Community Calendar

Get your garden started with Little Ridge Farm! Self-serve and open daily during daylight hours. Venmo or cash.
Organic seedlings: veggies, flowers and herbs.

Join us for a meaningful one-mile walk where heart families, supporters, and survivors unite for change. This family-friendly event brings our community together, honoring Heart Warriors we've lost and celebrating those still fighting. We walk side by side - heart families, bereaved families, and supporters - showing that no one faces CHDs alone.

Your fundraising fuels vital research for congenital heart defects - the most common birth defect, affecting 1 in 110 babies. Through The Children's Heart Foundation's research grants, we fund innovative treatments and surgical advances that help children with CHD live longer, healthier lives.

Teams from throughout New England will connect and take part in a number of free activities.
Activities Include:
Remembrance of our Heart Angels and a celebration of our Heart Warriors
Free admission to the Franklin Park Zoo
Hear remarks by Dr. Tom Miller, Division Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children's Hospital
Activities and crafts by It's My Heart New England
Fun at the Camp Meridian table
Meet Noelle O'Hanlon, Miss Boston's Teen
Get your photo with a Stormtrooper
Dance to tunes provided by our DJ
Get your face painted in fabulous colors
Enjoy a wild adventure and participate in a Zoo Scavenger Hunt
And, our signature walk!!

Event:
May 17th starting at 8 am
Penobscot County Extension Office, 307 Maine Ave., Bangor, Maine
International Back to Back Wool Challenge – Mainely Spinners
8 people, 1 sheep, 1 sweater, 1 day Cancer Fundraiser
Contact: Janet Delaney, djanet410@gmail.com

The wool challenge is an 8-person teamed event where you hand shear a sheep, spin the wool and knit the sweater all in a day. The purpose of the event is to raise awareness about wool world-wide as well as to raise money for cancer. The team here in Maine will be donating to the cancer care at the Sarah’s House of Maine. At the event there will be hats, mittens, socks, and other fiber items that the team has prepared for suggested donations and online auction. Raffle tickets are also available for the sweater that was prepared at last year’s challenge. See the online auction at the Mainely Spinners Facebook page.
Sarah’s House is a non-profit organization that provides temporary lodging in a comfortable “home away from home” environment to cancer patients (and their caregivers) who travel 30 miles or more to receive treatments at Cancer Care in the Bangor area. Sarah’s House serves guests traveling from 15 of the 16 Maine counties and convenient lodging is an essential way to support cancer patients during a time they need it most. Sarah’s House provides not only a comfortable place to stay, but a supportive and caring atmosphere centered around hope and healing. Referred guests are served with integrity and respect and without regard to financial resources. There is no charge to stay at Sarah's House.
Challenge day is May 17th starting at 8 am at the Penobscot County Extension Office, 307 Maine Ave., Bangor, Maine, when the first locks of the sheep are shorn and will continue until the sweater is finished and put on one of the team members. Will Mainely Spinners be able to reach their goal of ten hours? Come and watch or follow on Facebook (Mainely Spinners – Back to Back Wool Challenge). There are over 35 items up for sale and raffle on the day of the challenge, just another way to support cancer care in Maine.
How did all this start? In 1811 at Newbury in Berkshire, UK, a one-thousand-pound wager was made to make a coat from the sheep’s back to a man’s back in one day. Watched by 5,000 people, the coat was completed in thirteen hours. The sheep was eaten with much quaffing of beer to celebrate.

Today’s Challenge began in 1992 when Richard Snow, a keen young spinner at the Scottish Wool Centre at Aberfoyle in Scotland, developed thyroid cancer. His desire to raise funds for cancer research sparked off their Back to Back Challenge, a competition very similar to that run almost two hundred years ago. The event created enormous interest in the UK, not only because of the clever wool promotion but because of the funds raised for cancer research. It has spread worldwide with all teams following the identical Challenge rules and pattern exactly as they are written.
There were three teams competing in the challenge in the US in 2024: San Diego County Spinners, Bonita, CA (7 hr 16 min 49 sec) 2nd place; Mainely Spinners, Bangor, ME (10 hr 36 min 33 sec) 3rd place; and Granite Web Makers, NH (13 hr 46 min 00 sec).
Record Times
World Record : 4 hours 45 minutes 53 seconds Groenewoud Swalmen, The Netherlands 2017.
Canada Record: 5 hours 52 minutes 48 seconds Toronto Spiders, Toronto, Ontario 2010
USA Record: 7 hours 16 minutes 49 seconds San Diego County Spinners, Bonita, CA, USA 2024.
Maine Record: 10 hours 36 minutes 33 seconds Mainely Spinners, Bangor, ME USA 2024.
Annual Fund-Raising Record
Brigadoon Trophy results for fundraising in 2024 – 2nd place the Mainely Spinners, Bangor, ME USA $2,800.
Follow us on Facebook, Mainely Spinners – Back to Back Wool Challenge for updates and live streaming.
Photo credit - Stacey Wilson

The annual Plant Sale and Silent Auction to benefit historic Gardiner Public Library is on Saturday May 17, 2025, 8 am to 1 pm. The event is scheduled to take place at Gardiner Public Library, located at 152 Water Street, Gardiner, Maine.

