My Friend’s Place expands its mission, hours

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The mission of My Friend’s Place, a program initiated 3 1/2 years ago for people with Alzheimer’s disease or memory loss, has been expanded, reports MFP director Barbara Fister.

“We’ve broadened our mission,” she said.

“We’ve incorporated the elderly person who might be socially isolated,” she said, referring to people who “still have some memory but are not able, on their own, for example, to get out to visit a local senior center.”

In addition to expanding its mission, MFP has expanded its hours.

Open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, it is now open the same hours Fridays at First United Methodist Church, 703 Essex St. in Bangor.

For those interested in taking advantage of this program or having someone they love or care for enrolled, Fister wanted to be sure it is understood that MFP is a “social activity program, not a medical program,” and places its focus on interactive and social skills and opportunities.

MFP will continue its program of providing training for people caring for those with Alzheimer’s and memory loss, Fister said.

It should be noted MFP offers “transportation for ambulatory participants who live within a 10-mile radius of the program site, with the understanding that volunteers provide that transportation,” Fister said.

If you are interested in learning more about the programs of My Friend’s Place, call Fister at 945-0122.

You are invited to meet Ji-Young, a 13-year-old pianist from China, who will be a guest soloist with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra for the opening of its 109th season at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10, at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

Ji-Young will present a free, informal preview of his coming performance at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8, in Kominsky Hall at Husson College in Bangor.

With no formal training, Ji-Young began playing the piano at age 4, repeating melodies he heard while his mother taught voice lessons.

Now an eighth-grader in New Jersey, he studied in Korea before coming to the United States to further his training.

At 10, Ji-Young was the youngest musician to win the New York Philharmonic Young Artists Competition, in addition to being the youngest award winner of other competitions.

For more information, call the BSO at 942-5555 or (800) 639-3221, or visit bangorsymphony.com.

Norma Binan of the Bangor Area Sewing Guild reports that organization is sponsoring an event many like-minded readers might enjoy.

She describes it as a “combined fabric-shopping trip and a leaf-peeping trip.”

A bus trip to Keepsake Quilting in Center Harbor, N.H., is planned for Saturday, Oct. 16, and, Binan wrote, “folks need to sign up soon, as seats are going quickly.”

The sponsors are, by the way, “hoping for a full bus,” she said.

The trip costs $40 per person.

The bus leaves at 7 a.m. that day from the K-Mart parking lot in Bangor and returns between 8 and 9 p.m. that evening.

You can bring a brown-bag lunch or dine “at several places there,” she said.

You will enjoy “three hours or more of shopping at Keepsake, and a dinner stop on the trip home.”

Binan said “seats are going fast” and urges you to “sign up now.”

You can do that by calling her at 862-4367.

Although I knew Peggy Jo Youngblood was not doing well before I left on vacation, I was very saddened when I spoke with my husband while I was away and learned of her death Saturday, Sept. 25.

A Brewer resident with many ties to everyone living in the surrounding communities through her tireless volunteer efforts, Peggy was the type of woman who simply lit up the room when she entered it and made us all happier that she did.

If there was a job that needed doing, you could count on Peggy not only to help, but also, more often than not, to take it on as her personal cause and chair the effort herself.

For that spirit of community commitment and her wonderfully positive outlook on life, we are all grateful.

To her husband, Ed Youngblood, Peggy’s children, their families and her many close friends, I extend my sincerest condolences and share the sorrow of losing one who meant so much to so many.

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