BANGOR – People have hectic schedules and leaders of the Bangor Noon Kiwanis Club know it is hard for some to break away at noontime to attend a meeting. Thus, the club will hold its first-ever evening meeting 6-7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, in the conference room at the Howard Johnson Hotel, 336 Odlin Road.

“Several friends have said they would join the club if we had a night meeting,” Chris Patten, president-elect for the club, said recently. “We’re a great organization of volunteers who meet weekly to hear programs about local organizations and to plan for our annual events.”

Bangor Noon Kiwanis has been giving back to the community for more than 80 years and always is looking for new members. The club meets every Wednesday at Howard Johnson’s, in the bar area during the noon meetings and, now, in the conference room the third Wednesday of every month, starting Jan. 18.

“Our Kiwanis Club has no attendance requirement, but what we do require is a dedication to helping make this community, and the communities that surround Bangor, better,” said Lt. Gov. Nancy Golding, a member of the Bangor Noon Kiwanis Club. “Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world, one child and one community at a time.”

This year, the club adopted the PAL Center, an after-school program located on Watchmaker Street, that offers local youth a place to do homework and then hang out and play games.

The Bangor City Council recognized the club recently for supporting the program when funding was cut last year, and for accepting the challenge of funding it for the coming year at a cost of $21,000.

“This is, by far, our biggest undertaking ever, but we couldn’t just watch it recede and vanish,” Golding said. “Children are what we do.”

The club’s board of directors voted to take on the challenge in December, and is planning several PAL Center-dedicated events to raise money to support the cause. The first is a Third Watch benefit hockey game at 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at the T.J. Ryan Center in Brewer, followed by a Super Ball Dinner in March, emceed by local celebrity Ric Tyler, and a Longaberger Basket bingo in early June.

Throughout the year, Bangor Noon Kiwanis sponsors Kiwanis Key Clubs and Kiwanis Builder’s Clubs at several Bangor schools and, this year, is working to add a Circle K at Beal College. The club sends several children to summer camps and provides Kiwanis scholarships for high school students heading to college.

“We know there are people in the area who want to give back to the community or who want to volunteer but don’t know where to begin,” Golding said. “We’re inviting you to come to our first night meeting to find out more about Kiwanis, and to see how much fun we have supporting kids.”

To learn more about Kiwanis, call Golding at 990-8224, or Nok-Noi Hauger, Bangor Noon Kiwanis president, at 299-8276.