The Maine Seacoast Mission has been a trusted friend along the Maine coast for more than 100 years, always committed to our work for the long haul. Island and coastal residents know they can rely on us. While our presence is steady, we are responsive to the needs of individuals and communities, and our programs adapt to meet changing conditions.
Now through the internet and digital communications, the Mission can bring a new presence to our past. For example, these two reports from the 1930s concerning the Mission boat at the time, the Sunbeam III.
First up is a three-minute segment from a radio broadcast featuring Alice M. Peasley, and other Mission staff.
Second, this remarkable film from the Maine Sea Coast Mission Collection at the Northeast Historic Film web site showing a U.S. Coast Guard cutter breaking through ice to enable passage of the Sunbeam III. Today, the Sunbeam V often serves as an icebreaker to enable islanders to move their boats in-and-out of harbor.
For more information on attending or hosting a Coffee’s On, please contact Terri Rodick at Maine Seacoast Mission: 288-5097 or by email. Thank you Harbor House Community Service Center for hosting our January 3rd event.
“When we were on Matinicus this week the wind was going to come up, so the boat was only on the dock for 2 hours, and then left to anchor. Douglas and I walked on the island and visited the school and people in their homes and along the road as we walked.
“We then walked down to a dock to meet a lobsterman who was going to take us out to the Sunbeam at anchor. The one picture is the road Douglas and I walked down to get there. The other is the skiff leaving the Sunbeam after dropping us off.”
Thank you, Marlena F. in Western Canada for mailing us original copies of this August 28, 1926 brochure celebrating the launching of the Mission’s Sunbeam II. Today the Mission is using the Sunbeam V. Click on the photos for full size pictures.
Director of Island Outreach Douglas Cornman sent this report and photos from the Sunbeam V‘s Christmas Cruise 2016:
The Sunbeam V and crew cruised to three islands in just over twenty four hours this week, to offer Christmas Services to the islands’ year-round communities. The communities of Frenchboro and Isle au Haut were visited on Tuesday, and the island of Matinicus was visited on Wednesday.
Residents gathered, either in their island’s church or aboard the Sunbeam, to listen to St. Luke’s account of the Christmas story, sing their favorite hymns and carols, and watch a nativity play performed by the island’s children and a few lobstermen and women.
Frenchboro’s nativity even had a living baby Jesus, played by the island’s newest addition. In his sermon, Director of Island Outreach and Sunbeam chaplain Douglas Cornman, asked the children if anyone knew what Christmas was all about (a line borrowed from one of his favorite Peanuts characters).
Love, taking care of one another, taking care of our planet, and compassion towards others are just a sample of the answers he heard. The Sunbeam’s 2016 Christmas cruise truly was a beautiful and life affirming whirlwind that is not to be soon forgotten.
