This year, perhaps more than any other, it is important that the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter’s ninth annual Hike to End Homelessness is a resounding success.

That is because the shelter, according to program manger and hike leader Michael Andrick, has been “either at capacity, or close to capacity, ongoing, for 20 weeks now,” he said.

“Those numbers surged,” he believes, “because of a lack of affordable housing in the Bangor area.”

Andrick will lead a group of 24 individuals who will climb Maine’s highest mountain, Mount Katahdin, on Saturday, Aug. 7, in Baxter State Park.

The purpose of the climb is not only to raise funds for the shelter, but to raise community awareness of its needs as well.

In a letter to fund-raiser supporters, Andrick wrote that “the shelter lives and dies by the community support it receives each year.

“This money will be used to ensure that we keep our doors open to those in need,” he added.

Andrick also expressed the desire to extend “special thanks to our corporate sponsors,” which include WVII ABC-7; WFVX Fox 22; Z107.3 FM, the Bangor Daily News and Trans Tech Industries, Inc.

If a shelter hiker should approach you for a pledge, please be as generous as you can.

If you have not been contacted, but want to help the shelter serve those in need, send a check to The Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, P.O. Box 1754, 263 Main St., Bangor 04402-1754.

For more information about how you can help the shelter in other ways, call 947-0092.

Here’s a reminder that bidding starts at $500, and bids will be accepted from Thursday, Aug. 5, through midnight Tuesday, Sept. 7, for the Empire Falls Signature Quilt Auction to benefit Skowhegan Free Public Library.

For those who have not heard or read about this auction, the quilt features the signatures of 18 cast and crew members of the movie “Empire Falls,” which was filmed partly in Skowhegan.

Among the signers are Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Estelle Parsons, Helen Hunt and Ed Harris.

For more information about the auction, call the library at 474-9072.

The Hammond Street Senior Center second annual Art Show opens Tuesday, Aug. 3, in the Stairwell Gallery on the second floor of the Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St.

According to a release from the center’s artist-in-residence, Ellen Beattie, the “mixed media show will illustrate that life experience only enhances one’s ability to find and to give joy through this creative endeavor.”

All the artists displaying their works are at least 60 years old and many had no formal training before taking classes at the center, she added.

The public is invited to view the show during the library’s summer hours, which are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

During the summer months, the library is closed on weekends.

In a release from the Warren Center for Communication & Learning in Bangor, Dr. Amanda Samoluk reports that those “who cannot afford hearing aids are [often] elderly people, who live alone, and they are too embarrassed by their hearing impairment to interact with other people.”

That is one of many reasons why the Warren Center strives to provide hearing aids for the needy in central and eastern Maine through the Regional Hearing Aid Bank.

ReHAB, as the program is known, offers refurbished, behind-the-ear hearing aids for those who cannot otherwise afford them.

For your information, the cost of hearing aids range from $700 for a basic model to as high as $4,000 for upscale, digital models, and many people are unable to afford even the basic hearing aid.

The ReHAB program, however, depends on donations of used hearing aids from the public. BTE models are refurbished and given to someone on the Center’s waiting list.

In-the-ear models cannot be re-used but are sent to a recycling facility, from which the Center receives a small, monetary credit to help cover costs of the program.

Samoluk reports the donations “really do make a difference and have a direct impact on someone’s life.”

She gave as an example the comment of one recipient who “told us that he can hear sounds he hasn’t heard in 20 years.”

Used hearing aids can be delivered or mailed to the Warren Center, 175 Union St., Bangor 04401.

For more information, call the center at 941-2850.

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