‘Nunsense’ Performance Will Benefit Camp Fire

Heavenly hilarity awaits those who attend a benefit performance of Carrousel Players’ “Nunsense” on Friday to support the Inland Empire Council of Camp Fire Boys and Girls.

The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater musical will be in the Boswell Hall auditorium at North Idaho College.

With fast-paced fun, the musical comedy depicts the Order of the Little Sisters of Hoboken, a group of nuns who decide the providential solution to their financial troubles is a song-and-dance fund-raiser.

The Camp Fire benefit begins at 6:30 p.m. with a silent auction featuring a variety of gift baskets and gift certificates for Patsy Clark’s Mansion, the Spokane Symphony and Cheney Cowles Museum.

Tickets - $15 for adults, $12 for children - are available by calling the Camp Fire office at 747-6191.

Community notes

The Muscular Dystrophy Association needs volunteers to serve as camp counselors from Aug. 1 to 8 at Camp Larson on Lake Coeur d’Alene. MDA camp offers youngsters with neuromuscular diseases the opportunity to enjoy arts, crafts, sports and nature activities when paired with counselors providing one-on-one assistance.

Volunteers must be at least 16. Room and board are provided.

For an application, call 325-3802 or (800) 577-6716.

Second Timers, a support group for relatives rearing relatives, will host local and state representatives at 7 p.m. Aug. 11 to discuss legislative issues impacting relatives as caregivers.

Sponsored by the Children’s Home Society of Washington, Second Timers meet at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 2 W. Third.

For information on monthly meetings and to receive the group’s newsletter, call 747-4174.

Seniors

Project Joy, a program of the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department, is looking for volunteers who are 50 and older and interested in sharing their talents in music, dance and drama.

Members rehearse weekly and perform twice each month at convalescent centers, retirement homes and civic organizations.

For more information, call 535-0584.

Book drive

The nonprofit Oaks Classical Christian Academy, 806 W. Knox, is looking for used books for its school library. Donations of hardbound or paperback classical literature and history books would be appreciated, along with original-source documents and reference books, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauruses, but not textbooks.

For book drop-off information, call 326-7976.

Support for stutterers

More than 3 million Americans stutter, yet a child who stutters at school often feels like he is the only one.

The Stuttering Foundation of America wants to help these children and their teachers through its publication, “The Child Who Stutters at School: Notes to the Teacher.”

The free brochure (also available in Spanish) answers teachers’ questions about students who stutter: “Should I call on them in class or will this make the stuttering worse? Should I require them to read aloud? How should I handle teasing by other students?”

It suggests how a teacher can discuss stuttering with a child and when to involve a speech therapist.

The literature explains the difference between speech disfluencies and stuttering.

For the most part, speech disfluencies among preschool children (such as repetitions and prolonged sounds) are normal and self-correcting. However, if a child continues them in elementary school, the services of a speech therapist may be beneficial, especially if the child becomes frustrated.

Brochures addressed to parents of stutterers are also available. They include “If You Think Your Child is Stuttering.”

To order the publications, call (800) 992-9392.

Kudos

Steve Richardson has been named Volunteer of the Year by the Eastern Washington chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Richardson, a Richland firefighter, has been an MDA supporter for many years, coordinating its Fill-the-Boot campaign, a fund-raiser carried out by regional firefighters.

Richardson also serves as a camp counselor at MDA’s summer camp on Lake Coeur d’Alene, which gives youngsters with neuromuscular diseases the chance for a resident camp experience.

“Steve felt so much for these kids that he recruited other firefighters to be camp counselors,” said Vicky Gould, an MDA spokeswoman. “He gives up a week of vacation each year to be with these kids.”

Bike benefit trip

Interested in taking a three-day bicycle trip through the San Juan Islands?

The 1998 Tri-Island International Bicycle Trek is a fully-supported event to benefit the American Lung Association of Washington.

Interested bicyclists are invited to an informational meeting and slide presentation at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 267 at the Deaconess Health and Education Center, 910 W. Fifth.

For more information, call 325-6516.