Readers, patients and Scouts are among those whose lives are brighter thanks to three Mt. Lebanon residents who are winners of that town's This Town Would Be Different Without awards.

Mt. Lebanon Magazine sponsors the awards, which will be given during a ceremony at 7 tonight in the commission chambers of the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building, 710 Washington Road.

We join in saluting:

• Bill Baldwin, a volunteer with the Boy Scouts, Lions Club, the Service Corps of Retired Executives and a host of other groups. Mr. Baldwin is a former Mt. Lebanon municipal manager.

• Margaret Conners, a volunteer at St. Clair Hospital, has given more than 20,000 hours to the health care facility, including fundraising.

• Barbara Logan, a volunteer with the Friends of the Mt. Lebanon Public Library, the Mt. Lebanon Nature Conservancy, Outreach Teen & Family Services and a long list of other groups. She was a commissioner in the First Ward.

Residents nominate volunteers for the award; winners are picked by a panel of previous honorees.

The American Red Cross and the mail and marketing firm of Pitney Bowes Inc. have joined forces again to invite the public to "send a touch of home" to U.S. service members and veterans across the country and abroad through the Holiday Mail for Heroes campaign.

Last year -- the third for the effort -- the program received more than 1.4 million cards, which volunteers screened, sorted, packaged and delivered to military bases and hospitals.

You can send your holiday wishes to a special post office box through Dec. 7. Cards should be addressed and sent to: Holiday Mail for Heroes, Box 5456, Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456.

Be sure to affix adequate postage and, for security reasons, refrain from sending "care packages," monetary gifts, using glitter or including any inserts with the cards.

The United States has 1.4 million active duty members, reservists and guards serving in the United States and abroad. More than 24 million veterans have served in the past.

Others can get involved with the campaign through Facebook at www.facebook.com/redcross and Twitter at www.twitter.com/redcross.

For more, visit www.redcross.org/holidaymail.

And speaking of the busy holiday season ... many groups and individuals are calling us to get publicity for their holiday events, everything from craft shows to casting calls for living Nativity scenes.

Please, please send pertinent details -- no, you do not have to be Will Shakespeare -- just bare bones details and a contact phone number to suburbanliving@post-gazette.com. Or you can do it the old-fashioned way with help from Uncle Sam. Send snail mail to Southscape, our bulletin board, 34 Blvd of the Allies, Pittsburgh 15222.

We'll take it from there. No phone calls, please.

It's fun sharing good news.

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