These are busy days for staff and volunteers at Rape Response Services of Bangor, which is preparing to celebrate its 20th anniversary with the annual Fall Auction and Awards Night while also actively seeking volunteers for its hot line program.

First up is the RRS Fall Auction and Awards Night at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, at Spectacular Event Center on Griffin Road in Bangor, reports executive director Kim Roberts-Fer.

Tickets are $20, two for $35 or a 10-person table for $175 and may be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 973-3633 or e-mailing krobertsfer@penquis.org.

An updated auction and sponsor list is available at www.rrsonline.org.

Billed as “an evening of great fun” and an opportunity to “honor those who support the work of RRS” Roberts-Fer wrote, “it will also provide an opportunity to look to the future and our renewed focus on prevention and creating lasting social change.”

The anniversary theme for the silent auction items features three zones: The Honeymoon Zone, the Kid Zone and the Retirement Zone, with items appropriate to those categories.

The Honeymoon Zone ranges from flowers to restaurant gift certificates. The Kid Zone, naturally, features child- and family-appropriate items; and the Retirement Zone offers items such as golf and comedy show gift certificates.

Then the live auction, with popular volunteer Sue McKay wielding the gavel, offers a variety of items, the executive director wrote, adding it includes “a wonderful miniature sculpture” by Forest Hart, sports tickets and a handcrafted quilt donated by the Zonta Club of Bangor.

The evening also features the presentation of the Janet Badger Volunteer Award and the Teal Ribbon Award, which will be presented to the Beta Eta Chapter of Beta Theta Pi at the University of Maine.

Next from RRS comes the request by Sue Currie for volunteers in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties to take its hot line volunteer training course, which runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, beginning Monday, Sept. 15, and ending Thursday, Oct. 23, at the RRS office in Bangor.

Volunteers work one weekly shift and attend a monthly advocates’ meeting.

“In addition to providing support and information to survivors, and caring for others on the crisis and support line,” Currie wrote, “volunteers provide accompaniment to the hospital, to physician and-or other health care provider offices, or to legal-law enforcement agencies. Volunteers may also provide support during the court process.”

For information about RRS volunteer opportunities, call RRS at 973-3651 or e-mail scurrie@penquis.org.

On behalf of members of the Blue Hill Historical Society, Marjorie Longwood invites you to hear Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine archivist Pamela Dean speak about “Us and Them,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, at the Carriage House, behind the Holt House on Water Street in Blue Hill.

Dean’s speech is “based on her dissertation about the summer people who owned estates in Hancock County from the 1880s to the 1980s and the people who worked for them,” Longwood said.

Longwood added that she was one of those who worked for couples as a teenager, moved away as an adult, returned during the summers, and eventually retired to the area.

“Dr. Dean told me that was typical of such workers, in recent years,” added Longwood, who served for 21 years, mostly in Michigan, as a Presbyterian minister.

The free talk is open to the public.

Last year, Patawa Club of Bangor, a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Maine Federation of Women’s Clubs, celebrated its 70th anniversary.

As it enters its 71st season, Co-President Caitlin Sullivan wrote, the organization is hosting a homecoming celebration.

“Former members, current members or friends of Patawa are encouraged to attend,” Sullivan wrote of the afternoon tea at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7, at the home of Lillian Zanchi.

For directions to the Zanchi home and to RSVP, call Zanchi at 942-5951 or e-mail her at zanchi@Maine.edu.

Earlier this summer, Mary Heanssler of Deer Isle wrote to me that she is seeking “some crochet patterns for small, children’s hats.”

Heanssler said that she is “crocheting them for cancer patients, and a friend of mine is delivering them to hospitals.”

If you have crochet patterns that would help Heanssler with this wonderful, thoughtful project, write to her or send them to her at 1149 Sunshine Road, Deer Isle, ME 04627.

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