Bangor

Anniversary celebration

BANGOR – Wings For Children & Families Inc., a private, nonprofit agency providing targeted case management services to children and youth with mental illness in Aroostook, Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis and Washington counties, announced its 10-year anniversary celebration.

The event will take place 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, in the Bangor Wings office. The day will consist of fun events for children, recognition of individuals and agencies that have contributed to the mission and vision of the program, and stories from families about the impact Wings has had in their lives.

The event is open to the public. For further information, call Wings at 941-2988 or (800) 823-2988.

Youth concerts

The Maine Charity Foundation Fund of the Maine Community Foundation recently awarded the Bangor Symphony Orchestra a grant of $2,000 to support the orchestra’s annual presentation of three youth concerts on Monday, May 22, at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

The three concerts, scheduled for 9:45 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m., are performed for more than 4,500 Maine schoolchildren from as far north as Island Falls, east from Machias and Woodland, west from Skowhegan and from as far south as Richmond.

Maestro Li has programmed music sure to engage the young audiences. The Bangor Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerts will include Bizet’s Finale from Carmen Suite, Excerpts and Final Movement from Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals,” featuring teenage prodigy Pallavi Mahadari and Henry Kramer, the winner of the 2005 BSO Maine High School Concerto Competition.

The Bangor Symphony Orchestra has been presenting the annual Youth Concerts since 1984. Other BSO education programs include the Maine High School Concerto Competition and Know Your Orchestra!, the BSO’s educational outreach program that sends musicians to Maine schools for workshops and performances. Call 942-5555 for more information.

WinterKids programs

WinterKids, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, announced recently its expansion to include a total of seven new or expanded programs, including last year’s pilot program, Welcome To Winter, which targets schools and communities that have large immigrant and refugee populations. The new WinterKids Snow School, a national program, takes kids to the mountain for a fun, outdoor academic lesson.

WinterKids’ most successful and well-known program is the WinterKids Passport, which now offers tickets, rentals and lessons to 50 outdoor recreation centers across Maine, for Maine’s fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade pupils and their families. The passport includes opportunities for skiing, snowboarding, skating, snow tubing, cross-country skiing and, new this year, dog sledding.

Three school-based programs are WinterKids Live, an interactive program with original songs and games that inspire kids to be more active in winter; the WinterKids Outdoor Curriculum which uses outdoor activity to help students learn academic and personal fitness lessons; and WinterKids Active Academic Workshop, which delivers outdoor, active and academically stimulating classes to schools throughout Maine.

Maine has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity and asthma in the nation, and lack of physical activity is a major culprit. Programs like the WinterKids Passport have proven to be a great tool for parents, educators and healthcare givers to help Maine children become active in the winter.

The program began in 1998 and has gained in popularity throughout the state and nationally. Applications currently are available at schools, Hannaford Supermarkets, TD BankNorth, L.L. Bean, WeightWatcher’s, and online at www.winterkids.org.

Orono

Programs at planetarium

The University of Maine Maynard F. Jordan Planetarium will offer again its popular celebration of the season, Season of Light, for family audiences at 7 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays, Dec. 2-23.

Season of Light is about the season of some of the warmest and brightest celebrations of the year. The one-hour program traces the development of many of the world’s endearing holiday customs, and how they involve lighting up the winter season – from the burning Yule log and sparkling Christmas tree lights to the lighting of luminaria and the Hanukkah menorah.

The show also recounts the historical, religious and cultural rituals practiced during the time of winter solstice – Christian, Jewish, Celtic, Nordic, Roman, Irish, Mexican and Hopi. It also takes a look at some of our more light-hearted seasonal traditions – from gift-giving and kissing under the mistletoe to songs about lords a-leaping and ladies dancing; and the custom of decking the halls with greenery and candles.

Santa Claus and some of his forefathers make an appearance and the program examines several astronomical explanations for the star in the east from the New Testament account.

The planetarium’s starry dome will help visitors learn a few winter constellations, and the cause of our planet’s seasons.

Admission $3. For more information, reservations or questions, call Alan Davenport at the Jordan Planetarium, 581-1341.

Lifelong learning

There is still an affordable way to get practical education that will help you at your job, in your business and in your home, according to officials at the University of Maine.

The United States has a national system for lifelong learning, based within its 100-plus land-grant colleges and universities: Cooperative Extension. Extension represents the largest publicly supported organization devoted to adult education in the world. And it’s alive and well right here in Maine. Cooperative Extension is the largest outreach unit of Maine’s land-grant and sea-grant institution, the University of Maine.

UM Cooperative Extension has 16 county offices offering community-based learning in health, nutrition and food safety; agriculture; small business; youth development; parenting and family relations; environmental sustainability; water quality; gardening and horticulture; pest management; safety and preparedness; and forestry and wildlife, and others. UM Extension staff offer workshops and consultations throughout the state, generally for a minimal fee.

UM Extension’s newest catalog lists hundreds of publications – 673, to be exact – on a variety of subjects. While a few of the heftier ones are more expensive, the majority cost less than $2, and many are offered for as little as 50 cents. In addition, many can be downloaded at no charge from a home or library computer.

UM Extension has been teaching Mainers what they need to know to survive and thrive for nearly a century. A good way to get acquainted with the breadth of their programming is to request a free publications catalog. Catalogs are available through county Cooperative Extension offices, or by contacting the publications distribution center in Orono, 581-3792 or e-mailing puborders@umext.maine.edu. Publications are also online at http://extensionpubs.umext.maine.edu/.