Bates College welcomes community to Earth Day celebration

As it does every year, Bates College invites residents of Lewiston and Auburn to “Affirming Our Community,” an Earth Day celebration starting at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 29, in the Clifton Daggett Gray Athletic Building, 130 Central Avenue.

The gathering features a free barbecue and the distribution of bulbs for spring planting on a first-come, first-served basis. Scrod Pudding, a popular Maine contradance band, will perform.

“Schoolchildren, friends, neighbors — everyone’s invited,” says Laura Biscoe, director of the Office of Special Projects and Summer Programs at Bates. The event, she says, is a way for Bates to express its gratitude to the Twin Cities and its concern for the environment.

Biscoe says that some 6,500 bulbs for spring planting, including 15 varieties of lily and gladiolus, will be distributed during the gathering. Working with Bates students in the Longley School Mentoring Program, afterschool pupils at Lewiston’s Gov. James B. Longley Elementary School packed the bulbs in bags with planting instructions and markers for the blossom colors.

For more information, call Special Projects and Summer Programs at 207-786-6077.