Tickets still available for diamond ring raffle

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Those of you who didn’t spend $20 back in December and put a Health Services Foundation Diamond Ring Raffle ticket in your loved one’s holiday stocking or give it for Hanukkah can still give that special person in your life the chance to win a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift.

HSF, which is affiliated with Houlton Regional Hospital, is holding the raffle to raise funds to enable it to provide equipment, programs and educational support for area nonprofit health care agencies.

Last year, just 750 tickets were available for this benefit and all were sold, so 200 additional tickets were added this year.

The ring is a three-stone, 1.57-carat princess cut in a gold setting that retails for $7,000.

You can purchase your raffle ticket and see the ring at Goodrich Jewelers on North Road in Houlton.

Tickets also can be purchased at Aroostook Milling, F.A. Peabody Co., the HSF office and the Houlton Regional Hospital Gift Shop.

The drawing is noon on Valentine’s Day, Friday, Feb. 14, at the Courtyard Cafe on Main Street in Houlton.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call NSF Executive Director Elizabeth Dulin, 532-2900, Ext. 147 or 403.

Members of the Penobscot Valley Branch of the American Association of University Women invite you to hear Kathryn Olmstead, a member of the journalism department at the University of Maine in Orono.

Olmstead, who founded the magazine Echoes, will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12, at the Orono Public Library on Goodridge Drive.

The event is sponsored by the AAUW Book Group, which includes Imogene Brightman, Anne Hathaway and Melba Wallace.

Olmstead will discuss stories from an edition of Echoes, which relates tales of people who lived in Aroostook County.

A brief business meeting will follow the presentation; you are invited to call Hathaway at 866-2881 for more information.

Folks in Hancock County are reminded that the Ellsworth Rallies for Relay is 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12, at the Holiday Inn in Ellsworth.

At this meeting, you will learn how to become involved in that area’s fourth annual Relay for Life, which is scheduled for mid-June.

If you are interested in joining the planning committee, being a team captain, volunteering, or just gathering information about this American Cancer Society fund-raiser, you are cordially invited to attend.

For more information about forming a team, or attending the rally, call Mike Hart at 989-0332, or the ACS at (800) 464-3102 and press 3.

I was pleased to hear from Anne Gabbianelli O’Reilly that the recent Hampden Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., Committee spaghetti supper went so well.

“It was a success, to say the least,” O’Reilly reported of the benefit that raised more than $1,000 to help fund that important community program.

O’Reilly added, “This event really brought the community together.”

Rape Response Services in Bangor, which serves people in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties who are affected by sexual assault, needs volunteers to respond to its hot line.

A free hot-line training session is scheduled to begin in March, and you are invited to join a team of volunteers who have been providing this much-needed service for 15 years.

Once you complete your training, you are asked to take shifts on the 24-hour crisis hot line.

You can call RRS at 941-2980 or e-mail rrscs@raperesponseservices.com for more information or to request a volunteer application.

Although this event does not take place until May, “we want to plant that seed now,” wrote Helen Gallagher of the Maine Central Institute Auction Committee in Pittsfield.

Gallagher said the committee “is adding a new twist” to its fund-raising efforts this year.

An open flea market will be 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 10, in front of and inside Parks Gymnasium, she wrote, and people who want to reserve a space are being asked to do that now.

The fee for inside space is $20; $15 for outside space; and an extra $5 for whose who want to reserve a table.

Proceeds from the flea market will benefit the music and sports program of MCI.

You can call Gallagher, 938-4703, or Debbie Ladd, 487-3733, to reserve your space.

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