Area artists, craftspeople, restaurants, merchants, theaters, and organizations are donating over thirty auction items. The silent auction opens for bids Monday, May 12th in the library and concludes Saturday May 17th at 1 pm.

A broad selection of outdoor plants, grown and donated by Gardiner residents and local farmers will be on sale for $1, $3, $5, and $10. Native plants are highlighted. A local herbalist and plant specialist will be on hand to answer your gardening questions. Please deliver plant donations to the library on Friday, May 16, between 3:00 pm and 6:30 pm.
As part of a commitment to healthy gardens Maine invasive plants will not accepted for the plant sale (https://www.maine.gov/dacf/php/horticulture/invasiveplants.shtml). In addition, gardeners should be aware of the growing prevalence of damaging jumping worms in Maine. https://extension.umaine,edu/publications/2518e/
Sales of plants and auction items by cash and check only, please.

All proceeds from the plant sales and the auction support Gardiner Library Association which maintains the historic Gardiner Public Library’s building and gardens.

Thank you for making this a memorable event!

For plant sale information contact John Woytowicz, (207) 592-0692 or Kathy Brown (443) 739-6458. For the auction contact Dawn Thistle, (207) 582-3312. Gardinerpubliclibrary.com

'Floating Filaments: Seaweed', a group exhibition opens at the Blue Hill Coop on May 1st and runs for the month. An artists reception will be at the Coop on May 4 at 3 pm. All are welcome.

The show is inspired by the seaweeds that are a little noticed but important component of our coastal shores but attract the eye of both artist and scientist. In addition to the Coop, the exhibit is sponsored by the Blue Hill Peninsula Rockweed Forum a voluntary organization promoting education about intertidal rockweed and conservation of rockweed which is a critical habitat for the sheltering and nurturing of hundreds of marine creatures including larval and juvenile stages of most of our commercial fish and shellfish species. It is the hope of the Rockweed Forum that this exhibit will draw attention to the intertidal habitat and the numerous seaweeds that are an integral part of our Maine coast.

Fifteen artists have contributed work to the show in a wide range of media (oil, watercolor, photography, collage, pressed seaweed, fiber art, cyanotypes, jewelry, etc). The featured artists are Krisanne Baker, Jordan Chalfant, Galen Davis, Pamela Elias, Kate Emlen, Lisa Tyson Ennis, Michele Gower, Christine Guinness, Jeannet Lendertse, Lyn Mayewski, Ron Miriello, Sarah Scamperle, Marcia Stremlau and Tanya Washburn.

Camden Hills Regional High School's Horticulture and Gardening class is holding its annual plant sale on Sat May 17 from 8:00AM to 1:00PM. We're growing a wide selection of vegetable and herb seedlings as well as annual and perennial flowers. There are single pots, 2, 3 and 4-packs and all are $3. Buy 3 and get a 4th for free.

On Sunday, everything is buy one, get one free from 9-11 and the last hour everything is $1. Come check out what we're growing this year!

Expanding your flower garden? Looking forward to growing vegetables this year? Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area will be holding our 5th Annual Plant Sale on Friday May 16th from 12 pm – 5 pm and Saturday May 17th from 8 am – 1 pm. The sale will be held at 304 Main Street in Waterville, on the corner of Main Street and Eustis Parkway.

All proceeds from the sale will benefit Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area, a nonprofit which provides compassionate non-medical support to individuals and their families at the end of life and throughout the grieving process. Special thanks to the Maine Department of Corrections and local gardeners and businesses for their donations.

To learn more about the sale or our programs, please call us at 873-3615 or e-mail hospiceinfo@hvwa.org. The sale will be held rain or shine!

At the Plant Sale, Master Gardeners and experienced Evergreen Garden Club members will be on hand to answer your gardening questions. Plants available include perennials, herbs, vegetable and flower seedlings, fruit trees and strawberry plants and houseplants. It is the same weekend as the Island Heritage Trust “Wings, Waves and Woods Festival”, a popular birding event; a great time to explore Deer Isle!

Most of the proceeds of the sale in the past have gone to maintaining the 23 ½ acre Mariners Memorial Park in Deer Isle, which is owned and maintained by the club and open to the public. This year, the proceeds from the Raffle portion of the sale will be going directly to the new Evergreen Endowment Fund through the Maine Community Foundation. The fund is meant to help pay for the annual maintenance costs of insurance, mowing, and road maintenance in the park. It is hoped that this fund will free up other monies for the club to do more within the community beyond the bounds of the park.

Excellent variety of sun and shade plants, perennials, annuals, houseplants, and lightly used gardening items. Support the Hampden Garden Club and its effort to care for the historic Harmony Hall building.

Come join us for the annual Bucksport Garden Club plant and bake sale. We have plants, perennials, annuals, bulbs, along with amazing pies and other baked goods. There will be crafts, books, and a raffle item. It's always a lot of fun and a way to get your garden started!