Join the Mission to honor Sharon Daley, R.N. and the Mission’s Healthcare Partners during the Sunbeam Award Gala on Thursday, August 17 at the Bar Harbor Club. Reservations are now open for both full tables and individual seats.
This year’s Sunbeam awardees were chosen for their commitment to provide exceptional care to island residents served by the Sunbeam. “Sharon and our healthcare partners have created a unique and powerful network that has served the residents of Maine’s outer islands for more than 20 years,” says Mission President John Zavodny.
Daley retired from the Mission as the Director of Island Health at the end of 2022 after 21 years aboard the Sunbeam. Daley was first hired to set up the Mission’s telehealth program, but the program quickly expanded and adapted to suit the changing needs of island residents. Daley made home health care checks, helped schedule specialist visits, and gained the trust and respect of hundreds of her patients.
Since the founding of the Island Health program, numerous healthcare providers and agencies have partnered with the Mission. These partners have ensured Mainers receive quality health services and can continue to live on the islands they call home.
There are a lot of different ways to read on the Mission’s Downeast campus this summer. From a Story Walk to EdGE summer camp, Mission staff have come up with fun ways to keep kids engaged with reading and literacy all summer.
For the second year, there will be two Story Walks on the Cherryfield campus. A longer walk through the woods on the Mission’s trails starts near the Weald Bethel Community Center. A shorter, more accessible walk will begin at the EdGE Center near the head of the campus. One of the Story Walks will feature Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, a story about a woman who lives in a little house on the coast of Maine who works to make the world more beautiful. The second will be the book, Comiendo el Arcoíris Eating the Rainbow by Patricia Barrera Boyer, about a young bilingual girl who learns about the colorful foods that she can eat on a visit to the supermarket with her grandmother. Each story will include pages in both English and Spanish.
And that is not the only place kids can work on their reading skills this summer! Students attending EdGE summer camps at D.W. Merritt Elementary School, Milbridge Elementary School, and Rose M. Gaffney Elementary School will all receive books through a summer literacy initiative funded by the Evelyn S. and K.E. Barrett Foundation. “Each camp will have regular sessions where staff will read to the children and lead discussions about the books. The staff that are leading the sessions also work for the elementary schools and have a passion for literacy,” explains EdGE Primary Program Director Isaac Marnik. More than 250 students attend these camps every year, and each child will be able to choose their own books to bring home.
Finally, for the whole family there are also two Little Free Libraries on the Downeast campus, one outside of the Edge Center at the head of campus and another by Weald Bethel Community Center. Little Free Libraries are free book-sharing boxes where anyone can take a book or share a book. They function on the honor system people can take or add books when they want to. New books for children are routinely added to the library outside of the Edge Center.
Families can be many things, they can be the ones we were born into, ones that we have created, or maybe ones that found us. The 17th edition of The Island Readerfocuses on “Island Families” and includes poetry, a play, short stories, beautiful photographs, vibrant paintings, and other art that encapsulates the island experience created by 53 artists and writers. The submissions come from 11 islands stretching from Casco to Frenchman’s Bay including residents of Beal’s Island, Chebeague, Great Cranberry Island, Isle au Haut, Islesboro, Islesford, Matinicus, Monhegan, North Haven Island, Peaks Island, and Swans Island.
An independent, talented team of co-editors oversees content and selects what is included in each edition. In their letter at the beginning of The Island Reader they write that island families “are an extended family united by creative expression, by the rising and falling of tides, surrounded by saltwater, and defined through the verbal and graphic imagery of people living here.
This year’s editors are Kendra Chubbuck of Isle au Haut, Ingrid Gaither of Great Cranberry Isle, M.T. (Toby) Martin, Jr. of Islesboro, Kimberly Peabody of Matinicus, and Editor-in-Chief Gary Rainford of Swan’s Island. “For me, The Island Reader is an opportunity to have ongoing conversations about island art and the artists who create and live unbridged and off the coast of Maine,” Rainford says.
Douglas Cornman, the Mission’s Director of Island Services, is also a co-editor and serves as a liaison between the editorial team, the Mission, which publishes The Island Reader, and the islands.
“The Island Reader offers a creative space for islands to express their experiences,” says Cornman. “Not only does it showcase individual talent, but it also offers a collective creative voice that represents islands as a unified community of islands. It’s important when islanders notice themes between islands. Commonality mitigates the feelings of isolation often felt living in rural and remote places.”
To order the latest edition of The Islander Reader, view the digital edition, and view past issues, visit our website.
From July 1 to December 31, 2023, the editorial team welcomes submissions for the 18th edition. Submissions of visual art, poetry, and prose are accepted from writers and artists living on unbridged Maine islands.
Down at Steamboat Wharf, the music is bumping and a crowd gathers. It’s around 5 p.m. and eleven steel band musicians rhythmically drum the familiar tune of Take on Me by A-Ha. On the little island of Matinicus, the resonant, cheerful melodies float up Harbor Road and islanders can hear the music well past the post office.
This week, the steel band Planet Pan will travel aboard the Sunbeam to perform on Matinicus and Swan’s Island. By the end of the trip, they will have played for over 100 islanders and taught 25 elementary students. Planet Pan is made up of young adults ages 14 to 18 who hail from the Blue Hill area. Their songbook includes music in the Calypso and Caribbean traditions as well as modern pop hits. Led by expert instructor Nigel Chase, the band practices a few days each week and perform throughout Maine.
