Nonprofits say thanks for all the help this year

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Understandably your contributions, large or small, in dollars or volunteer hours, are greatly appreciated by nonprofit organizations, and staff members express that gratitude often in letters to the Bangor Daily News.

Today I share some of those thanks with you.

For example, Paula Kee, writing on behalf of The Grand in Ellsworth, thanks everyone who attended its late-summer fashion show which was, she wrote, “another sellout event. We even had a waiting list.”

The show raised more than $18,000 to benefit The Grand, a theater.

Katrina Benjamin, volunteer chairwoman for the Maine affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Maine Race for the Cure, thanks everyone who volunteered last September for its ninth annual Race for the Cure, in which more than 160 people participated.

More than half the volunteers were students at Bangor High School, John Bapst Memorial High School, Husson College and the University of Maine, Benjamin wrote.

Amid expectations that the 10th annual race “will be our biggest yet,” people can obtain more information by visiting www.komenmaine.com, e-mailing komenme@hotmail.com, calling 262-7117 or writing Race for the Cure, P.O. Box 1626, Bangor 04402-1626.

Alan Comeau of Acadia Hospital in Bangor wrote to express thanks for a $3,000 grant awarded by the Junior League of Bangor.

President Renee Kelly and league members chose for their community project to help Acadia cover the cost of bringing Challenge Days to area schools and communities.

Challenge Days is a one-day workshop for high school and middle school students, teachers, parents, administrators, counselors and the community that addresses such issues as violence, racism, drugs and alcohol within the context of school life.

For more information about the program, visit www.challengeday.org.

Beverly Stone of Expanding Opportunities in Brooks extends “a heartfelt thank-you” to volunteers and attendees who helped make its 10th Kenya Feast last fall such a success.

Proceeds directly benefit the Street Children’s Project in Kenya, Africa, which provides a “home environment, clothing, food and education for street children” in that East African country, she wrote.

Nancy Dysart, director of Children’s Miracle Network for Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, is grateful to Irving Oil for its Fuel the Care program.

Irving’s $50,000 donation enables families with a child receiving extended care at one of seven hospitals in the EMHS network to receive gift certificates to purchase gasoline, calling cards or other sundries as they travel between home and hospital for the child’s medical care.

Karen Brace, development director for the Community School in Camden, wrote to thank its many friends who supported the annual mid-October auction at which more than $14,000 was raised to benefit students and programs.

The Community School, she explained, offers “a fresh beginning to teens whose high school education has been interrupted, giving them a chance to work toward their degree from a new direction.”

She reminds those who help support the school that “our success is really your success.”

Executive director Mary Marin Lyon and all Literacy Volunteers of Bangor were pleased to receive a $2,500 grant from the Maine Charity Foundation Fund of the Maine Community Foundation.

The grant will “help serve more adults who are functioning with the lowest literacy levels,” she wrote of the donation which will enable the organization to “concentrate on recruiting volunteers to help combat the effects of low literacy in our community as well as serve more adults more quickly.”

For information about Literacy Volunteers-Bangor, call 947-8451.

Mary Poulin of The Warren Center for Communications & Learning in Bangor is grateful to the Rite Aid Foundation for its $9,000 grant in support of the center’s Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB) program.

The grant will allow the center to provide refurbished hearing aids to 18 individuals who could not, otherwise, afford them.

Including last year’s donation, Rite Aid Foundation has provided money for 38 hearing aids through ReHAB.

Established in 2002, ReHAB has assisted 74 individuals and has 30 people on its waiting list.

Donations to ReHAB may be sent to the Warren Center, 175 Union St., Bangor 04401.

Both behind-the-ear and in-the-ear hearing aid donations are accepted.

BTEs are refurbished and distributed to people on the waiting list. ITEs are sent to a recycling facility for monetary credit.

For information about the program, call 941-2850.

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