Tickets are still available for those who would like to see Maine humorist Tim Sample.

HealthReach Network will present “An Evening of Downeast Entertainment” featuring Sample at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at the Waterville Opera House. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for youths and seniors. Sample has appeared throughout the country and on national television, espousing his Down East philosophy and humor.

HealthReach is part of MaineGeneral Health and money raised from this event will benefit the HealthReach Hospice Comfort Fund, HealthReach staff member Sarah Webster said.

“That fund is a special fund for hospice patients with little or no insurance who need our help,” Webster said of the HealthReach hospice program that serves terminally ill patients and their families from its offices in Waterville, Gardiner and Skowhegan. Webster said planners hope the house “will be a good one” for this event, since it is for a good cause.

And for those who haven’t seen Tim Sample in person, attending will also provide one heck of an evening’s entertainment. It’s said that laughter is the best medicine and there is nothing like a good belly laugh to keep the winter doldrums at bay. Many Mainers relate to Sample’s stories and his quirky view of Maine and can appreciate them all the more because he’s a Mainer himself. The yarns he spins are close to home, but are told with a kindness and understanding that shows he loves his native state and those who live here.

To purchase tickets, call 873-7000.

Congratulations to Chelsey Nye and Jonathan Torsch, pupils at the J. A. Leonard Middle School in Old Town, who have been chosen by the People to People Organization to represent Maine and the United States in Europe this summer as student ambassadors.

People to People was founded in 1956 by former president Dwight Eisenhower to foster better relationships between countries.

Nye and Torsch are working hard to raise the $4,700 they will each need for the trip to France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.

In preparation for a bottle drive in the Old Town area scheduled for Sunday, March 4, the youngsters ask that you start saving returnable containers for them.

Returnables may be donated by calling Nye at 827-5460 or Torsch at 827-5944, who will pick them up, or they can be dropped at Skeeter’s Redemption Center on Stillwater Avenue in Old Town, where they can be set aside for the Old Town Student Ambassadors Trip.

A yard sale is in the works as well and those who would like to donate items may also call Nye and Torsch to make arrangements for pickup. Cash donations may be made by calling either student to obtain the correct mailing address.

Nye and Torsch would like to thank those who are helping to make this opportunity of a lifetime come true.

Cardiac defibrillators have been much in the news lately.

For example, a defibrillator saved the life of a woman who suddenly collapsed while attending one of the inaugural festivities in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, the facility had one of the devices for just such an emergency. Had it not been available, according to published reports, the woman would have died.

Jan Currier of Prudential Singleton Real Estate in Bangor wants volunteer emergency medical personnel in the Greater Bangor area to know about a Prudential grant program that can help local emergency response organizations obtain semiautomatic cardiac defibrillators.

The Prudential Helping Hearts Program makes grants of $1,000 available to volunteer emergency medical response groups to help cover the cost of purchasing a new, portable defibrillator. Groups receiving the grants, however, must raise the remaining funds needed to make the purchase. Often, that money can be raised through community fund-raisers.

From 1994 to 2000, Prudential awarded more than $4.5 million in grants to 2,400 EMS squads nationwide. This year, Prudential has pledged an additional $250,000 to help 250 more volunteer rescue squads obtain defibrillators.

“I would love to see one or more of these grants go to our dedicated and deserving EMS squads in our local area,” Currier wrote. “The application deadline is the end of April.”

Prospective applicants may call Currier for application forms and more information at 942-8261.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, PO Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.