Director of Island Services Douglas Cornman at the Inter-Island Event with an island student
For nine years, Douglas Cornman has been a consistent presence on Maine’s outer islands as the Mission’s Director of Island Outreach. He has taught improv, dance, and movement classes for island children. He has hosted church services, presided over weddings, and conducted funerals. He has also been a compassionate sounding board and confidant for island residents.
As of January 1, Douglas has taken on the role as Director of Island Services in which he will bring together the Mission’s island-based programming. This change allows the Mission to take a more integrated and comprehensive approach to the initiatives offered to island residents and provide greater continuity of care.
“Douglas’s commitment to the islanders served by the Mission is clear. He has been an unwavering community supporter and we are glad that he will now play an even larger role in our work with island residents,” says Mission President John Zavodny.
“I am excited and equally inspired to play a part in creating the space for this work. Maine Seacoast Mission has always wanted island and coastal communities to thrive,” Douglas says. “This shift is yet another step in ensuring that our mission endures.” Douglas stresses that this will not change the access island residents have to either the services that Douglas or the new nurse will provide. It just means that Douglas now coordinates programming offered by the Mission via the Sunbeam. While Douglas will head up Island Services programs, the Sunbeam boat crew will continue to report to Captain Mike Johnson.
“Consolidating the administrative sides of the Island Health and Island Outreach programs makes sense,” Douglas adds. “One reason for doing this is to free up space for me and the next Sunbeam Nurse to spend even more time with islanders, island communities, and the various mainland partners who work with them. This change provides us with additional opportunities to understand what the islands want and need such as access to healthcare. As life on the islands changes, Mission services will continue to evolve alongside it.”
Douglas is working on bringing back programs that were temporarily halted because of Covid. The Sunbeam will continue to do its regular healthcare and outreach trips. “We are also planning a couple of trips to help islands collect beach trash and a few that will allow islanders opportunities to visit islands other than their own,” Douglas says. “Stay tuned. It is going to be an exciting season on the Sunbeam.”
With colder temperatures and snow in the forecast, the Mission’s Downeast Campus is the place for winter activities and family fun. Every Saturday through February from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—weather permitting—families with children are invited to ice skate, snowshoe, and enjoy indoor activities at the Mission’s Downeast Campus.
Interim Downeast Director Jenny Jones says, “We are excited to have winter activities back at the Mission, and we are happy that Mother Nature is allowing us the opportunity to offer so many great activities. As long as the ice stays frozen, we will be skating!”
This is a great time to try out ice skating and snowshoeing in a low-pressure, family-friendly environment. Bring your own skates or use the Mission’s as equipment in all sizes is available to borrow including skates, helmets, and snowshoes. Use of Mission equipment is free of charge. Warm up inside the EdGE Center and participate in indoor activities including coloring, games, and more. A free lunch is also available to participants. Meals change on a weekly basis to stay fresh and exciting.
“It’s wonderful to connect with Downeast families and build deeper relationships with them,” says Community and Family Engagement Program Manager Stephanie Moores. For more information, please contact the Maine Seacoast Mission at (207) 546-4466.
On January 26, 58 high school students, parents, and guidance counselors in Hancock and Washington Counties learned more about four college scholarship opportunities during a Downeast Scholarship Open House sponsored by the Mission, Mitchell Institute, and Worthington Scholarship Foundation. The Open House was the first event of its kind these organizations have held together.
Attendees heard from representatives from each scholarship program as well as scholarship recipients currently enrolled in college. The college students talked about what it was like to apply for the scholarship they received, and what it meant to them to be a recipient. Mission Scholarship recipients Mya Abbott and Noah Carver, both spoke about their experiences.
Mya, a Davis Maine Scholar and first-generation college student who is attending Wheaton College, spoke about the difference the Davis Maine Scholarship made in her life. “This is more than a scholarship. I am given support from textbooks and tuition to toothpaste and shampoo. I receive technical help if I need it. My family can visit and the program coordinates that so they can have a window into my new, academic world. Based on my background and where I grew up, I would not have had an opportunity as generous as the Davis Maine Scholarship.”
