On Vacation: No Column until 10-28

Since July, there has been a 65 percent increase in the number of families using the Hampden Community Food Cupboard, reports Melanie Sachs.

That is why she and other cupboard volunteers hope you will help stock its shelves, which, she said, are nearly bare.

Sachs is coordinating the Community Food Cupboard Challenge, in which you are asked to donate personal care items from 8 a.m. to noon on Make A Difference Day, Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Congregational church, 101 Main Road North in Hampden.

Sachs said those items include “things you can’t buy with food coupons, such as diapers, sanitary products, toothbrushes, shampoo, small laundry detergents, Band-Aids and paper towels.”

She also reminds you local Boy Scouts “will be tagging homes that day or next week,” announcing their separate food drive for collection on Saturday, Nov. 8.

“I just don’t want the public to be confused,” she said of activities being conducted on Make A Difference Day and throughout the coming weeks to help resupply the food cupboard.

Sachs added donations will be accepted through Saturday, Oct. 25, at Graves Supermarket in Hampden, and donation boxes will be available during normal business hours through Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Hampden Town Office and the Edythe Dyer Community Library.

“We are also encouraging schools to maintain boxes and people to put one in their businesses and drop it by on Make a Difference Day,” she said.

And, Sachs added, the Hampden Town Office will maintain a donation box, year-round for the Food Cupboard.

For more information about this effort, call Sachs at 862-6414.

The Down East Community Hospital Book Fair is 9 a.m.-noon today at Centre Street Congregational Church in Machias, not until 7 p.m., as the information provided me stated.

You are invited to the 18th Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program honoring Maine women of distinction with the Maryann Hartman Awards 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in Buchanan Alumni House at the University of Maine in Orono.

The 2003-04 Hartman honorees are Dahlov Ipcar, Joyce Longcore and Lillian O’Brien.

The recipient of the Young Women’s Social Justice Award is Mallory Cyr.

For more information, e-mail Mazie.Hough@umit.Maine.edu or call 581-1228.

Scott Peterson and Sherman Hasbrouck ask, “So You Think You Know Orono: Can You Use Our Past to Find Your Way Home?” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, at the Orono Public Library.

Attendees will try to identify Orono locations from old photographs and maps. Refreshments will be served.

For information, call the library at 866-5060.

“The 2nd Annual International Slide Exhibition represents an unusual and, we believe, significant arts achievement, not only for our club, but for our city as well,” wrote Jim Counihan of the Eastern Maine Camera Club.

This public event is 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, at the Bangor Public Library.

It features amateur photographs in two categories, Local Scenes and Club Competition, by EMCC members and its sister clubs: Photo Club Midtfyns, Denmark; Drogheda Photographic Society, Ireland; and Nova Scotia Photography Guild of Halifax.

Counihan wrote that EMCC is the first club in the New England Camera Club Conference “to be affiliated with foreign photo organizations, and may also be the first in the United States to also co-exhibit with non-U.S. organizations.”

Julia Emily Hathaway of Veazie reports another Make A Difference Day event is a walk to benefit UNICEF at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Bangor Public Library on Harlow Street.

Refreshments will be served 3-5 p.m. at the Peace and Justice Center on Park Street.

Hathaway said the event is being organized by children living in Greystone Mobile Home Park in Veazie. Walkers of all ages, and sponsors, are needed.

If you can help, call Hathaway at 990-1313.

Jeff Franklin reminds you the annual Caribou Kiwanis Steak-Lobster Dinner and Auction begins with dinner at 5 p.m. and the auction at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Caribou High School Caf?.

Proceeds benefit Kiwanis youth and community projects.

Tickets, $12 each, are available from any Kiwanis, Key or Builders club member, the Caribou Chamber of Commerce, Caribou Food Trend, Caribou One-Stop or at the door.

Conductor Jan Cox invites you to the Brewer Hometown Band Halloween Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26, at the Brewer Auditorium.

The free, fun event features music of the season, a surprise or two and a door prize.

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