Maine Ties, Fall 2013 - Maine Community Foundation

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N E WS F R O M T H E M A I N E C O M M U N I T Y F O U N DAT I O N
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
An Encore In Maine, 2 / Leadership In Nursing, 4 / Places In Maine, 6
On Board: Fenniman, Harris and Polstein, 8 / Learning For Good, 10
P R E SID EN T’S PAGE
TA K I N G A N E N C O R E I N M A I N E
In early September a member of U.S. Senator Susan
Collins’ staff called to ask for my help. Senator
Collins, ranking member of the Senate Special
Committee on Aging, was launching a newsletter
focused on the issue of aging. She wanted to be
sure to cover the most important and interesting topics in Maine, which has one of the oldest
populations of any U.S. state.
My suggestion caught the staffer by surprise.
Apparently no one else had proposed a focus on
older adults as a community asset. It’s easy to
rattle off the litany of issues and challenges elders
in our largely rural state deal with every single
On The Cover: Qi Shu Fang and
the Peking Opera perform at the
2013 American Folk Festival in
Bangor. The festival received grant
support from the Penobscot County Fund. Photo Jeff Kirlin, courtesy
American Folk Festival
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day: inadequate health care, unreliable transportation, insufficient money to pay for winter
heating fuel, expensive prescription drugs, depression, loneliness, and more.
Contrast this list with what I also know to be
true: Many older adults and other soon-to-be
retired sixty-somethings are ready for another
career. Many boast an abundance of energy,
knowledge, experience, and skills to give back
to our communities. Maine’s former Governor,
Angus King, is a good example. He won his race
for the U.S. Senate for the first time last year at
the tender age of 68!
Above: At the Council on Foundations’
2013 Fall Conference for Community
Foundations in San Diego, Meredith
Jones and colleagues discussed lessons
learned through a six-year initiative
focused on engaging older adults to lead
local change. From left to right: Len
McNally, New York Community Trust;
Terry Kaelber, United Neighborhood
Houses of New York; Meredith Jones,
Maine Community Foundation; Jennifer
Crittenden, University of Maine Center
on Aging. Photo James Gillis
Above Right: Joe Grzybowski of
Bangor walks through the crowd
collecting donations for the
American Folk Festival. Photo
Gabor Degre, courtesy Bangor
Daily News
I recently attended the annual American Folk
Festival, a three-day celebration of music from
around the world held in Bangor, Maine, run by
mostly volunteers. Folk Festival volunteers serve
on the board of directors, raise the hundreds of
thousands of dollars needed to run the event,
handle many of the logistics, and then direct
traffic, manage crowds, and collect contributions
on festival day.
delivered in partnership with the University of
Maine Center on Aging, has helped older adults
give back to their communities as volunteers
working on issues of smart growth, as citizen reporters, and, most recently, as community organizers in the area of food insecurity. They have
built walking and hiking trails, produced videos
to promote downtown economic development,
and organized community gardens.
These men and women stood apart for a couple
of reasons. They were the friendliest bunch of
people I’ve come across in a long time; they all
wore t-shirts with the word VOLUNTEER on the
back; and many made me feel young at the age of
65. They give proof to the adage that older adults
are among a community’s most important assets.
Maybe it’s time to start spreading the word.
As rewarding as these efforts have been, we also
know that we in Maine cannot rely solely on
future generations for leadership because there
simply won’t be enough of them to go around. So,
in Maine and across the country, let’s figure out
more ways to engage our older adults. They’ve got
a lot to give. And we have even more to gain.
The Maine Community Foundation has spent the
last several years engaging older adults as community leaders. Our ENCorps program, funded
primarily by The Atlantic Philanthropies and
Meredith Jones is President and CEO of the Maine
Community Foundation. This piece originally appeared on the Council on Foundations’ “Re:
Philanthropy” blog.
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FALL 2013
A LIVING LEGEND
Muriel Poulin has prepared a generation of nursing leaders
and established a scholarship to prepare generations to come.
Dr. Muriel Poulin has been
volunteer manager of Books
Revisited since it opened in
April 1999. The store raises
funds for the HomeHealth
Visiting Nurses of Southern
Maine. Photo Mary Blood.
When Muriel Poulin was 10 years old, she had her
appendix removed. Even at that young age, the
Springvale, Maine, native was impressed by the
kind and attentive care she was given by hospital
nurses. By the time she graduated from Sanford
High School in 1942, she had decided to make
nursing her career.
