The West Glenburn Community Club will hold a benefit dinner for the family of Laura Cust, whose 22-year-old daughter, Jessica Cust, “has lived with the traumatic affects of ill health” from a defective heart and for several years has been on a waiting list for a heart transplant, WGCC secretary Brenda Moody told me.

After years of surgeries and treatment, Jessica recently qualified as a candidate for a heart transplant and a match was found for her.

Unfortunately, during Jessica’s preparation treatment for the transplant, cancer was discovered on her thyroid.

While that situation has been treated and she is recovering, Jessica is now back on the heart transplant waiting list.

A Bangor High School graduate who studied at the University of Maine Bangor campus, Jessica is hoping to return to her studies.

To help Laura Cust bear the financial burden of this lifetime of treatment for her daughter, family, friends, neighbors and co-workers have been extremely supportive, Moody said but, right now, with costs soaring in every sector, even more needs to be done.

The Laura Cust Family Benefit Dinner is 4 p.m. today, at the Grange Hall on Ohio Street in Bangor.

Admission is $6 for adults, $3 for children, $10 for couples.

If you are unable to attend, but would like to help, the WGCC will continue to accept donations in Laura Cust’s name, and contributions can be sent to the club in care of Brenda Moody, 20 Ambrose Lane, Glenburn 04401.

For more information, call Moody at 884-8556 or 478-9692, or WGCC president Ernie Phillips at 884-8275.

Rape Response Services is in the planning stages for its annual auction, which is Sept. 3, at Spectacular Event Center in Bangor.

RRS executive director Kim Roberts-Fer wrote that the event will “have a special, 20th anniversary theme,” and that RRS is requesting donations of items for the auction as well as business, organization and individual event sponsors.

Among the suggested donations are “weekend getaways, furniture, original or limited-edition prints, gift certificates, services and consultations, themed gift baskets, recreational-sports items, original handcrafted items and other creative contributions,” she wrote.

For information, call her at 973-3633, or e-mail krobertsfer@penquis.org.

Manna Ministries has issued a request for school supplies to help needy children this year.

Manna is seeking donations of notebooks, pens and pencils, three-ring binders, colored pencils, calculators and backpacks.

Donations can be delivered to Manna at 629 Main St. in Bangor, and more information is available by calling 990-2870.

Reney Crochere e-mailed that comedian-hypnotist Denny More “will be returning to the Strom Auditorium, this fall, to support Hope Volunteer Fire Department’s Capital Campaign to build a new Hope Corner Fire Station.”

Crochere explained that “as a way to offset the high costs associated with putting on a show of this quality,” the Hope Fire Department is seeking corporate sponsorships.

Sponsors will receive recognition on all printed materials and be able to set up a table and display a banner, with a company logo, during the event.

For more information, call Crochere at 542-4873, or e-mail reney.crochere@maine.edu.

On July 19, one of the most beautiful Saturdays of the summer, it was my privilege to attend Curran Homestead’s annual Olde Fashioned Summer Fair at Fields Pond, where organization President John Mugnai and members of the Living History Farm and Museum honored me with its World of Thanks Award, for which I am most appreciative.

Representatives of the Greater Bangor Area Chamber of Commerce, Orono Bog Walk, United Cerebral Palsy, Bangor Nature Club, Uptown Business and Professional Women, and Bangor Area Junior Achievement also participated, and I thank them for their consideration and kind words.

I was pleased to be remembered by Stu Haskell with “The Maine Book,” and I am delighted daily by the congratulatory calls, letters, notes, cards and e-mails I receive from so many people.

To husband, family and friends who made their way to that delightful, historic spot to share the day with me, I offer my thanks as well.

But my most sincere gratitude, for all those accolades, is reserved for you, our readers, to whom this column truly belongs.

Without your contributions, it would not be the community voice it has become and, for that, I am grateful to my publisher and editors for allowing me the opportunity to continue in my role as your voice in this newspaper.

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