The Vineyard Committee on Hunger, along with Reliable Market and several Vineyard houses of worship, are working together again this year to ensure that Island families who are in need will have a great Thanksgiving meal (and Christmas). The volunteer organizers are asking Islanders who can to sponsor one of these families by contributing the cost of one family’s meal, $25.

Habitat Will Raise Roof

Habitat for Humanity of Martha’s Vineyard is seeking volunteers with roofing experience to help with its fifth house this Friday, Oct. 26 and Saturday, Oct. 27 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The building site is located off Edgartown/Vineyard Haven Road. Please call 508-696-4646 or e-mail [email protected] for information and directions.

Learn more about your family, your community and the Island around us: explore methods of conducting oral history interviews in a workshop at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, 59 School street in Edgartown.

The first meeting will be on Saturday, Nov. 3, from 1 to 4 p.m., with a follow-up meeting at a time to be determined by participants.

Environmental medicine specialist Dr. Lisa Nagy will discuss the causes, symptoms, complications and treatments for chemical sensitivity at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. Her talk, Environmental Health: The Controversial Connection between Chronic Lyme, Depresssion, and Alcoholism and living in a moldy home, is free, open to all and sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library.

THE DAY THE EARTH CAVED IN: An American Mining Tragedy. By Joan Quigley. Random House. 2007. Hardcover. 223 pages.

Before he began sinking into the ground, 12-year-old Todd Domboski noticed a wisp of smoke floating from the ground “like a smoldering match buried under damp leaves.”

In Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an abandoned coal mine had been burning beneath the town for 19 years, the book explains, tiny fissures often punched through the topsoil, trailing bands of sulfurous steam.

Dancing and Darjeeling

Belly dance is derived from folk dances and traditions of Middle Eastern and North African cultures. Like any dance form, it is great cardiovascular exercise. Find out more at the Tisbury Senior Center’s Tea and Talk on Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. The Vineyard’s own Belly Dance and Revue will dance and talk about the history of belly dance while you enjoy cookies and tea. Dancers are Pat Szucs, Betsy Smith, Jamie O’Gorman, Suzanna Nickerson, Shela Rayyan and more.