Poulin also met members of the community foundation’s York County Committee through her many
regional involvements—serving on the board of
HomeHealth Visiting Nurses of Southern Maine,
assisting in the senior college—and had been deeply
impressed. “The Maine Community Foundation
does a marvelous job,” she says. “The organization
seemed to be the appropriate mechanism to handle
Poulin eventually earned a doctorate in nursing ad- this kind of scholarship.”
ministration from Columbia University’s Teachers
College. Since then, she has been a visiting professor In 2012, Poulin’s pioneering work in the education
at 11 universities and in 11 countries, and consulted and preparation of a generation of leaders in nursing
for 12 graduate nursing programs.
service administration both nationally and internationally was recognized by the American Academy
To encourage others seeking to make a career in of Nursing. She received one of its highest honors,
nursing, Poulin created the Dr. Muriel A. Poulin being named a “living legend.”
R.N. Nursing Education Fund at the Maine Community Foundation. This fund supports students at Poulin deflects comments about her accomplishSanford High School wishing to obtain a bachelor’s ments. “I’ve lived a long time! If you live long
degree in nursing.
enough, you can do a lot,” she says. Asked what she
is most proud of, she replies, “Being a nurse and the
Asked why she chose the Maine Community Foun- fact that I prepared many nurse leaders who are out
dation, Poulin is straightforward: “It handles dona- in the country and in other parts of the world right
tions and sees to the distribution of funds, and it has now serving their communities.”
a very good reputation for this.”
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PROJECT>LOGIN: Colby Tucker, IT Intern
The Maine Community Foundation hired an Information Systems summer intern,
Colby Tucker, through Project>Login, a program designed to increase the number
of computer-smart college graduates in the state. A student at Husson University,
Tucker proved himself an asset to the community foundation’s IT team. “Colby
has a true Maine work ethic that will serve him well,” noted Information Systems
Administrator Charles Proctor.
Project>Login is a program of Educate Maine, the business-led organization
whose mission is to champion college, career readiness, and increased education
attainment. Maine Community Foundation is a founding member of the group.
Above: Project>Login intern Colby Tucker with
his former elementary school teacher Liz Fickett,
who is scholarship associate at Maine
Community Foundation. You can read Fickett’s
thoughts on teaching and mentoring on the
Real Time Community blog at
www.mainecf.org. Photo Carl Little
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FALL 2013
A PL ACE IN MAINE
Three writers, three special spots: Peaks, Gotts, and Portland
We recently asked readers to send us short pieces about favorite
places in Maine. As contest judge Donna Gold, writer and editor
of COA, the magazine of College of the Atlantic, noted, reading
the entries brought her to many different places across Maine. In
the end, Gold wrote, “The essays and poems underscore how essential place is for all of us, and how many bends in roads and
rivers serve as touchstones for our lives.”
Battery Steele,
Peaks Island, on a
late September day.
Photo Scott Kelley
From Jeff Navicky’s “Battery Steele, Peaks Island:
An Impressionistic Essay”
It’s always autumn when I think of it, the foghorn at regular intervals, and we’re
walking across a series of hand-nailed planks that form a haphazard boardwalk
to the backshore of the island.
It had been raining all day, steady though not hard, vacillating between mist and
varied droplets for hours. The sea was a slate gray-green and the surf spit white
spray along the line of breakers.
Turning back towards the Battery, the birch trunks drew thin white lines across a
crimson and orange canvas, poles put in at angles to distribute the weight of color
and break up its walled overwhelm. Empty cement turrets riddled with weeds look
out to Junk of Pork and the open ocean where, it’s rumored, two German soldiers
washed ashore during World War II. They were buried clandestinely; I often
wonder where their graves are.
Navicky teaches English at Southern Maine Community College. His work has appeared
in The Café Review and Octopus Magazine; his plays have been featured in the Maine
Playwrights Festival and Boston Theater Marathon. He lives in Portland.
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View of Mount Desert Island
from the Maine Coast
Heritage Trail on Great Gotts
Island. Photo courtesy Maine
Coast Heritage Trust
From Kathy Weinberg’s “Sidewalks Dream/Heritage Trail”
I walked along the Heritage Trust trail [on Gotts Island], the land bequeathed by time
to man, and, in part, by my father back to time. He and his neighbors gave up this
land, to retain the wild, for those who walk on the trail, or those who look out from
the mountains. The walk is now, for me, a conversation with his memory.
The path took me onto another trail that eventually returned back to a road.
But was I the same person who entered? The sap of the forest and the light of dawn
on the water entered my blood and now I am carrying all of it with me. Wherever I
am, it remains.