As the band plays, Steward Jillian cooks on a barbeque grill as people chat and shimmy to the music. Sunbeam nurse Simone Babineaux spins a hula hoop alongside residents of this remote island 20 miles offshore. “The Mission’s Island Outreach program offers activities to islanders that they may not otherwise experience,” says Director of Island Services Douglas Cornman. “Visiting specialists, artists, and educators ensure islanders receive services and enjoy events where they live and in-person. With guests like Planet Pan, they can share in experiences to strengthen existing community ties.”
The people who live and thrive on Matinicus and Swan’s have deep roots and meaningful relationships within their communities. For much of the Mission’s history, community participation has been integral to its programming. Outreach efforts by Mission staff—whether on islands or through the Mission’s 63-acre Downeast campus—connect individuals and deepen existing relationships within their communities.
So why a steel band and how did a tradition of steelpan performance end up in Maine?
Developed in Trinidad during the early to mid-19th century, steelpans are chromatically pitched percussive instruments. Used almost exclusively with Calypso until 1962, steelpans have grown in popularity and are used in many different musical genres around the world. Nigel’s father, Carl Chase, became enamored by steel bands while traveling in the Caribbean in the early 1970s. He spent time learning the instruments and brought the tradition of steelpan to the Blue Hill peninsula. From starting a community steel band in the 1970s to kicking off music education in the 1990s, the Chase family has ensured the performance, education, and celebration of steelpan music in Maine for more than five decades.
Planet Pan’s 17 pans cover a wide range of notes and are made of up of bass pans, cello pans, guitar pans, double second pans, and tenor pans. Nigel explains, “Each instrument varies in size, pitch, and number of notes. When we talk about a note, we refer to the oval impression within the pan. The bigger that oval, the lower the tone will be. A note’s pitch corresponds directly to the size of the note in the pan.” Rounding out the band are other percussive instruments of a cowbell and drum kit.
Visiting an island can be an equally unique experience for a steel band too. Off-stage, these young performers explore the islands and chat with residents. In conversation over lunch aboard Sunbeam, several comment on the beauty, resilience, and isolation of living on an island. One student notes, “People who live in remote places rely on each other but are also self-sufficient. Another remarks, “It’s crucial they get along and it’s amazing what they have created in such a small community. Did you see the Matinicus library?! It’s amazing!” The musicians also adventured to beaches, a quarry, and the well-known Fisherman’s Wife Gallery.
“I hope we can bring more steelpan music to other areas served by the Mission,” shares Nigel. “Music brings people together and the Planet Pan musicians get the chance to meet and learn from other Maine communities.”
Every month, the Mission’s food pantry welcomes hundreds of people through its doors and volunteers and staff make deliveries to seniors and others who cannot come to the pantry. In 2022, the Mission provided more than 200,000 pounds of food to people living in Washington County. But where does all that food come from? Around 90% of the food comes from Good Shepherd Food Bank. Good Shepherd works with the national organization Feeding America to provide food to pantries, like the Mission’s food pantry.
Though the food the Mission receives differs from week to week, Downeast Director Jenny Jones says. “The Mission tries hard to have the basics for households as much as we can: some fruit, veggies, milk, eggs, meat, and other protein sources. We also try to order the products from Good Shepherd that our customers like and request.”
Through the retail pick-up program facilitated by Good Shepherd, the Mission makes weekly visits to Walmart and Shaw’s in Ellsworth and BaySide Shop ‘n Save Supermarket in Milbridge. The stores donate unsold food and the Mission picks up that food. Volunteers and staff sort through all this food and decide what is usable. They often sort out spoiled produce that can be composted or donated to farmers for their animals. The food that is on the shelves on Tuesday morning when the pantry opens commonly comes from this delivery and includes bread, pastries, and produce. If a particular brand allows the store to donate products, the pantry will sometimes receive yogurt, milk, eggs, and dried goods, but those items are available less frequently.
The Mission also receives food from The Emergency Food Assistant Program (TEFAP) through a monthly delivery from Good Shepherd. This is federal program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). TEFAP provides the pantry with fruits and vegetables, eggs, meat, poultry, fish, nuts, milk and cheese, and whole-grain and enriched grain products including rice, cereal, and pasta.
To supplement the produce the pantry receives from supermarkets, the Mission works with Folklore Farm in Cherryfield as part of Good Shepherd’s “Mainers Helping Mainers” initiative. Good Shepherd develops purchase agreements with the farm, committing to buying certain crops that are given directly to the pantry.
To fill in any gaps, the pantry is also able to purchase certain items through Good Shepherd but what they can purchase is contingent on what suppliers have available.
This is where donations from community members fill in the gaps. Food products include jelly, jam, macaroni and cheese, soup, canned tuna, coffee, tea, and cereal are always popular items that people always want from the pantry. Some, like jam and jelly, are impossible to order from Good Shepherd. Other items that are often needed include diapers, shampoo, conditioner, soap, toilet paper, trash bags, cleaning products, and other personal care items. If you would like to donate to the pantry, the pantry is open every Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
