As we prepared to publish this newsletter, Mainers were facing daily challenges as they confronted the COVID-19 pandemic. We have heard from many nonprofit organizations about their growing needs as demands for services increase and the full economic and social impacts of this crisis become clear. MaineCF is encouraging donors to make general support grants to organizations they know and care about in their communities.
We also created the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund (COVID-19 Fund) to support community-based organizations working with the outbreak and its consequences. The fund, seeded with $500,000 from an unrestricted MaineCF Fund, allows the foundation to direct grants through regional nonprofit organizations. These grants will support efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 on the front lines and serve the needs of those most affected by the virus.
My personal primary areas of interest in philanthropy are health and human services, so this crisis takes on special relevance. I’m grateful the foundation, with its mission to improve the quality of life for all Maine people, is in a position to help communities address the pandemic and increase the resilience of our broad nonprofit community.
I witnessed a nonprofit organization’s determination to improve lives earlier this year when I visited the new Community Childhood Learning Place in my hometown of Castine. Its commitment to creating an environment where children can thrive impressed me. And it took a village: Castine residents remarkably transformed an 1895 water tank into the children’s center with support from a MaineCF donor-advised grant.
We couldn’t accomplish our work without the hundreds of volunteers who help us. Susan Hammond, director of Four Directions Development Corporation in Orono, does double duty as a member of MaineCF’s board and chair of our Penobscot County Committee. She shares her story about efforts to improve the economic well-being of Maine’s tribes and her thoughts on how the foundation’s grantmaking helps meet the challenges of her home county.
And congratulations to the Waldo County Committee on its 30th anniversary. The story of one county fund grantee, the Waldo County Woodshed, is especially inspiring. We’re thankful for the devoted corps of volunteers who bring heat to hundreds of homes each winter.
Investment advisor John Beliveau, profiled in this issue, is working with his family to address food insecurity in the Rumford area. In conjunction with the RSU 10 food program they purchased a delivery van for the district that distributes food to students in a part of Maine where many families have mobility issues and face food insecurity. The area school district has deployed even more vans to deliver bagged meals during the COVID-19 shutdown.
This year, our state’s bicentennial, we’re proud to recognize the economic and social progress in Maine since 1820 – and to be a sponsor of Maine Public’s special series “This Is My Maine.” At the same time, we know not everyone has benefited equitably in that progress. The state’s 200th birthday provides an opportunity to honor all who live, or have lived, here – including Wabanaki people who have inhabited the land for more than 13,000 years. As we remember the past, let us commit to a future where all Maine people can live free from discrimination.
With 2019 in the books, the Maine Community Foundation can rightly tout an extraordinary year. Grants and scholarships totaled more than $40 million and the number of individual funds at MaineCF topped 2,000. We thank all the individuals and organizations partnering with us to improve the quality of life for all Maine people. Now more than ever, it’s all about community.
Karen Stanley, chair of the MaineCF Board of Directors, visits the new Community Childhood Learning Place in Castine.
Photo Ashley L. Conti
