Have a wild time at Machias blueberry festival

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Three women were kind enough to send me information about their participation in the 33rd annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, which is now through Sunday, Aug. 17, in that Washington County community.

Laurel Robinson of Centre Street Congregational Church reminds readers that the festival is sponsored by CSCC in conjunction with the town of Machias, the Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and the Penobscot Valley Craft Association.

“It’s the church’s main fundraising activity for the year,” she wrote, adding that “we work hard to ensure that everyone feels welcome and has a good time.”

The festival features crafts and contests, from pie-eating to road racing, food and musical entertainment, and “one of the highlights,” the locally written Blueberry Festival Musical. This year’s musical is “The Berry and I, or Bluefinger.”

For more information, call CSCC at 255-6665, e-mail blue

berryfestival@centre

streetchurch.org or visit www.machiasblueberry.com.

Whitneyville Public Library director Pat Brightly wrote that Friends of the Whitneyville Library “have been working hard, this summer, to raise money for the library,” and that, “just in time” for the festival, “have published a cookbook and a calendar” featuring old photographs and logging in Whitneyville, and the floods of 1923 and 1940.

The cookbooks and calendar are $6 each, or two for $10, and can be purchased 1-4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, or 1-3 p.m. Saturdays, at the library, and at a site at the festival.

Proceeds will help the Friends and board of trustees “build a new, regional public library in Whitneyville,” she explained.

For more information, call the library at 255-8077.

And Wendy Schoppee of The Next Step Domestic Violence Project, hopes people will participate in, or support, the Machias Blueberry Run Five and One-Mile Race, which is “one of the oldest road races in Maine, and is usually run, or walked” by more than 200 people, she wrote.

The event begins with registration at 6 a.m. and the race at 8 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 16, at Hemingway Annex on Court Street.

For more information, call Schoppee at 255-4934.

Ann Carter e-mailed that pianist Mira Gill performs for the SummerKeys Mary Potterton Memorial Faculty Concert at 7:30 tonight at Lubec Congregational Christian Church.

Donations benefit the church piano-tuning fund; intermission refreshments are by Peacock House Bed and Breakfast; and information about the concert boat from Eastport is available by calling 853-2500.

Karen Kellerman invites readers to attend the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Bangor public annual meeting, 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, at the Sea Dog Banquet Center, 26 Front St., on the Bangor Waterfront.

Kellerman urges you to “join us for refreshments, and learn about what Habitat is doing in our community.”

For more information, call 942-8977 or visit www.habitatbangor.org.

Here is a reminder from executive director Joshua Torrance that “America’s longest-running summer antiques show,” the 2008 Ellsworth Antiques Show at Woodlawn, is 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15, and Saturday, Aug. 16, at Woodlawn, Route 172, Surry Road, in Ellsworth.

Admission is $10. For ticket information, call 667-8671 or e-mail events@woodlawnmuseum.org.

Erik Thomas, founder of The Blue Marble Gallery, invites you to a grand opening at its new location, 5-8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, at 165 Main St., Waterville.

The featured exhibit is “Out of Stillness,” which includes the work of 10 Maine artists and a collaborative piece called Soul Quilt, “all inspired by the concept of Being in the Now as found in Eckhart Tolle’s teachings,” Thomas wrote.

He invites you to “enjoy refreshments and meet the artists,” and more information about the gallery, and this exhibit, is available by calling him at 873-2300.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Jean Maginnis of the Maine Center for Creativity invites you to view the work of the five finalist designs, and meet the artists, in the Art All Around international competition for the work that is proposed to be painted on 16 of the most visible Sprague Energy Corp. tanks in its South Portland tank farm.

The presentation is 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, at University College in Rockland, and is free to the public through the support of FairPoint Communications, University College at Rockland and WGME-TV, according to the press release.

The evening features an artist’s discussion and moderated question-and-answer session.

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