Gather up all your pasta and sauce and head for one of four Hannaford Supermarkets between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10, and help four Cumulus Broadcasting stations collecting a “Ton of Pasta” for local food cupboards and other organizations providing food for those in need.

Cumulus promotion director Michael O’Hara said WQCB Q106.5 will be broadcasting live from the Hannaford store in Brewer, WEZQ 92.9 from the Ellsworth Hannaford store, WWMJ Magic 95.7 from the Hannaford store on Broadway in Bangor and WBZN Z107.3 from the Old Town Hannaford store.

After last November’s effort by WBZN to help Manna Ministries of Bangor collect 3,000 turkeys for Thanksgiving, “we knew there was a need out there, and we did some brainstorming and came up with the idea” of collecting 2,000 pounds – one ton- of pasta, O’Hara explained.

“The need is phenomenal,” he added, while pointing out that “one pound of pasta will feed a family of eight.”

A release announcing the drive cited a Bangor Daily News article stating that area food cupboard supplies are running low and added that there are no organized food drives in this area “until the Postal Workers Drive in May,” which is just one more good reason to conduct a food drive now.

“Cumulus Broadcasting realizes that in the winter many Mainers are faced with terrible decisions as to whether to pay for food or fuel,” the release stated.

“Maine has a terrific tradition of Mainers helping Mainers, and we at Cumulus Broadcasting wish to be the conduit for such a display.”

Pasta and sauce collected at the Hannaford store in Brewer will benefit Manna Ministries.

Items collected at the Ellsworth store will go to the Emmaus Homeless Shelter in that city.

Pasta from the Broadway Hannaford’s will go to Ofelia’s Community Resource Center of Glenburn and Bangor, formerly known as Ofelia’s Food Cupboard and Thrift Store.

Pasta and sauce collected at the Hannaford store in Old Town will benefit Crossroads Ministries of Old Town, which serves the needy in 32 communities.

The Cumulus team requests that you “join us this Saturday as we raise a Ton of Pasta.”

If you also bring sauce, plastic containers are preferred.

If you are not already aware of it, Christine Noble of the American Diabetes Association is the featured guest speaker for St. Joseph Healthcare’s Diabetes Support Group which meets at 1 p.m. today in the Diabetes & Nutrition Center, Building 1, St. Joseph Healthcare Park, 900 Broadway in Bangor.

The meeting topic is Low Carbohydrate Winter Meals.

The free support group meets at 1 p.m. the first Thursday of each month for one hour at the above site.

Group members share personal experiences. Diabetes educators help conduct the meetings by providing updates and answering questions.

The group is open to individuals with diabetes and their family members.

For information, call 262-1836.

Last month, Donna Boyce of Bridgewater and her daughter, Tammy Giberson of Blaine, drove to Bangor to shop and meet Tammy’s sister-in-law, Presque Isle resident Danielle Giberson and her 6-month-old son Chad at the airport.

The foursome had an eventful ride home after the alternator in Boyce’s Blazer gave out just before the Howland exit on Interstate 95.

They made it to a local garage where kindly folk “looked at it and hit it with a hammer and it started working again,” Boyce wrote, “so off we went.”

But soon the battery light came on, forcing them to pull over.

It was now cold and dark. Boyce wondered where help would come from, but within minutes a state trooper and two deputy sheriffs were at their side.

When Deputy Maynard Weymouth learned a baby was in the car, he and his wife took mother and son to their home, with plans to return for Boyce and her daughter after the Blazer was towed to a garage.

It was nearly closing time at Lincoln Chevrolet and no mechanics were available, but a call was made to Hogan Tire, which “stayed open for us and got us on the road again,” Boyce explained, negating the need for a meal offered by the Maynards and a friend’s drive down from The County to get them.

Boyce thanks the Weymouths, the folks at Lincoln Chevrolet and Hogan Tire, the “young trooper” and the “nice tow truck driver.”

She knows there are “good people willing to help someone when they are in trouble.”

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