Happy Wednesday!
New this week:
Seasonal Craft Pop-up in Calais
University of Maine Cooperative Extension Washington County 4-H is offering a seasonal craft pop-up on Saturday, December 14 from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm at the Calais Free Library, 9 Union Street. Back by popular demand, 4-H Professional Gabby Brodek, along with a 4-H volunteer, will lead youth through several seasonal craft projects to take home. Each participant will have an opportunity to make and decorate a miniature doll as well as a card and envelope. These hands-on activities are intended for all ages and can be used as gifts to share with friends, family and the community. The workshop is open to youth ages 5-18, providing an opportunity to imagine and create together, share ideas, and help each other with craft-specific skills. All materials for the crafts will be provided. The event is free; registration is required. Space is limited to 15 participants. Visit the program website to register by Monday, December 9. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation contact Gabby Brodek at 207-255-3345 or gabrielle.brodek@maine.edu.
MSCM Downeast Holiday Celebration
Join Maine Seacoast Mission to celebrate Christmas with cookie decorating, games, crafting and more. On Friday, December 15, from 4 to 6 pm, the Mission’s 63-acre Cherryfield campus will host a Christmas celebration, during which children and adults can engage in a variety of crafts including ornament making and dreidel painting. There will also be games, cookie decorating, and a photo station. In Weald Bethel Community Center there will be light refreshments and a hot chocolate bar will be available at the Weald Bethel Community Center while campfire and s’mores will take place outside on Mission grounds. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Mission at (207) 546-4466.
Maine Seacoast Mission is offering a series of workshops for high school and college students, as well as their parents, to help with transition to college or careers. The College and Career Preparation Workshop Series, held online or in-person at the Downeast Campus, cover a wide range of topics including life skills, wellness, and college and career exploration and preparation. Learn more here.
The University of Maine at Machias Art Galleries will open another fall show, “A World of Paper,” on Wednesday, Nov. 20 from 4-6 pm in Powers Hall, Gallery II. The exhibit was organized by the students in the Museum and Gallery Management course under the guidance of professor of art and book arts Bernie Vinzani. The exhibit is from Vinzani’s personal collection and highlights the early uses of writing surfaces, the invention of paper, the cultural uses of the craft, artwork made from paper and unusual paper items rarely seen. The exhibit will be available through spring semester. Following the opening, visitors can view the show from 2-4 pm on Mondays and 11 am-4 pm Tuesday through Friday.
Want to win a $100 gift certificate to Hannaford, and this bundle? Families First Community Center invites you to give the gift of comfort and hope by supporting our mission to provide homeless families with a “hand-up” by entering our Home & Heart Raffle on Giving Tuesday Raffle. Each ticket you purchase helps fund crucial services, empowering families to find stability, warmth, and a place they can truly call home. Learn more here.
If you’re in need of a gift for the gardener in your life, University of Maine Cooperative Extension is offering eight new bundles of pre-recorded webinars on gardening-related topics. The On Demand Webinar bundles include three to four pre-recorded webinars plus helpful related resources. New topics include: ornamental garden design and maintenance, garden problem solving, homesteading, decorating with nature, and a range of crops from mushrooms to cranberries. This is in addition to bundles already available on home orchards, natives, compost and soil health, and seed selection and starting. The webinar bundles are offered on a sliding scale fee ($7.50 – $30). More information and links to purchase the bundles are available on the On-Demand Webinar page. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, contact Rebecca Gray, 207-356-1348; extension.gardening@maine.edu.
From Rudman Winchell: As many of you are well aware, following an initial jump in the salary threshold increase for overtime exemptions in July of this year, a second increase was set to take effect on January 1, 2025, raising the amount to $58,656. There was a challenge to the increases in Texas, where a federal district court judge temporarily halted the rule but only as it applied to Texas. After that, a new challenge sought to expand the halting of the rule for all employers. On Friday, a federal judge held that the DOL exceeded its authority by raising the threshold too high and allowing for automatic adjustments every three years. The ruling not only strikes down the second phase increase set for January 1, but also revokes the first increase from July and the automatic three-year adjustments. This means that the salary threshold for exempt workers is back to its prior level of $35,568 and this applies to all employers nationwide. This raises immediate and critical questions for employers who have complied with the July increase and prepared for the January 1 increase. Learn more here.
Like you, at Maine Equal Justice, we believe everyone who calls Maine home should have enough income, quality health care, nutritious food to eat, and a safe and affordable place to live. We are reaching out for your help with MEJ’s 2024 Community Survey. Tell us how you’re doing for a chance to win $1,800! We want to hear from as many community members as possible who are facing economic insecurity. These stories and responses will shape our future work. Fill out the Survey.
Maine Equal Justice is excited to share two new tools to increase access to Maine’s safety net. Maine Equal Justice and Pine Tree Legal Assistance (PTLA) have partnered to create a SNAP Benefit Estimator and TANF Benefit Estimator, now live on PTLA.org! Please share these tools with your networks. People across Maine can use these tools to quickly and easily check if they’re leaving benefits on the table that could help their families make ends meet.
Important changes are coming to the Medicare program that will make prescription drugs more affordable for Medicare Part D enrollees and the family members who help manage their care. The good news is that all Medicare Part D enrollees will automatically receive a cap on out-of-pocket costs, covering all prescription drugs, copays, and co-insurance related to Part D medications. For family caregivers, this means more predictable costs and fewer worries about unexpected medication expenses. Learn more here.
SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) has released the DAWN Network Watch. When drug names are identified in DAWN’s substance related emergency department visit data, they are checked against DAWN’s drug database (Drug Reference Vocabulary). Any drug name or street name not currently listed in the database is added. This Network Watch presents drug street names that appeared in DAWN data for the first time from January 2023 to August 2024. Understanding drug slang improves communication and awareness, helps identify substance abuse, and can avoid misunderstandings of the substances involved in street drugs. Please share this important resource!