Work camp to aid Newport-area homeowners

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Applications are now being accepted for the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, Camp Sebasticook, a volunteer home repair work camp, which will be conducted next July in Greater Newport.

Old friend Chuck Roundy of Augusta wrote me with all the details about Camp Sebasticook.

He is working with KVCAP as the local project manager for this program.

“Camp Sebasticook is a Christian youth volunteer group work camp” that will be based at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport the week of July 13-19, he explained.

More than 400 volunteers, “who are registering and paying for the work camp experience, from all denominations of Christian youth groups from around the nation,” will camp out at Nokomis and with “adult supervision at each work site,” he explained, will be working in teams of six, making home repairs in the area.

Roundy said the goal is to help “approximately 70 persons, or families,” in the communities of Newport, Palmyra, St. Albans and Hartland. Those who qualify, according to Roundy, are “elderly persons and couples, low-income families and-or disabled persons.”

“The teams are very good at interior painting, exterior painting, drywall replacement, wheelchair, step, and small deck-porch reconstruction,” he said.

Each home selected for the project will receive “approximately $450 or more of construction materials and-or paint costs, and approximately 180 hours of free volunteer labor.”

Roundy wrote that he would personally visit any homeowner who has questions “and explain the program fully.”

“Income qualification is an easy step,” he continued, “without any intrusive questions or forms to fill out,” and the combined value of materials and labor contributed, “is about $2,000.”

For anyone who likes “good, polite, hardworking kids, it will be a fun, rewarding summer-week experience.”

Roundy did point out, however, that “we do require the owner, or an adult representing the homeowner,” to be on site during the five days of the work camp.

Additionally, Roundy wrote, the sponsor needs “to raise a few more dollars to reach our goal” of $17,000 “to cover half of the construction material costs for the project.”

KVCAP is co-sponsoring the project with Group Workcamps Foundation, a nonprofit, inter-denominational Christian volunteer home-repair organization based in Loveland, Colo.

Anyone who would like to receive an application for this project can call KVCAP in Waterville at 859-1628 and speak with Ruth Lancaster, who will mail you an application.

Qualifying residents of Newport, particularly, are urged to apply.

Anyone who wants information about becoming a local volunteer with Camp Sebasticook, or anyone willing to assist with fund raising or making a contribution for construction material costs, can call Roundy at 623-3027.

David Ferguson, Grand Knight of Pine Cone Council No. 114 Knights of Columbus, invites you to attend a public fish fry supper from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday, March 8, at the K of C Hall, 95 Court St. in Bangor.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children age 12 and under.

The menu includes fried haddock, french fries, coleslaw, rolls, beverage and dessert.

And, Ferguson wants you to know, all proceeds from the fish fry will “benefit the unemployed millworkers of Millinocket.”

Gregory Greenleaf of Belfast wants readers to know that “Celebrity Waiters” will serve diners from 5 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at the Waterfront Restaurant in Camden.

These particular “Celebrity Waiters” are members of the Camden Police and Fire departments, who will donate their tips to the Jason Program, a Kennebunk-based nonprofit organization that helps provide pediatric hospice care to terminally ill children in Maine.

Greenleaf reports that your choice of entrees, priced from $15.95 to $17.95, will include soup or salad, a nonalcoholic beverage and dessert.

“Please come show your support for this worthy cause,” he wrote.

Registration is now open for the American Cancer Society’s 24-hour Relay for Life planned from 6 p.m. Friday, May 16, to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at Old Town High School.

Information about how to register, how to form a team or to become a volunteer, is available by calling the ACS at (800) 464-3102, press 3, or calling 989-0322.

Sponsors of the Old Town event are WVII-TV, radio station Z-107, Lemforder Corp., Georgia-Pacific, Adelphia, Dead River Co., Hannaford Bros. and Sam’s Club.

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