Kathy Weinberg works in antique and architectural restoration. The Cowbird storytelling site has
led her to write a memoir and a novel, which she has been revising with help from workshops
offered by Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She lives in Morrill.
From Devan Showers’s “Portland
Is My Favorite Place”
The reason why I like Portland is the bright lights at
night because they make the city look nice and make
the city stand out. The tall buildings are so huge that
I strain my neck looking up at them.
The sounds of the city put a touch of business to the
streets. I love the sounds of cars driving by and the
beeping sirens. When it rains, the smell of the wet
concrete and the gas makes the city smell like a real
city should.
Originally from Massachusetts, Showers is an eighth-grader
at the Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School.
Elm Street Garage and
Portland High School
at night.
Photo by Jay York
You can read Donna Gold’s appreciation and the complete Place in Maine
winning pieces, as well as honorable mentions, at www.mainecf.org.
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FALL 2013
O N B OA R D
Fenniman, Harris, and Polstein:
Management, Health, and Natural Resources
The Maine Community Foundation has elected
three members to its Board of Directors: Andrew
Fenniman of Chamberlain, Katie Fullam Harris of
Cumberland, and Matthew Polstein of Millinocket.
Fenniman founded Actionable Insights, a global
consultancy focused on accomplishing results
while developing leadership capability at the senior
level. He has taught organizational management at
several graduate business schools and currently is
executive director of the Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta. Fenniman holds an MBA from the New
York University Stern School of Business and an
Ed.D. in Human and Organizational Learning from
George Washington University.
nity foundation’s Cumberland County Committee,
Harris is a trustee of the Edward H. Daveis Benevolent Fund. She holds a B.A. from Barnard College
and an M.S. in Health Care Policy and Management
from the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie
School of Public Affairs.
A registered Maine guide, Polstein is the owner
and operator of the New England Outdoor Center,
a year-round adventure resort in the Katahdin
region. His public service is focused on quality
of place and economic development. He has
been a member of the Maine Tourism Commission, Katahdin Region Development Corporation,
Governor’s Task Force on Natural Resource-Based
Industries, and the Millinocket Town Council. He
Harris is MaineHealth’s vice president of govern- currently serves on the community foundation’s
ment and employer relations. She previously served Penobscot County Committee.
as director of government relations at Anthem Blue
Cross and Blue Shield. A member of the commu-
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Current and new board
members meet for
orientation at Deighan
Wealth Advisors in Bangor.
Left to right: Andrew
Fenniman, Katie Fullam
Harris, Eileen Epstein,
Matthew Polstein, President
and CEO Meredith Jones,
George Shaw, Jean Deighan,
and Wendy Wolf
Photo Amy Morley
Asked about favorite places in Maine, Fenniman, Harris, and
Polstein offered the following thoughts:
Children drawing long hopscotch diagrams in multi-colored chalk
in the middle of the road. Bicycles left leaning on the yard by the
door while playing cards with grandma. Neighbors quietly getting
together to weed the garden of a recently widowed friend that is about
to return home after a long absence. My street. My neighborhood.
—Andrew Fenniman
One place that truly reflects much of what I love about Maine is
the Twin Brook Recreation Area in Cumberland. Created through
the generosity of long-time local farming families, Twin Brook is
a 250-acre dog-friendly park bordered by working farms that provides a safe environment to enjoy the outdoors while preserving
habitat for deer, bobolinks, squirrels, fox, and all types of creatures.
—Katie Fullam Harris
Recently I have been fortunate to spend a lot of time on the Molunkus
Stream between Macwahoc and Kingman where the stream has its
confluence with the Mattawamkeag. Here the river is largely mellow
and easy to paddle as it winds its way through Maine’s diverse forest,
finally meandering through a large flood plain full of spectacular silver
maples. This area feels, in many ways, like a land that time left behind.
—Matthew Polstein
More than 600 children from
13 different communities
participate in the annual
fall Coastal Running League
Championship held at the
Twin Brook Recreation Area
in Cumberland.
Photo Peter Bingham
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FALL 2013
P R O FESSIONAL ADVISO R
LEARNING FOR GOOD
The Maine Professional Advisors Network provides education, mentoring,
and a chance to see the good that clients’ philanthropy is doing.
The Maine Professional Advisors Network is modeled
after one in Boston designed to assist professionals in
developing knowledge about philanthropy and how
to integrate it into their practice. MaineCF spoke
with Jennifer Kruszewski and Brian Eng, co-chairs
of the network, about their experiences with the
newly formed group.
