Wyman’s Donates $25,000 to Maine Seacoast Mission for Youth Program

Posted on by Scott Fish

CHERRYFIELD – Citing its dedication to improving the welfare of its employees and their rural communities, the leading blueberry company Jasper Wyman & Son announced this week it has donated $25,000 to the youth program EdGE, part of the Maine Seacoast Mission. EdGE, or Ed Greaves Education, is based in Cherryfield and offers after-school, in-school, and summer programs from Gouldsboro to Machias.

“Wyman’s is a company with a deep commitment to sustainability,” says Robert Mancini, Wyman’s vice-president and CFO. “EdGE is committed to developing one of the greatest future resources from Gouldsboro to Machias: our children. We recognize that partnering with the Maine Seacoast Mission and EdGE allows us to continue improving our commitments to not only human resources but to our communities as well.”

According to Scott Planting, president of the Maine Seacoast Mission, the EdGE program inspires students to challenge themselves, engage with their communities and the outdoors, and explore college and career options. “We are deeply grateful to Wyman’s for its support of the EdGE program,” Planting adds, “and for realizing how vital it is to support young people and give them the skills to be happy and successful in life.”

April Norton, director of human resources at Wyman’s notes that many of the children of Wyman’s employees participate in the EdGE program. “Many families in our community face challenges in raising kids today. Wyman employees rely on EdGE to bridge the gap between work and home.”

Robert Mancini serves on the Maine Seacoast Mission Board of Directors.

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We’re Getting a Pretty Good Snow Squall. How Is It Where You Are?

Posted on by Scott Fish

Bar Harbor, ME — Sunbeam V Engineer Storey King sent this photo “from Matinicus this morning” on Wednesday, 3/22. In a separate email that day, Mission President Scott Planting emailed Sunbeam V Captain Michael Johnson:

Mike — we’re getting a pretty good snow squall this afternoon.  How is it where you are?

To which Capt. Johnson replied:

Good, Scott. Due to heavy wind we are spending a second night on Matinicus and leaving for Isle au Haut in the morning. It snowed here, but only a little.

The crew just had a CPR class by Eva Murray that took most of the morning.

Sharon and Douglas are out doing rounds, Storey is working on the hull, and I am doing some work on my computer. We had a pretty good crowd for dinner last night, and Douglas showed a movie after dinner with was fun.

Thanks for checking in,

Mike

Two Simple Gifts at the Heart of Maine Seacoast Mission’s Work

Posted on by Scott Fish

December 8,2016
by Scott Planting, Maine Seacoast Mission President

The Mood of Christmas book coverAt Christmas I take down from the book shelf a precious book that I purchased in Farmington, Maine, December 1, 1975, my first Christmas in the parish in Western Maine I served for 35 years.  The book is a collection of meditations called The Mood of Christmas by Howard Thurman.  Here is an excerpt from “The Gift of Grace”:

This is the season of Christmas.  For many people, in many places, it is a time of great pressure and activity, a time when nerves are tense, and when a great deal of anxiety hovers over the common life.  And this is just the reversal of what the mood and the meaning of Christmas really are.  I would like to suggest, then, that for those who care deeply about the meaning of your own lives and the significance of high celebration, that you would do two things during this season.  One, that you will seek reconciliation with any person or persons with whom you have, at the moment a ruptured or unhappy relationship…find a way by you can restore a lost harmony, so that your Christmas gift to yourselves will be peace between you and someone else.

The second is just as simple. Will you with your imagination, with your fancy, will you conjure up into your minds a gift of grace that you might give to someone for whom you have no obligation.  It may be just to pick up the telephone and call someone whose life is not tied to yours in any way…and say a word of reassurance, of comfort, of delight—so that you will feel that out of the fullness of your own hearts, you have conferred upon some unsuspecting human being a gentle grace that makes the season a good and whole and hale and happy time.

I believe these two simple gifts are at the heart of the work of the Maine Seacoast Mission restoring lost harmonies and the gentle grace of bestowing delight upon unsuspecting people.

Wishing you gentle graces at Christmas,

Scott  Planting

Scott Planting: After College, Most Island Students Want to Come Back Home

Posted on by Scott Fish

Rev. Scott PlantingBAR HARBOR — November 15, 2016, Education Talk Radio Host Larry Jacobs interviewed Mission President Scott Planting on Bench-Marking Success in the Opportunity Gap.

In the podcast segment here, Scott Planting answers Larry Jacobs’s question about reactions from parents and students on the unbridged islands the Mission serves, when those students must leave the islands to attend college.

Scott Planting tells Larry Jacobs, the large majority of these island students want to return home after college.

You can listen to the entire interview here: http://bit.ly/2gcFd9a