Photo courtesy Front Street Shipyard, Belfast, ME
BELFAST, ME — Front Street Shipyard today tweeted this eye-opening photo and update on the Sunbeam V’s major routine refit.
We discovered a little more rust than we'd hoped for on SUNBEAM. pic.twitter.com/3o9MdmQPFE
— Front Street Shipyard (@FrontShipyard) July 3, 2019
CHERRYFIELD, ME — Among the many activities available to EdGE Summer Camp kids is time aboard the Mission’s Sunbeam V and exploring island communities. As you can see in this photo, the worldview from Maine islands is unique.
BAR HARBOR, ME — Thank you, Sunbeam V Captain Michael Johnson for sending this photo of the Sunbeam III launch in Damariscotta, ME.
The Sunbeam V is undergoing a routine major refit right now. The boat is scheduled to be back in service around Christmas 2019.
Meanwhile, the Sunbeam crew members are keeping up with their varied work among island communities using the Mission’s temporary boat, Moonbeam, other boats, and small airplane travel.
Learn all about the work of the Sunbeam and crew here.
With your help, Douglas Cornman’s ‘Island to High School’ program prepares island kids to thrive in the midst of change.
You know the Maine Seacoast Mission is steadfast in addressing the challenges faced by many people in this region
I’d like to tell you about one piece of the Mission’s work that may surprise you. The Island to High School Program is an example of how the Mission watches and listens to our communities, and then responds creatively.
Every summer, a group of resilient young teens scattered across eight unbridged islands off Maine’s coast are faced with the reality that — come fall — they will have to leave their islands to attend a mainland high school. They are about to trade the island life they know for a life utterly foreign to them.
Do you remember the self-consciousness of being a high school freshman? Imagine that same blazing ball of worry amplified for island teens by leaving their family and their home. Their island population may only be 45, with a school of perhaps six K-8 kids in one room with one teacher. They’re moving to a school with 600 students and 70 teachers.
Nearly all these island students will be boarding on the mainland during high school, staying with relatives or family friends. Some families work together to rent a house on the mainland, where the parents take turns being the house chaperone. Each of these solutions is complicated. Each adds to the anxiety these kids are feeling.
It’s a difficult time, and much rides on their making a successful transition. Won’t you send your gift to the Mission today to help these young adults succeed?
Douglas Cornman, Mission Island Outreach Director, works with island kids for three years beginning in sixth grade to help them prepare for the changes high school will bring. Aboard the Sunbeam, he visits eight islands monthly so these students can learn and practice social-emotional skills.
Once a year, Douglas and other Mission staff bring them all together on the mainland for an overnight retreat with a carefully thought-out curriculum. The kids get to know one another, enlarging their circle of friends. Douglas invites high school teachers and staff to the retreats to spend time with the students. They talk about what to expect. They answer questions. They reassure.
Douglas builds in lots of opportunities for the kids to talk with each other and with him about their concerns. Volunteer high school students attend retreats and use their experience to help the islanders. These conversations answer the questions kids are more comfortable asking peers … about joining sports teams, fitting in, finding friends, dating.
These young people will thrive with your help. Your support lets us continue preparing Downeast youth for success through targeted programs such as Island to High School. The Seacoast Mission invests in the future, and has been a partner of island families for over a century. It fosters youth and family success, provides health services and basic needs — all to build resilient communities.
Your support puts our hands to work. Please send your gift today. Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
John Zavodny
President
June 01, 2019 01:00 AM
Healthcare comes via boat to Maine’s most remote islanders
Modern Healthcare
Twenty-two miles from the rocky coast of Maine sits 720-acre Matinicus Isle—the state’s most seaward island—with a year-round population of less than 100. Even when the weather is at its best, accessing healthcare services is a challenge for residents.
That’s where Maine Seacoast Mission comes in. Headquartered on the mainland in Bar Harbor, the not-for-profit has provided islanders with healthcare services via boat for more than 100 years. Its fiscal 2018 $3.5 million budget is funded by an endowment, donations and grants.
The Sunbeam and its crew of five take three-day trips out to the islands to provide healthcare services every two weeks, and while they have a schedule for when they’ll visit certain islands, a trip rarely goes as planned, said Sharon Daley, a registered nurse who works on the boat and is director of island health services. The schedule depends on the wind, weather, tides and the various schedules of providers. “There is really no typical,” she said.
BAR HARBOR, ME — Last year we were contacted by the present owner of the Sunbeam V’s predecessor, the Sunbeam IV which was operating as a fishing boat in Ketchikan, Alaska.
This year, about two weeks after the Sunbeam V started its refitting process, we received an email from Rebecca Peterson with St. Paul Shipwrights, St. Paul, MN. That entity has, and is restoring for a private owner, Maine Seacoast Mission’s 1905 predecessor boat to the first Sunbeam.
Ms. Peterson is trying to answer still pending questions about the Morning Star‘s history. We include an edited version of her email, including the missing pieces of history. Perhaps someone reading this will be able to fill in the blanks.
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Hello –
I am contacting you in hopes of gaining further information about a boat we are restoring in our shop in St. Paul, Minnesota. This launch, named Virginia, was the second boat used by the Maine Seacoast Missionary Society, donated to the mission in 1905 by Alexander Mackay Smith. The boat was named after his wife, Virginia Stuart Mackay Smith.
The boat’s name was changed to Morning Star. There is a photo of it on your website on the occasion of your 110th Anniversary. The Morning Star was replaced in 1912 by the first of the Sunbeam ships. I made contact with descendants of the Mackay Smith family who told me more about their family’s ownership of the boat. It is truly a fascinating life she has had, first having ferried the likes of the Vanderbilts, and then used to serve the needs of the poor on the Maine seacoast.
It is a 1898 (or so) 45’ Launch built by the Gas Engine & Power Co, of Morris Heights, New York. This is a beautiful gilded age launch whose cabin still retains finely detailed mahogany woodwork, once powered by a naphtha engine. Here is a link to our website if you have an interest in seeing the progress in our restoration.
I would like to find out what happened to the boat subsequent to its use by the Missionary Society. Who bought it and what was done with it? Eventually she ended up on Moosehead Lake in Greenville, Maine, was renamed Virginia, and was used for passenger and mail service. More recently, the boat was attached to Sandbar Island in Moosehead Lake, and passed from owner to owner of the island.
I would be grateful for any old archives that shed further light on the “staunch little launch,” as she was called by the Rev. MacDonald, your organization’s founder.
My sincerest thanks.
Rebecca Peterson, Office Manager
St Paul Shipwrights
643 Ohio Street
St Paul, MN 55107
Rebecca@stpaulshipwrights.com
651-227-7069