It wasn't about religion, although the trip was organized by a missionary. And it wasn't really about baseball, although most of the luggage was packed with sports equipment. But the trip to Africa that local residents Jim Cederberg, 55, and Drew Sauer, 28, went on last winter has them committed to returning regularly, bats, balls and gloves in hand.

The Avery Brewing Company is kind of in hiding. The taproom is barely marked from the street, and if you call for directions, they boil down to taking a service road west of a car wash. But if you find it, youll have landed in one of those precious havens for invested beer drinkers the kind who take a sample in pint glasses.

OK, so if you checked the online program calendar for 1190, youd know what youre getting. But its much more fun to just tune to the station on your AM radio or your computer or even through the 1190 iPhone app, and listen to the random sampling, from hip hop to heavy metal, from a live concert to a local musicians latest EP.

But Project Yes has been hit hard by the recession and is looking at ways to restructure itself to manage a $41,000 shortfall. The organization provides arts-based service-learning for students ages 5 to 12, runs a youth center for middle and high school students and organizes two annual community events — the Martin Luther King, Jr.

When Luc Nadeau pulls out a fresh piece of wood, roughly the size for a coffin lid, he gives it a quick inspection. He notes the knots, the blue, purple and occasional orange stains left from the pine bark beetle that killed the tree, the pocks and holes from the second round of beetles that passed through the wood.