The Mission worked with the Mitchell Institute and the Worthington Scholarship Foundation to hold the event because the Washington County and Hancock County students are eligible for scholarship opportunities outside of the Mission’s two programs. The scholarships highlighted at the Open House offer support that goes beyond just financial aid: all provide some type of mentoring, advising, and support to students as they navigate the transition to college and their time at school. The Mission Scholarships, Davis Maine Scholarship, and the Mitchell Institute also provide incidental support to students for unexpected financial challenges.
The Mission offers two different scholarship programs for students, the Mission Scholarships program and the Davis Maine Scholarship. In 2022, the Mission Scholarship program provided $208,625 to 77 college students from Hancock and Washington Counties, and each year the Davis Maine Scholarship offers six first-generational college students attending a partner high school, a full, four-year cost of attendance scholar to one of three partner colleges.
The Mission’s Scholarship application opens on Friday, February 10 and the Mission accepts applications until Friday, March 17.
Like most nonprofits, the Mission measures our impact with numbers. Yet it can be difficult to imagine what a number signifies. Consider the investment our community members, volunteers, donors, and staff make in Mainers’ lives last year:
Our Housing Rehabilitation volunteers donated 6,142 hours of their time to update 14 homes and two community buildings. If they continuously volunteered 24/7, they would be here for more than eight months straight!
Knitters and crocheters donated more than 3,000 items to our Christmas Program. The yarn used in this knitwear would stretch from Cherryfield’s “North Pole” to the border of Maine and New Hampshire.
Volunteers to our Food Security program made 1,896 deliveries from our food pantry to community members. If we took the total number of pounds of food given out, each delivery was the equivalent of 30 pounds.
And for good measure, Sunbeamsteward Jillian baked 2,328 cookies; if she made one large cookie out of all that cookie dough, it would weigh the same amount as a baby rhino!
From the island of Monhegan to the town of Machias in Washington County, our programs and community are hard-working. The Mission is proud to have continually served Maine’s coastal and island communities for more than 100 years. Each year the Impact Statement puts that work into context and highlights the unseen effect here in Maine.
The Mission has launched a $1.8 million Mission Downeast Capital Campaign that will fund renovations and additions on the Downeast Campus in Cherryfield. The 63-acre campus is the heart of the our work in Washington County and features the Ed and Connie Greaves Education (EdGE) Center, the Weald Bethel Community Center, and a food pantry and administrative building.
At the heart of the campaign is a renovation and expansion of the existing administrative building and food pantry turning the space into the Downeast Engagement Center. This includes renovating the current administrative space and converting it into a welcome center, building a new food pantry with porch in the welcoming style of a rural Maine general store with increased storage area while adding a flexible community space for healthy living programs.
The existing food pantry will be converted into flexible storage and staging area for programs. The Downeast Engagement Center will provide new space and opportunity for greater community growth and support.
President John Zavodny says, “Everywhere you go in Downeast Maine, you hear Mission stories: food in a time of need, a home repaired, a generation of EdGE students, thousands of scholarships, those signature Christmas presents wrapped in white paper and red string. Through our programs and people, we create belonging every day. And we believe that our Downeast campus, buildings, and program areas should be just as welcoming, work just as hard, and serve just as thoughtfully.”
The campaign also replaces the aging ropes course at the Ed and Connie Greaves Education (EdGE) Center which is used for leadership and skill building sessions with students. The new course will be a safer, more visible, and easier to maintain pole-based challenge course. An open pavilion that features gathering space and a playground next to the EdGE center will also be added.
In addition, retreat cabins will be built and placed near the Weald Bethel Community Center. This three-season housing opportunity allows the campus to serve as a true day-long and overnight retreat hub for partners, housing rehabilitation volunteers, and youth.
We provide a wide array of programming and support from our Cherryfield campus. In 2021, the food pantry supported 2,033 people across 784 households each month and distributed over 63,000 pounds of food. Children from many of these families benefit from EdGE youth development programs as well. EdGE provides over 1,900 hours of educational programming across seven schools and works with over 500 families.
Physical updates to the campus will provide a natural flow between program, service, and staff work areas, and will lower barriers between formal programs, informal interactions, and access to services. The focus on connecting three hard-working, high-impact areas will help facilitate engagement between programs and multiply the impact of services provided, which is at the core of the work we provide in Washington County.
