SCARBOROUGH

Kiwanis donate new books to public schools
The Scarborough Kiwanis Club recently donated over 700 new books to the Scarborough Public Schools. The books were given to kindergarten through Grade 2 students.
Scarborough Kiwanis is committed to serving the needs of children, and literacy is one of the club’s top priorities. The club also sponsors a Little Free Library near the Eastern Trail on Pine Point Road, and also provides children’s books to the Scarborough Food Pantry. Donations of new or gently used children’s books are always welcomed.
For more information about the club, or to learn how to donate books, email club president Glen Cefalo at medic254@yahoo.com or club secretary Emma Clark at emmalclark3@gmail.com.

PORTLAND

Church welcomes new education director
The Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, at 524 Allen Ave., welcomed Emily C. Jones as its new director of religious education. She began serving the congregation on Sept. 21.
Jones has been an active Unitarian Universalist for more than a decade. Before moving to New England, she was a lay leader at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Little Rock, Ark., where she was active in religious education, worship arts and choir. More recently, Jones served as the director of religious education at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Kennebunk. She has an educational background in psychology and a life-long interest in spirituality and religion. Jones and her family live in Old Orchard Beach.

Coffee By Design, Androscoggin Bank donate $5,000 to food bank
Coffee By Design and Androscoggin Bank donated $5,000 to the Good Shepherd Food Bank in support of its efforts to provide meals for Mainers facing food insecurity.
A portion of the funds donated was raised through the sale of Coffee By Design’s Maine Strong Blend, created in partnership with Androscoggin Bank to support Good Shepherd Food Banks’s COVID-19 summer and fall initiatives. The rest was contributed by Androscoggin Bank. The coffee has been so popular that the fundraising partnership will be extended through the end of October. The Good Shepherd Food Bank gets $1 for every pound of coffee sold. The Maine Strong Blend is available online and in Coffee By Design’s coffeehouses in Portland and Freeport.

KENNEBUNK

Giftbox assembly campaign aims to bring cheer
Holy Spirit Parish, which includes St. Martha Church of Kennebunk, St. Mary Church of Wells and All Saints Church of Ogunquit, will participate in a pre-holiday program to provide shoeboxes filled with gifts for children in Central America and the Caribbean who have never received Christmas presents before.
The “Box of Joy” initiative asks individuals and families to fill a shoebox or shoeboxes with gifts and mark the box for a boy or a girl and the approximate age. Participants also are asked to enclose a $9 check in the gift boxes made out to ‘Cross Catholic Outreach’ to cover shipping costs. Filled boxes will then be dropped off at St. Martha Church at 34 Portland Road, Kennebunk or St. Mary Church at 236 Eldridge Road, Wells by Nov. 15.
“By packing ‘Boxes of Joy’ with toys and other gifts, participants bless children suffering from extreme poverty by sharing the joy of Christmas and planting seeds of hope,” said Lisa White, one of the organizers of the project at Holy Spirit Parish.
Boxes can be dropped off before and after Masses at St. Martha or St. Mary churches or at the parish offices.
The Cross Catholic Outreach will deliver the gift boxes to children in need living in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Guatemala to spread joy and mercy at Christmas time. A list of recommended gifts, as well as a list of what cannot be sent, can be found online at crosscatholic.org/boxofjoy. The outreach oversees nearly 300 service projects in 36 countries worldwide.
For more details about the project, call Lisa White at 351-0502 or lisa.white@portlanddiocese.org.
If you are interested in starting a “Box of Joy” program at your parish, call 938-3030 or email Elyse Wilson at elysethemom@gmail.com.

WINDHAM

Equine therapy center raises over $140,000
Riding To The Top Therapeutic Riding Center recently raised over $140,000 during its annual fundraiser “Triple B – Boots, Band & BBQ.” The event, the center’s largest fundraise of the year, was live-streamed this year due to COVID-19 concerns.
Monies raised will be used to support clients, horses and programs at the equestrian center, whose mission is to enhance health and wellness through equine assisted activities and therapies.
According to Riding To The Top executive director Sarah Bronson the organization has had an increase in lesson costs and a loss of program and event revenue.
“While RTT’s cost to deliver lessons has gone up, we have not passed these costs along to our clients and we remain committed to serving as many clients as possible while keeping everyone safe,” said Bronson.

MILFORD

Auction nets almost $60K for children’s hospitals
The Professional Logging Contractors (PLC) of Maine held its annual Log A Load for Maine Kids Auction as a virtual event for the first time on Oct. 16, raising a record $59,439 for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals in Maine.
The evening auction was live streamed by a WABI-TV crew from the Randall Madden Trucking, Inc. garage in Milford, with brief presentations, live interviews, and auctioneer Scott Hanington leading the show. Results exceeded expectations, setting a new record for funds raised in the annual auction despite the challenges of the pandemic and the online nature of the event. Last year’s auction raised $51, 866.
The PLC and the Northern Light Health Foundation (formerly Eastern Maine Health Systems Foundation) have partnered in the Log A Load fund-raising effort since 1996. Donations have gone to support research and training, purchase equipment, and pay for uncompensated care, all in support of the mission to save and improve the lives of as many children in Maine as possible. Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor includes a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that has received support for years from the PLC’s Log A Load efforts. More than $1.3 million have been raised by the PLC since efforts began.
For more information, please visit logaload.org.

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