Foxcroft Academy is partnering with Finance Authority of Maine to offer a Financial Aid Help Night from 6-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 17. A Finance Authority of Maine representative will spend 30 minutes presenting the most important elements of the financial aid application, and will spend the remaining hour assisting families in filling out the FAFSA application.

The JD Foundation is setting up fall and winter classes and support groups. If interested in being a presenter for suicide awareness in the community or a co-facilitator for bereavement groups, please call 876-2295. There is always room for more people who want to help.

Mayo Regional Hospital of Dover-Foxcroft was recognized for meeting the Gold Level in the 2018 Gold Star Standards of Excellence Program for efforts to prohibit smoke and tobacco use on campus and address client tobacco use. This is the seventh year Mayo Regional Hospital has participated in the initiative showing a longstanding commitment to addressing tobacco use and exposure.

October in Maine has a cinematic feel. From the red, orange, and yellow-tinged backdrops to the fallen leaves swirling in the wind to the jack o’ lantern grinning from the porch. One minute a bittersweet Lifetime romance, the next the ominous foreshadowing of “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” before culminating in a tension building scene straight out of “Halloween.” Whatever lens you view the month through, the Thompson Free Library in Dover-Foxcroft has programs to fit your shifting mood as autumn takes hold and All Hallow’s Eve approaches.

With so many struggling churches and businesses in our community, it is wonderful to see a ray of sunshine at the Guilford United Methodist Church.

Everyone is invited to hop aboard the Maine Poetry Express workshop and community reading at the Thompson Free Library. Maine Poetry Express is a program of the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine State Library to bring Maine poetry and poets to local libraries and their communities. Community members in Dover-Foxcroft will select Maine poems, learn to perform those poems in a workshop with Millinocket poet Paul Corrigan, and host a community poetry-reading event, where all are invited to come together to celebrate Maine poetry. The event will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Thompson Free Library. All are welcome and no registration is necessary.

Upcoming events around the region

On Sept. 28 American Legion Department of Maine Commander Scott Paradis presented Hardwood Products Company LLC with a Certificate of Appreciation in recognition of the businesses’ support of Maine veterans. Hardwood Products Company LLC, located in Guilford, donated a box of printed Stirring Sticks to every American Legion post throughout the state as congratulations on the 100th year of serving the needs of veterans and their families.

The final Brownville-Brownville Junction Historical Society meeting of 2018 was held at the museum with seven members and one guest attending.

The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) is partnering with the East Sangerville Grange to bring you an afternoon of family fun at our upcoming cider pressing event. This event will be held at the East Sangerville Grange at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 14.

On Sept. 25 providers from across the region gathered together in Dover-Foxcroft for a Provider Resilience Conference organized by the Piscataquis Rural Health Collaborative at The Commons at Central Hall. The conference featured the keynote presenter Dr. Christine Hein, director of provider wellbeing at Maine Medical Center.

A ceremony honoring Piscataquis County’s winners of the 2018 Spirit of America Foundation Tribute for outstanding community service was held at the Valley Grange in Guilford on Sept. 21.

Kimball Insurance is excited to announce that we are expanding our services and we are now able to offer guidance and service to our senior clients with Medicare health plans. As of Sept. 1 we have made an addition to our team and Nolan Lovell will now be the primary contact that clients can rely on for this newly added service.

On Friday, Oct. 5 Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) will be hosting a free public harvest potluck supper from 5 to 7 p.m. at the newly refurbished The Commons at Central Hall (152 East Main Street). Everyone who likes to break bread with others is invited.

Contra dances held over the past few months at The Commons at Central Hall have proved so popular that they will become a regular monthly event. Part of the allure of contra dance is that a lesson is provided by the caller before the band plays each tune, so everyone has opportunities to learn. More experienced dancers and beginners are blended together as the music and the caller’s instructions move them down the line of ever-changing couples on the dance floor.

Please consider joining this special evening to celebrate the work of volunteers and to learn more about Pine Tree Hospice and its role in area communities. For more information or to RSVP, contact 564-4346 or wecare@pinetreehospice.org by Friday, Nov. 9.

If you are living alone as a person 60-plus years of age or as an adult with a disability, you may feel vulnerable or frightened from time to time. Family members, whether they are siblings or adult children, are increasingly busy as they scramble to make a living and raise their children. Adult children move far away for new, life opportunities, leaving parents and siblings behind by themselves. Individuals are often completely alone.

At 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 4 Lakotah Sanborn from The League of Women Voters will be at the Abbott Memorial Library in Dexter to explain the workings of ranked choice voting.