April is National Donate Life Month. Every year, Donate Life America leads the celebration of National Donate Life Month (NDLM) to focus national attention on organ, eye and tissue donation and transplantation -- to share the importance of registering your decision to be a donor, honor deceased and living donors and celebrate the lifesaving and healing gift of transplantation. Mayo Regional Hospital will be participating in the month-long celebration.

The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) takes pride in offering in-demand programs. In 2018 we offered two sessions of Chainsaw Safety for Women, both sessions filling in only four days. Considering this overwhelming demand and the feedback we received from both men and women, we are once again offering a Chainsaw Safety Level 1 Workshop, open to all, on Friday, April 26 (rain date is April 27) at the Law Farm.

Coming to the Milo Free Public Library Wednesday, April 17 from 6-7 p.m. Ed Rice former journalist, college instructor and author of “Baseball’s First Indian” published in 2003 is coming to discuss the legacies of Louis Sockalexis, the first known Native American to play professional baseball. The talk is in support of a special project to raise awareness about why this largely forgotten Maine historical figure is worthy of such respect

More than 20 students in the younger grades at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are now HEROs for their outstanding conduct during the month of March. The HERO honorees were recognized with the presentation of certificates during an elementary-wide morning meeting on Thursday, April 4.

Advance care planning isn’t just for those with life-limiting illnesses – but for all of us. Pine Tree Hospice is offering a free informative seminar at Dexter Health Care, located at 64 Park Street, from 1-3:30 p.m. on Monday, April 15.

The library will be hosting free digital literacy classes beginning at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 24. The first class will be an introduction to social media. These classes are designed to help you grow your computer and digital literacy skills. Please call 876-4547 for more information.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension is now accepting tick samples for tick-borne disease testing. Maine residents can have ticks tested for the pathogens that cause the three most common tick-borne diseases — Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and babesiosis — for $15 per sample. Species identification of tick samples continues to be free.

Mayo Regional Hospital officials told community members Monday night, April 1 they are working toward a goal of keeping as many medical services in the region as possible as part of a proposed merger with Northern Light Health, a statewide system comprised of hospitals across Maine.

Partners for Peace, the domestic violence resource center serving Piscataquis and Penobscot counties, celebrated its community partners during the organization’s annual meeting at The Commons at Central Hall on March 21.

Upcoming events around the region.

For the last several months eighth-graders at SeDoMoCha Middle School have been developing projects, on their own or in pairs, for the annual science fair. On the evening of March 27 the students presented their findings to the public with their projects on display in the cafeteria.

As a companion piece to an earlier Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) workshop on “Being Prepared,” Felix Blinn will host a free public class on food storage from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 13 at the Dexter Town Hall (across from the Abbott Memorial Library).

Building awareness of disease and learning screening techniques for sheep, goats, alpacas and other small ruminants is the focus of the second annual small ruminants health workshop 1–4 p.m. April 13 at the Foxcroft Large Animal Veterinary Associates (FLAVA) Clinic, 1441 Dexter Road.

Enter: Abby Moore. “There were qualified applicants with great job experience and stability, with management or marketing backgrounds; but Abby stood out to me; she was well-rounded and capable in every area specific to the job, [she is] a local who loves this area and knows everything about it; she demonstrated her amazing personality in the first five minutes of our conversation, and I knew she had the right temperament for the job,” said Buzzelli.

The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) is calling all artists! The PCSWCD is holding a poster contest for its children’s garden at the Law Farm.

After what seems like an endless winter, we can’t wait to celebrate spring -- a hopeful new season. And celebrating is a recurring theme this April at the Thompson Free Library in Dover-Foxcroft.

We are still in the midst of the 2018-19 school year, but we are rapidly approaching the summer season. With that in mind, we look to the future. On Wednesday, April 10 at 6 p.m. Foxcroft Academy will host the annual Step-Up Night for eighth-grade families.

At the Commons at Central Hall on Thursday April 11 at 1 p.m., Sandra Ingerman, MA, a world-renowned teacher of shamanism, a licensed psychotherapist and a board-certified expert on traumatic stress will present, via video, a program explaining and demonstrating how shamanic ceremony supports trauma healing. This free program is part of the Sounds True Healing Summit and is brought to the public by NAMI Piscataquis County.