Staff members of Center Drive School in Orrington are working to assist John and Ruth York and their children, 13-year-old Michael and 9-year-old Eva, who lost their Orrington home to fire in January.

From the office of Center Drive School principal Roy Allen comes word that a benefit meal is planned for the family with two servings, one from noon to 3 p.m., and the second from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10, at the school.

The donation is $5, $3 for children under 12, $15 for a family.

Michael and Eva are students at the school, “and the staff is

hoping that the community will come and help this family in need,” the letter states, adding that “the family is in need of household goods and furniture.”

Additionally, I have learned that a fund has been established at Bangor Savings Bank for anyone who would like to make a donation to help the Yorks.

Donations can be made to the York Family Fund at any BSB location.

Checks also can be made out to the York Family Fund and mailed to Bangor Savings Bank, Attention: York Family Fund, P.O. Box 930, Bangor 04402-0930.

Sarah Stepp of the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Westbrook announces the MDA is holding its annual Give Me Five Walk beginning with registration at 9 a.m. with the walk starting at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10, at the Bangor Mall.

The walk “is designed to raise funds to benefit disease-specific research,” Stepp said. Each walker is encouraged to raise $425 (the cost of five minutes of research) and can designate the funds to benefit a specific disease in the MDA program.

Proceeds benefit the Maine Chapter of MDA, which serves more than 650 families each year.

The University of Maine at Augusta invites the public to attend a spring lecture series titled “Hitler’s Holocaust.”

The lectures all begin at 1 p.m. Sundays at Congregation Beth Abraham, 145 York St., Bangor, and are free.

The series is supported by the Libra Foundation, Bangor Jewish Community Endowment Associates, Congregation Beth Abraham and the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, and, the release states, “these programs contain mature content and are not appropriate for children under 15.”

According to the release, the series is being held “in conjunction with professor Jonathan Goldstein’s UMA course, “The Holocaust: Perpetrators, Victims, and Rescuers,” and represents “a variety of points of view.”

The first speaker is professor Russell Lemmons of Jacksonville State University in Alabama addressing “Nazi Cartoons: Antisemitic Caricatures and Stereotypes.”

The series continues on Feb. 24, March 9, April 13, April 27, May 18, May 25 and June 1.

For more information, call 651-3532.

Author Karen Tolstrup will discuss her book about the late Bangor Daily News cooking columnist “Brownie” Schrumpf, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10, in the dining room at Dirigo Pines on Alumni Drive in Orono.

Tolstrup’s presentation, “If Maine Had a Queen,” is one of a series of free, monthly public forums sponsored by the Dr. Edith Marion Patch Center for Entomology, the Environment and Education.

For more information about this event, the series, or the Patch Center, call Mary Bird at 866-2578.

Women of the World coordinator Mireille Le Gal reports WOW will celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year at noon Monday, Feb. 11, at Church of Universal Fellowship on Main Street in Orono.

The fee for the lunch and a cultural program is $4 for women and children over 10, $2 for children 6 to 10, free for children under 6 attending with their mothers, and no reservations are required.

For more WOW information, Call Le Gal at 581-3423.

Amy Allen of St. Joseph Healthcare reports Monday, Feb. 11, is World Day of the Sick, “a time to reflect and pray for the ill and less fortunate.”

SJH invites you to attend an Infusion Therapy Clinic open house, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and also 4 to 8 p.m. that day, in the Center for Advanced Medicine wing on the second floor of St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor.

“The new clinic has doubled in size, offering 12 chairs in a more relaxing and homelike environment,” Allen wrote of the clinic’s newly renovated space.

The clinic offers intravenous treatment for medical conditions including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.

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