The time has come for at least 800 of us to commit to making the first American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront as successful as its three-year predecessor, the National Folk Festival.

Patterned after the National Folk Festival, the American Folk Festival is Aug. 26-28 in Bangor.

Like its national predecessor, it will feature more than 20 performing groups, and it will offer an educational experience about Maine cultural traditions. Attendees can make purchases in the marketplace and enjoy delicious treats in the food court.

The 800 I am referring to will be wearing special T-shirts as Folk Festival volunteers.

“I can’t stress enough how key the volunteers are to the success of the festival,” said Assistant Director Debbi Melnikas.

The festival, “really can’t happen without volunteers,” she said. “We have about 2,100 volunteer shifts” that need to be filled.

Those who make the commitment to volunteer for the festival are in for a treat. They will perform a variety of tasks, including checking in performers, staffing the information booth, selling music, tending to performers, and collecting donations.

To become an American Folk Festival volunteer, call Melnikas at 990-2630, or e-mail debbi@americanfolkfestival.com.

It’s not only volunteers the Folk Festival needs.

Pauleena MacDougall, who is working on a project for that event, said in an e-mail that she is “looking for people who make or create cloth, or clothing, in a traditional manner,” for the Folk Festival.

“By traditional,” she wrote, “I mean coming out of a family or ethnic group, or occupational group,” giving as examples those who work with “tatting, Irish lace, liturgical cloth [or] clothing used in worship, or dance costumes.”

MacDougall also seeks people who create “traditional costumes of everyday dress or used in rituals from any and all ethnic groups in our area,” she wrote. I would love to hear from anyone who is doing this kind of work. I can be reached at 581-1848.”

Sap time is here, and you have a chance to learn how that sap becomes maple syrup when you attend the Curran Homestead’s ninth annual Maple Festival & Irish Celebration.

That event is 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, March 26, at 372 Fields Pond Road in Orrington.

General admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children under 12, or $3 for adult museum members and $2 for members under 12.

At the festival, you can sample ginger ice cream, homemade beans and kettle corn with maple syrup and other turn-of-the-century, homemade food; enjoy live Irish music; view demonstrations of spinning and rug hooking; and listen to stories of the past.

Bob Croce and Jill Martel will conduct the sap-to-syrup demonstrations, and Paul Shumaker is overseeing the preparation of the delicious food you will sample, beginning at noon.

You can visit the Curran Gift Shop, take a guided tour, enter a coloring contest, and obtain a maple recipe book.

Orrington Living History Farm and Museum Board President Karen Marsters and her fellow board members are expecting this annual spring event to be the best ever, and they hope you will come out and enjoy all the activities this great event has to offer.

The University of Maine Cheerleaders are competing in the national cheerleading championships April 7-8 in Daytona Beach, Fla., and they want to look their best.

You can help get them do that by attending the University of Maine Cheering Meat Raffle and Dance, which offers the following meat raffle items: pork loin, rib-eye steak, turkey, sirloin strip steak, scallops and bacon and roast of beef.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and the raffle, with $1 paddles, begins at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 26, in the smoke-free banquet room of the Old Town Elks Lodge No. 1287 at 290 North Fourth Street in Old Town.

Admission for the dance is $5 for couples or $3 per person

The fund-raiser also includes a 50/50 raffle.

UMaine cheerleading coach Melinda Kenney reports proceeds from the fund-raiser will help the team purchase new uniforms.

Stephanie Erb and members of the Orono High School Class of 1985 reunion committee are seeking information about anyone who was a member of that class.

If you can help, call Erb at 884-8114 or e-mail erbs@glenburn.net.

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