one.

Bangor teacher Maria Brountas and the late Barbara Eames founded the free program for people in our area in 1994.

During a Harvest Tea from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, at the home of Jim and Susan Dowe, 29 Darling Parke Drive, Bangor, Brountas will be recognized for her decade of work with grieving children.

Pathfinders is a program of Bangor Area Visiting Nurses/Hospice of Eastern Maine, whose staff and volunteers cordially invite you to attend this reception at which Bangor Mayor Michael Crowley will present Brountas a proclamation recognizing her work.

The event is free, but a basket will be available for donations.

If you wish to attend, please RSVP by calling BAVN at 973-6550.

One of the most delicious features of the first annual Piscataquis Heritage Festival, which opens at 10 a.m. today and tomorrow at Penquis Valley Fairground in Dover-Foxcroft, will be the Maine State Barbecue Contest.

Admission to the event, hosted by the Southern Piscataquis County Chamber of Commerce, is $10 for adults and free for children ages 14 and under accompanied by an adult.

The mouth-watering aromas of simmering sauces will greet those who visit the festival at 2 p.m., when 11 teams from New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine start mixing them up.

The judging is Sunday, and the overall winner will represent Maine in the National Barbecue Contest to be held in Kansas City, Mo., later this year.

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