Community Calendar for March 23, 2022

Published 10:42 am Tuesday, March 22, 2022

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If you have any information for the Community Calendar, please email it to justin.schuver@bogalusadailynews.com.

Career fair

Procuring a job during or after school will be a little easier for some community members and students at Pearl River Community College this spring. Career Technical Education will be hosting a Career Fair on Wednesday, March 23. The fair will be in the Marvin R. White Coliseum in Poplarville, Miss., from 9 a.m. until noon and is open to the public. Confirmed vendors represent a wide variety of industries including automotive, business, banking, marketing, childcare, drafting, electrical, instrumentation, healthcare, manufacturing, and more. Attendees are encouraged to bring copies of their current resume with them. Space is still available for companies seeking to find future employees. Registration can be done by emailing Dean of Career and Technical Education for Poplarville and Hancock Campuses Dr. Amy Townsend at atownsend@prcc.edu.

Paper Queen information meeting

If any local student is interested in participating in this year’s Paper Queen Pageant, she must be a junior with a 2.0 grade-point average residing in Washington Parish. If any student meets those requirements, they should attend the first meeting at the American Legion Post 24, located at 63349 Louisiana Highway 10 in Bogalusa, on Tuesday, April 5, at 6 p.m. This meeting will be to pass out tickets and explain the rules. Contact the Paper Queen Committee for more information at 985-516-2084 or 985-516-2668.

Knights of Columbus Lenten dinners

The Knights of Columbus at Annunciation Catholic Church will be serving Lenten dinners on Friday, April 8, at the pavilion behind the church. The dinners will be sold from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Easter egg contest

The Museum, located at 408 S. Columbia St. in Bogalusa, will have an Easter Egg Contest for youngsters. The only rules are to decorate a drawing or picture of an egg no larger than 8.5-by-11 inches. The egg can be drawn on paper or posterboard and decorated with any materials. The contest is open for kindergarten through sixth grade and there will be prizes in the categories of kindergarten through second grade, third through fourth grade, and fifth through sixth grade. The egg art is due by Saturday, April 9. Hours at The Museum are Fridays and Saturdays from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m.

Easter egg hunt

The Franklinton Social Planning Committee will be hosting an Easter egg hunt on Friday, April 15, from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. at the Washington Parish Fairgrounds in Franklinton. The event will also include face painting, a petting zoo and prizes for the egg hunters.

Recipes needed

The Mile Branch Settlement Cookbook Committee has begun collecting recipes for its newest fund-raiser project. You are invited to submit your favorite recipes, including those related to canning, freezing, and freeze-drying to preserve foods. Forms necessary for submitting recipes are available on the Mile Branch and Washington Parish Free Fair Facebook pages. You may also obtain email or hard copy forms by emailing MBSCookbook@gmail.com. Printed forms will be available through local civic organizations, businesses and churches in your area. Printed forms should be mailed to: “Mile Branch Cookbook c/o Washington Parish Free Fair, P. O. Box 574, Franklinton, LA 70438.” Deadline for submission of recipes is Saturday, April 30.

Bogalusa Balloon Festival

The Bogalusa Parks, Recreation and Culture Commission will be presenting the “Bogalusa Balloon Festival” from May 20-22 at George R. Carr Memorial Airfield, located at 401 Walker St. in Bogalusa. More information will be released in the future.

Open Road Cruisers

The Open Road Cruisers monthly “Cruise-In” will be held the second Thursday night of each month, from March through August, from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. in the parking lot of Zesto’s Drive-In, located at 100 Richmond St. in Bogalusa. There is a $1,000 cash giveaway each month. For more information, call Jeff at 985-516-0643 or Robert at 985-750-2112.

YouthBuild Bogalusa

YouthBuild Bogalusa (YBB) is enrolling students for its program. To gain entry in the program, a student will need to be between the ages of 16-24, and have not graduated from high school or earned his or her HISET. The new applicant will take the TABE placement test, in order to gain entry in the program. There will be testing for placement, Monday through Thursday every week from 9 a.m. until noon. YBB offers opportunities in educational aid in passing the HISET, Carpentry Skills (NCCER Certification/OSHA 30), mentoring, AmeriCorps (educational stipend/award), CNA, and welding, along with life skills (community involvement/leadership skills). YBB provides monetary incentives to learn — up to $500 every two weeks. YBB also has a full-time Case Manager and Counselor on staff. If you have any interest in the program or know of any one that will benefit from the program, visit YBB at 1242 Austin St. in Bogalusa, or call 985-545-1622.

Washington Parish alert system

Stay alert by enrolling in the Washington Parish Emergency Notification System. This alert system provides rapid notification of emergencies, critical events and urgent situations. The alert system can send notifications through the following methods: phone call, text, email or TTY/TTD service for the hearing impaired. Landline phones are automatically entered for the alert system. To receive alerts through a mobile phone or email, a citizen must register through one of the following options: call 985-282-2620, text “Alert” to 985-282-2620, or sign up online at www.hyper-reach.com/lawashingtonsignup.html. Citizens can also download the Hyper Reach Anywhere app to any smartphone. This alert system is completely free.

Bogalusa Help Center

It’s easy to smile when someone cares, and Bogalusa Help Center, our local food bank, cares. It is now a drive-through operation, located at 350 Martin Luther King Drive in Bogalusa. It is open from 8 a.m. until noon every Wednesday (except the fifth Wednesday of the month) providing food to those in need in our community. Since partnering with Second Harvest Food Bank/USDA, and along with generous donations from our community, BHC now distributes 35-40 pounds of food each month to over 400 families. These distributions include canned goods, meat, dry beans, peanut butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, etc. New clients can apply each week. They must provide: Name of head of the household; driver’s license or ID; address; number of persons in the household and ages; and SNAP or SSI printout, or proof of income of all in the household. Donations are always very much needed and appreciated. For more information, BHC may be reached at 985-735-6404 every Wednesday.

American Legion bingo returns

Bingo is back at the American Legion building every Thursday. Doors open at 5 p.m. and outstanding food will be served also. There is an ATM for your convenience.

Ongoing services at the Bogalusa branch library

• The Bogalusa branch of the Washington Parish Library offers a variety of services throughout the year. Faxing is available for $1 per 20 pages, and copies can be made for 20 cents each (black and white) or 50 cents each for color. There is also free computers for use — the first five copies are free, and it is 10 cents a copy after the first five.

• If you are an E-book reader, check out the selections offered by the Washington Parish Library in partnership with four other library systems.

• Patrons have free access to ancestry.com at any Washington Parish Library, and free access to heritagequest.com from any home or personal device, as well as a large selection of genealogy materials at the Bogalusa and Franklinton branches.

• The Bogalusa branch receives current copies of local and national newspapers, as well as popular magazine publications. The public is invited to sit in the comfortable reading center to enjoy their favorites.

• For students, the Homework Louisiana website offers a variety of assistance methods, including a live online tutor, “Skills Builder,” homework help and tutoring for kindergarten through basic college level, a writing center, a career center and an adult education center.