November 28, 2024
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Community News

Bangor

Family Golf Weekend

The Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary Charities will hold a Family Golf Weekend on Friday-Sunday, June 6-8, at Island Green, Route 1A, Holden.

A golf tournament is planned for Saturday and includes a putting and chipping contest. The cost for 18 holes is $60 per golfer. There will be a shotgun start and prizes will be awarded.

A barbecue will be served at noon and is free for golfers, $10 for other adults and $5 for children. Coupon books will be available all weekend for mini golf, four rounds for $24; arcade games, 20 tokens for $10; and go-karts, four rides for $24.

Sponsors are Granville Lumber, Pepsi, and the YMCA’s Bangor Jump Start. To learn more, call 941-2815.

Chorus spring concert

The Bangor Community Chorus, under the direction of Ronald Sherwin and accompanied by Naomi Hall, will present its 35th annual spring concert at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, June 8, at First United Methodist Church, 703 Essex St.

Sherwin joined the chorus as conductor last year. He teaches music at Bangor Theological Seminary, where he has been choir conductor since 1998. In addition, he is minister of music at the First Congregational Church of Brewer.

The Bangor Community Chorus was founded in the early 1960s by Marion Vafiades of Hampden, and performs traditional concerts twice a year.

The theme this spring is “A Sentimental Journey through the ’40s,” with songs by Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and Louis Prima.

The concert is free, but donations will be accepted. The chorus welcomes new members.

Those interested can visit www.maineguide.com/Bangor/chorus/index.html, or e-mail mckinnon@maineguide.com.

Rubber duck race

The 6th annual Great Bangor Rubber Duck Race will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 31, downtown. The Good Samaritan Agency organizes the race, which is a family event.

The race will start on the Central Street bridge and end at the footbridge behind the Pickering Square parking garage. WLBZ’s Ric Tyler is honorary chairman of the race.

Some 2,000 rubber ducks will be dumped into the stream and float to the finish line. The sponsors of the winning ducks will win one of many prizes. The race will benefit Good Samaritan Agency’s programs and services.

Those interested in sponsoring a duck can pick up a ticket at Good Samaritan Agency or at several stores and businesses in Greater Bangor. Individuals may sponsor one duck for $5 or six ducks for $25.

On race day, there will be activities in Pickering Square beginning at noon. Duck race sponsorships can be purchased noon-2 p.m. Good Samaritan Agency volunteers will sell souvenirs, and there will be games and face painting.

Good Samaritan Agency is a nonprofit agency founded in 1902. It offers services to single parents. For information, call Good Samaritan at 942-7211.

Low-cost first aid

The Bangor Fire Department will offer a low-cost first-aid class 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, June 3, at the Central Fire Station on Main Street. The class meets and exceeds OSHA requirements for first-aid training in the work place and covers basic emergency medical skills such as bleeding control, pressure bandages, fractures, burns, etc. To register, call 942-6335.

MediaWORKS open house

MediaWORKS Enterprise, a youth development program that engages out-of-school 17- to 24-year-olds in a meaningful and creative work experience, will hold an open house 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, May 30, at One Cumberland Place.

MediaWORKS offers a supportive environment where low-income 17- to 24-year-olds have an opportunity to work in a collaborative learning environment, explained the program’s enterprise manager, Jorge A. Gonzalez. They develop essential life skills that will help them to integrate into the work force or pursue a postsecondary education.

The operation involves a graphic design and multimedia studio where students get to work with high-end computers and software. Students have created Web sites, brochures and posters for customers such as The Bangor Humane Society, Next Step, Project Atrium, Spruce Run and other community organizations which otherwise would find it difficult to afford professional design.

MediaWORKS Enterprise will expand its services to the community by offering summer workshops, ReBoot Camps, for youngsters in grades six to eight. The two-week camps, morning or afternoon, will cover topics such as media literacy, advertising design, image manipulation and stop-motion animation. The first camp begins June 9, with the final one concluding July 18. For information, call 945-9431.

Walk with Ones You Love

The Maine Speakout Project will hold the sixth annual Walk with the Ones You Love at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, June 15, at Pickering Square downtown.

The family-oriented event welcomes all families – gay and straight – walking together for the legal recognition families, safe schools, safe streets and freedom to marry.

Supporting groups are the Church of the Good Samaritan; Merrymeeting AIDS Support Services; Bowdoin Gay-Straight Alliance; Dignity USA; Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network; Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders; Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; Maine Speakout Project; National Alliance for Choice in Giving; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Unitarian Universalist Association, BLGT Concerns, United Church of Christ.

Brewer

Ten Bucks Theatre Co.

