Newspaper drive

Members of St. John's Lutheran Church will hold their monthly newspaper drive on Saturday. There will be one sweep of the Palmerton, Aquashicola and Little Gap areas beginning at 8 a.m.Papers should be bundled and placed within sight of the collectors. They are collecting papers only, no magazines. The shiny inserts are acceptable. They also need grocery size brown paper bags.Persons missed, or those wishing to dispose of papers throughout the month, may take them to the garage across from the church on Fireline Road, which is always open. In case of bad weather, the drive will be held the following Saturday.Blood DriveMiller-Keystone Blood Center will hold a blood drive from 11:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 18 at Living Hope Lighthouse Church, 705 Third St., Palmerton. For information, call 610-826-2201.Writers GroupA new writers group is forming at the Palmerton Area Library, which is open to all published and aspiring authors of romance and mystery fiction. The first meeting will be from 10:30 a.m. until noon Tuesday, May 6. The group will continue to meet the first Tuesday of each month.Al-Anon Family GroupCourage to Change-Al-Anon Family Group will meet from 7 to 8 p.m., Thursday at St. John's UCC, 891 Columbia Ave., Palmerton. This is an anonymous fellowship, offering hope for families and friends of alcoholics, past or present, whether they are still drinking or not.The group meets every Thursday. For more information, call 484-477-9697.Successful blood driveMiller-Keystone's community blood drive on April 28 at First United Church of Christ drew 68 registrants, and 63 units of blood were collected. The visit was sponsored by Philip and Wimmer Attorneys and Ray and Cindy Heimbach.Gallon levels were reached by Tom Davies, 18 gallons; Alan Scott, Joel Seip and Mary Ann Shafer, six gallons each; Ricky Kistler, four gallons; George Elliston, two gallons; Sarina Berlow, Martin Nuscher, and Roger Smith, one gallon each. There were four first-time donors.Volunteers included Pam Andrews, George Ashman, Mary Beth Beers, Romaine Biege, Harry Brown, Marian Carty, Jane Cervenak, "Honey" Cyr, Arlene Dombrosky, Thomasine Falcone, Jean Fritzinger, Shirley Greene, Jean Halmi, Betty Hartman, "Bif" Hayes, Cindy Heimbach, Marian Hoffner, Bernice Kleintop, Gerry Klotz, Nancy Kresge, Paula Lendvay, Shirley Neff, Helen Nonnemaker, Darlene Nothstein, Dick Nothstein, Susan Olivia, Carol Papay, Evelyn Plechavy, Marge Porambo, Gwen Rodrigues, Terri Sebelin, Betty Steigerwalt, Susan Steigerwalt, Mary Taschler, Annette Wargo, Tara Wargo, Brenda Wentz and Joan Wivell.The next Miller-Keystone Palmerton community blood drive will be on Monday, June 30.