When someone undertakes a task for the very first time, you can’t help but hope that all rally to their side and help make that event a grand success.

And why shouldn’t it be?

Applications are now available for one of the most fun events of the holiday season: The Bangor Rotary Festival of Lights Parade, planned for 4:30 p.m. Dec. 4, along Main Street in downtown Bangor.

Rotarian Lin Lufkin is the new chairman of the Festival of Lights Parade, and he and I are counting on you to make this experience the wonderfully enjoyable and delightfully entertaining event it always has been.

Lufkin reports the parade “can accommodate approximately 50 glittering units” that can include marching bands, small and large floats, dancers and other performing groups.

Any traditional scene representing Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan and Kwanzaa are sure to “brighten the season for the thousands of spectators who will line the streets,” he wrote.

Applications should include a sketch of your design, a written description of your activity and the music you will play or perform.

Remember that this information is necessary so planners won’t put two similar groups or displays next to one another.

There is no fee to participate in the parade, and applications must be returned by Nov. 22.

To receive an application for the Bangor Rotary Festival of Lights Parade, call Lufkin at 989-6521, or e-mail linlufkin@midmaine.com with “Parade” in the subject line.

You are asked to include your e-mail address in your application, and are assured it will not be shared with others outside the parade committee.

Lucille Cardin of Veazie Congregational Church invites you to its “Jingle Bells Fair” from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the church at 1404 State St.

The facility is handicapped accessible.

A coffee shop will be available and you can purchase baked goods, holiday decorations, items for children, “white elephants” and knit items.

This is a bad news-good news item, and I’m going to let Elizabeth Schwenk, treasurer of St. Aidan’s Church in Machias, explain it.

“We are a very tiny church and, for many years, a good part of our budget has been sustained by the holiday sale of delicious English-style fruitcakes,” she wrote. “Fruitcakes have been shipped all over the state as well as to customers out-of-state.”

Now for the bad news.

“Alas, this year,” Schwenk continued, “due to the prolonged illness of the woman who has (almost single-handedly) been the moving force behind this project, there will be no fruitcakes for sale.”

Schwenk explained church members “are trying to get the word out to our faithful customers in the Bangor area and beyond” about this year’s unfortunate turn of events.

And now, the good news: Schwenk assures you that “there will be fruitcakes for sale for the 2005 holiday season.”

Brewer Youth Theatre presents the musical “Schoolhouse Rock Live,” based on the ABC television series of the late ’60s and early ’70s, reports director Rich Kimball.

Showtime is 7 tonight and the same time on Friday and Saturday at Brewer Middle School, 5 Somerset St.

Tickets, $5 for adults and $3 for students and seniors, are available at the door.

The play has “lots of great music,” and will be “an opportunity to learn songs like ‘Conjunction Junction,’ and ‘A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing,’ ” Kimball said.

“Anybody who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s ought to remember the songs, and youngsters will appreciate them as well. It’s a great show for the whole family.”

Clayton Smith is musical director for the 10 high and middle school students who will be wearing costumes designed by Sandy Hodgins, and “Ten Bucks Theatre Company Emmy-nominated set designer Chez Cherry let us use part of a set they had,” Kimball said.

“We invite people to come, hang out, learn and have fun.”

Mireille Le Gal extends an invitation to international women living in our area to celebrate a traditional American Thanksgiving during the next monthly meeting of Women of the World at noon Monday in the vestry of the Church of Universal Fellowship on Main Street in Orono.

The cost of the luncheon is $4 per person, and no fee is charged for young children.

For more information about WOW, call Le Gal at 581-3423.

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