Ten Bucks Theatre Co. will present Sam Shepard’s play “True West,” a close look at two brothers in their natural state: fighting. For those who have siblings, “True West” very well might, in the words of Robert Plant, “bring it on home.”

“True West” gives the audience a peek through the walls into the lives of two men whose relationship has been rocked by an uncertain past, and is rolling toward an even more uncertain future. In the spirit of an old-time western, neither hell nor high water will keep these two from making their dreams come true.

The play, directed by Adam Kuykendall, stars Ten Bucks actors Allen Adams, Julie Arnold Lisnet, Ron Lisnet and Putnam Smith. Each plays a significant part in the enactment of Shepard’s theme, “Just because they’re family, doesn’t mean you have to like them.”

“True West” is set for 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, June 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 14 at the Brewer Middle School Auditorium. All adult tickets are $10. Call 884-1030 for information.

Convoy for Kids

The Maine Professional Drivers Association and the Bangor Lions Club will hold the ninth annual Convoy for Kids, beginning with a truckers’ breakfast at 8 a.m. Sunday, June 1, at the Brewer Eagles Club. The parade will begin at 10 a.m. and proceed to Bass Park in Bangor. There the trucks will be on display, and a bounce house and children’s games will be set up.

Raffle tickets for a kayak, paddles and vest donated by Old Town Canoe will be available. A second raffle will be for autographed Ricky Craven items. To take part in the convoy or to obtain information, call Stan McLaughlin at 827-7209, or Donna Cowan at 941-2815.

Kate Schrock concert

Singer-songwriter Kate Schrock will wrap up Brewer Youth Theatre’s spring concert series at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 31. The theater is located at Brewer Middle School on Somerset Street.

Schrock, a Maine native, has been producing critically acclaimed albums on her own label for several years, including the recently released “Indiana.” Her songs have been included on several compilation CDs and movie soundtracks, and in the series “Felicity.”

Tickets are $10 each and are available at the door or The Grasshopper Shop in Bangor. For information, call 989-8640.

Line dance

Dust off your duds, it’s time to kick it up for United Cerebral Palsy of Maine at the ninth line dance, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, June 7, at the Eagles Club. The cost is $10 per dancer, $5 per spectator. Prizes will be awarded to the person and club collecting the most money.

The top individual fund-raiser will receive round-trip Amtrak tickets from Portland to Boston with two nights’ accommodation. Second prize is a weekend at Camp CaPella.

The Eagles Club Ladies Auxiliary will provide refreshments during the dance.

Tina Foster will be guest instructor. Volunteer dance instructors are needed for the event. To participate or to learn more, call Deb at 866-3201, or Bobbi Yeager at UCP of Maine, 941-2952, Ext. 204.

Hampden

Pool discount tickets

Discount tickets for the Lura Hoit Pool, valid for six months, are on sale during June. The tickets are $2 and are sold in groups of five, with a limit of 50 per person. The tickets can be used for lap, senior, family and open swims.

Lower cable franchise fee

Cable subscribers in Hampden should see their monthly cable bill go down, at least a little bit, after town councilors voted last week to cut back the franchise fee it receives from Adelphia cable through subscribers.

Councilors voted unanimously to cut back the fee from 5 percent to the minimum 1 percent of revenues Adelphia receives from Hampden subscribers, something that could save customers up to about $8 monthly.

A number of communities use reimbursement fees to help cover the cost of local cable programming.

Councilors said that the money, an estimated $30,000 each year, has been used to offset tax increases in the town, and that it didn’t appear that it could be used to provide cable access anytime soon.

Mayor Rick Briggs estimated that the reduction in the franchise fees could save customers $1.90-$8 a month. The council did not eliminate the fee all together because 1 percent is required to be returned to a local consortium of cable-subscribing communities.

Orono

Annual herb sale

The University of Maine’s Page Farm and Home Museum will extend its fourth annual herb sale to a second weekend, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 31 and June 1.

Many varieties will be for sale. All are grown locally from seed. Proceeds support the museum’s spring planting and garden programs. The sale will be held at the museum, near the Maine Center for the Arts.

Winterport

Clean Up Day

The Cove Brook Watershed of Winterport will sponsor a Clean Up Day on its conservation site on Cove Brook 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, June 7. Access is from Baker Road, off Route 1A just south of the Hampden-Winterport town line. Lunch and beverages will be provided.

The conservation site where the cleanup is to take place is on a 9.5-acre parcel of land purchased by the council in December with funds from a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The property borders prime Atlantic salmon spawning and rearing habitat on Cove Brook.

For more information, call Donna Gilbert at 223-4306.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin


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