MaineCF: What inspired you to get involved with the
Professional Advisors Network?
Jennifer Kruszewski: Working with clients on philanthropy is one of my favorite things about estate planning. I find that the clients who are among the most
passionate about their estate plans are the ones with
philanthropic intentions, so I joined the network to
learn more and to be able to better serve them.
Brian Eng: Presented with the opportunity to join a
group of professional advisors who want to learn how
to help their clients with their philanthropy, I signed
on. I was also inspired by a talk by [Harvard University philanthropic advisor] Charles Collier about family
wealth and philanthropy.
MaineCF: We’ve had two sessions to date. Do you
have any highlights you’d like to share?
Kruszewski: When you ask professionals to take time
out of their day to do something like this, it can be a
struggle because we have businesses to work for and
run. In this case, not one person I asked to join us
hesitated for a second. The entire group has been fully engaged in our discussions at each session. People
are just thrilled to have the time to focus on learning
more about philanthropy. That in itself is incredibly
rewarding.
Eng: I’m really impressed with the level of expertise
that we have around the table. Having an opportunity to speak with my colleagues on an ongoing basis
about how we do our own philanthropy and how we
can help our clients with theirs is a huge asset.
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Jennifer Kruszewski and
Brian Eng at The Telling
Room in Portland. The Maine
Professional Advisors Network
met there to learn more about
programs supporting children
in and out of school, reflecting
an interest of many of their
clients. The Telling Room has
received support from community foundation donor-advised
funds, as well as from the
Daveis and Rines/Thompson
funds. Photo by Meggie Booth
Kruszewski: Yes, it’s great to know that these
people are out there and that they are seriously committed to encouraging philanthropy, not just viewing it as something that’s
ancillary to their primary job, which may be
advising clients on finances or preparing a
person’s estate plan.
Eng: Not only are there great organizations
out there that can benefit from the financial
resources that our clients can bring to bear,
but we can help our clients preserve more of
it from a tax standpoint, too. Having the benefit of the knowledge we’ll gain individually,
but then also the relationships that we will
hopefully forge with each other, I think we’ll
be able to do more on a timely basis, which
really benefits everybody.
LEAD E R S H I P
Mobilize people and resources
to effect positive change for Maine
ED U CAT I O N
Increase post-secondary degree
and credential attainment rates
Jennifer Kruszewski, JD, LLM, is an attorney
with Epstein & O’Donovan, LLP, in Portland.
She received her undergraduate degree from
the University of Vermont and earned law
degrees from the University of Maine School of
Law and the University of Florida. She is vice
president of the Maine Estate Planning Council and a member of the Maine Probate Rules
Advisory Committee.
Brian Eng, JD, is a strategic advisor with the
Opus Consulting Group, a financial management consultancy in Portland. He practiced
with Goodwin Procter in Boston and served as
in-house counsel with Citigroup in Portland. A
graduate of Williams College and Boston University School of Law, Eng is a board member
of the Maine Estate Planning Council. He also
serves on the board of The Telling Room.
MAINE TIES, FALL 2013
Managing Editor: Carl Little
Editors: JaneA Kelley, Ellen Pope
Writers/Interviewers: Donna Gold,
Jennifer Southard, Carl Little
Designer: Murphy Empire
Printer: Penmor Lithographers
P LACE
Help communities and the
environment flourish
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FALL 2013
Maine
Community
Foundation
245 Main Street
Ellsworth, Maine 04605
ph: 877-700-6800
LEADERSHIP IN ACTION: NELL NEWMAN
The entrepreneur-philanthropist talks organic and sustainable.
Nell Newman in a field
of new lettuce
Nell Newman, president and co-founder of
Newman’s Own Organics, will be guest speaker at
the Maine Community Foundation’s 2013 Inspiring
Philanthropy celebration on Wednesday, November
6, 2013, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the University of
Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall.
Newman’s commitment to organic foods and sustainable agriculture led her to launch Newman’s Own
Organics in 1993. “My niche,” she has stated, “will be
to support the environment through the growth of
organic agriculture.”
Newman grew up in rural Connecticut and attended
College of the Atlantic. She credits her parents, actors
Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, with teaching
her by example to be socially responsible, politically
involved, and philanthropic.
An ardent supporter of sustainable agriculture,
Newman will speak about how she has translated
her commitment to organic foods into philanthropic action while having a lot of fun along the way. This
remarkable entrepreneur will share her passion for
all things organic—and charitable.
Register online at www.mainecf.org or by calling
1-877-700-6800, ext. 2203.