Here is a volunteer opportunity you might not have considered before: assisting the Maine Public Broadcasting Network in obtaining items for its annual auction next spring.

Denis Howard is the volunteer coordinator for MPBN, working in the Bangor office.

Howard wrote that MPBN has a need “for people in various Maine communities to actually solicit businesses for items and/or to pick them up.”

Howard explained that many of its longtime volunteers “are getting older” and that there is a need to find others to participate in this all-important task to help fund MPBN programming.

Howard wrote that MPBN tries to “put the FUN in FUNdraising,” and hopes you will join in its 37th Great TV Auction, which he described as “a televised shopping extravaganza supporting the noncommercial television and radio stations of MPBN.”

“We need you, your friends and your neighbors, now through March 2008, to help solicit and/or retrieve items from businesses in your community.”

In our circulation area, Howard wrote, volunteers are needed for Aroostook County in Presque Isle and Houlton; for Piscataquis County in Dover-Foxcroft and Greenville; for Hancock County in Ellsworth and Bar Harbor; and for Penobscot County in Bangor, Brewer and Millinocket.

Volunteers are also needed for five York County communities, six in Cumberland County and two in Oxford County.

If you can help, call Howard at 800-884-1717, ext. 3099; 941-1010, ext. 3099; fax Howard at 942-2857; e-mail dhoward@mpbn.net or visit www.mpbn.net.

Betsy Rose e-mailed that the Orono High School Alumni Association will host its second annual Welcome Back party at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5, at the high school football field.

The OHSAA tent, next to the home bleachers, will “welcome anyone who has ever attended, or taught, at OHS,” along with their family members.

Graduates and their families are invited to enjoy hot cider and “sweets of the season, and support the OHS football team in its battle versus Rockland at 7 p.m.,” Rose wrote.

OHSAA regularly sponsors all-alumni events, Rose explained, “and plans to support projects at the high school to benefit current students.”

You can keep in touch with other alumni through its Web site, www.oronoalums.org, created by Matt Clark, OHS ’81, where you will find “forums, a message center, photo galleries and a members map.”

Dues to become a voting member of OHSAA are $10 a year, Oct. 1-Sept. 30, and, if you pay them on or before Oct. 5, you will be admitted free to the football game.

“Additional contributions, in any amount, are also welcome and are tax-deductible,” Rose added.

Dues payments and donations may be made at the Web site or by check payable to OHSAA and mailed to OHSAA, P.O. Box 163, Orono 04473.

For information, call Rose at 866-3307 or e-mail brose@oronoalumns.org.

Deb Jacques and Linda Boyle have announced that Pathfinders: Support for Grieving Children will begin its fall 2007 session with a meeting from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8, at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Essex Street, Bangor.

The program continues for 10 weeks, through Dec. 10, and location directions are available at www.pathfindersmaine.org.

Now in its 13th year, the program “provides grief support for children, and their families or caregivers, who are experiencing the death of a loved one,” according to a news release.

Pathfinders, which is a member of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, has, as its specific focus, assisting children and teens 3-18.

And while there is a $50 per family fee to help defray expenses, a limited number of scholarships are available.

Adults attending with children meet in their own groups, and teenagers can attend, on their own, with the consent of a caregiver.

For information about participating in this most helpful program for young people, call Boyle at 973-8269.

Cathy Marquez and members of the board of deacons of the Church of Universal Fellowship invite you to enjoy Plenty of Piano at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, at the church, 82 Main St., Orono.

The event is free and open to the public, Marquez reports, and refreshments will be served.

The program features a “night of music, including piano, flute, voice and violin, to dedicate a piano in memory of the late Constance Hunting,” Marquez said of the longtime member of congregation.

Hunting, who died in April 2006, was a poet and English professor at the University of Maine in Orono.

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