November 22, 2024
Column

Orono ‘super supper’ to boost Project BLAKE

Friends and family of 17-year-old Blake Vaillancourt of Dedham are spearheading Project BLAKE to help with expenses incurred by a bone marrow transplant he received earlier this month in Seattle.

The major benefit is a super supper beginning at 5:30 p.m. June 6, at the Black Bear Inn in Orono, and tickets are available only until Monday, May 22.

Just 99 tickets, at $120 each, are being sold, with the 100th ticket being raffled that evening. Planners hope for a sellout to raise $10,000 for Project BLAKE.

The event includes drawings for many prizes worth $100 and more.

To purchase tickets for the Project BLAKE super supper, call Monique Deschaine at 843-5420 or Kerri Lynch at 843-6676.

In the meantime, anything you can do to help would be appreciated, and contributions can be made to the Project BLAKE fund in care of Bangor Savings Bank. More information is available at www.projectblake.org.

A March family dinner-dance raised $3,800 for the family, and today from 1 to 4 p.m., BHS students and Dedham Middle School pupils will participate in Rock Around the Clock in the Dedham School gymnasium.

LaBree’s Bakery donated 100 whoopie pies for the fundraiser; Hannaford has donated bottled water; and all participants have been busy collecting pledges for the event.

After going through three unrelated donors, it was a 31-year-old woman from France who was a match for Blake.

He will spend 100 days in Seattle with his mother while his stepfather, Scott Bailey, and younger sister, Corinne Vaillancourt, cheer him on from home.

Paula Baines invites you to bring items to a baby shower for Cross Roads Ministries 3-4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 21, at St. James Episcopal Church at Center and Main streets in Old Town.

Your gifts can include diapers of all sizes; baby cereal, food wipes, formula, powder, lotion, shampoo and diaper ointment.

For more information, call Baines at 947-0877 or e-mail prbaines@yahoo.com.

Visitors and newcomers are welcome to the St. Croix Valley Amateur Radio Club monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 21, in the Methodist Homes Recreation Center on Palmer Street in Calais.

Call Ann Carter, 454-7823, for more information.

The Orono Historical Society annual Tasting Bee is 5-7 p.m. Monday, May 22, at the Asa Adams School Gymnasium in Orono.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children 6-12, and free for children under 5. Tickets are available at The Pretty Woman, The Store-Ampersand, at the door, or by calling Marlene Doucette, 866-2597.

Proceeds benefit the Civil War Monument in Orono’s Webster Park.

The Ellsworth Garden Club invites the public to an illustrated talk, “Butterflies of Maine: Their Identification and How to Attract Them,” with Judy Kellogg Markowsky, director of Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden.

Markowsky will speak at 7 p.m. Monday, May 22, at the Hancock County Extension office on Boggy Brook Road in Ellsworth.

For information, call Elaine Fernald at 244-3085.

This event has been moved from September to May, so I hope you have your sponsors and raised what you can for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Maine’s Fifth Annual Walk for Wishes.

The fundraiser begins with prewalk activities at 5 p.m., and the walk is at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 25, at Bass Park in Bangor.

The date was changed, Amy Theiss wrote, so as not to conflict “with the breast cancer walk in the fall. We heard from folks who wanted to do both, but they were too close together.”

Since its founding in 1992, the Maine chapter has granted more than 650 wishes.

Last year, a 13-year-old Hampden boy traveled to Hawaii with his family, a 7-year-old from Bangor received a computer, and a 13-year-old from Old Town went to St. Vincent’s Island. This year, a 7-year-old from Hudson swam with dolphins in Bermuda.

Each wish costs about $5,000. To date, nearly 70 Penobscot County children have benefited from Make-A-Wish, which grants the wishes of seriously ill children.

The Bangor walk last year raised more than $6,000, and Theiss said she’s thrilled “that a community service class at Rose Gaffney Elementary School in Machias is trying to raise $5,000” and will travel by bus to participate in the Bangor walk.

There is no registration fee, but adults who raise more than $100, and youth more than $50, receive a T-shirt.

You can register and collect pledges online.

For more information, visit www.Maine.wish.org, call (866) 704-WALK or e-mail wishwalk@Maine.wish.org.

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


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