Adoption group celebrates 25 years of diverse service

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Happy 25th anniversary MAPS!

More than 500 people from the Northeast, South and Midwest, including people from several foreign countries, are in Aroostook County today to celebrate the quarter-century of service by Maine Adoption Placement Service.

The MAPS 25th Anniversary Agency Picnic at Camp Medolark in Washington celebrates the founding of MAPS in 1977 by Dawn Degenhardt of Houlton.

With its home office still located in that community, MAPS also has offices in Bangor and Portland while providing services in five states and 10 countries.

Jennifer Sylvester is the director of the Houlton MAPS office.

“We’re having one, big, splashy picnic to celebrate” this milestone, she said of MAPS’ efforts that have placed more than 3,000 children with families, and has provided, “literally, millions of dollars in humanitarian aid in foreign countries,” she said.

MAPS works not only to find families for children here at home, but children from foreign countries as well.

And, Sylvester said, for those children in foreign countries who are “left behind because not everybody is lucky enough to get a family,” MAPS has built orphanages, contributed to construction of a bridge to connect a village to a town, helped resettle families displaced by floods and helped disenfranchised women in India, among other services.

“We work to improve mother-children issues in many places around the world,” Sylvester said. “Sometimes I think we’re the best-kept secret in Aroostook County.

“We work with a lot of girls in Maine, and around the country, helping them decide what to do.

“We have residences for girls, with parenting programs, which we consider our domestic humanitarian work.”

Funds to support MAPS come from many sources.

Sylvester said some of the funding comes “from families, and some from privately generated” sources while other funding comes from hardworking volunteers who sponsor events to support the work of MAPS.

And while today’s celebration is the biggest of the MAPS 25th anniversary year, other activities have been held, and will be held this year to benefit MAPS programs.

“The next event is a Walk-A-Thon Saturday, July 20, in Portland,” Sylvester said.

Individuals interested in participating in that event can call the Portland MAPS office at 775-4101.

Next month, MAPS will sponsor a Murder Mystery Dessert Theater on Saturday, Aug. 24, at Southside School in Houlton.

You can call the Houlton office, 532-9358, for more information.

Sylvester also wants readers to understand that while MAPS has a “strong domestic adoption program, not just a foreign program,” the organization was officially founded “to work, exclusively, with kids in the foster care system.”

“We did that for 10 years, and then things began to change and families wanted to look abroad” for children to adopt, she said, which greatly expanded the scope and services of MAPS.

The Bangor office focuses most of its energies on children in foster care who need homes, Sylvester explained.

“There seems to be a good pocket of families in that area” participating in the state’s foster care program, she added.

Anyone interested in this aspect of MAPS work can call the Bangor office at 941-9500.

To learn about MAPS and its 25 years of service to children in Maine and abroad, visit www.mapsadopt.org.

Best wishes are extended to Degenhardt, her staff and the hundreds of adoptive families who are sharing this special day in recognition of this very special MAPS year.

Descendants of the first Swedish settlers of New Sweden in Aroostook County celebrate their heritage with the Swedish Midsommar Festival, which is Saturday and Sunday, June 22 and 23.

Carol Toner, a history research associate with the University of Maine, said that last year, “Maine’s Swedish colony received a University of Maine System Multicultural Heritage Grant,” through which Daniel Olson “was able to interview nine elderly, Swedish-speaking residents of Maine’s Swedish colony.”

Although the interviews were conducted in Swedish, Toner wrote us, Olson and filmmaker Brenda Jepson put together “a 30-minute film [with English subtitles] that will feature parts of the interviews, together with photos of the colony’s history.”

The film is being premiered at this weekend’s festival.

Recognizing that “the interviews and the film will be a valuable source for linguists and historians,” Toner urges anyone who wants further information on this study to call Olson at 896-5266 or e-mail him at dmolson@prexar.com.

Gaynor Reynolds, secretary of Ecotat Gardens, has announced that the Sebasticook Valley Community Band, with Morita’s School of Dance & Morgan Hill Dancers, will present a Concert in the Gardens at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, at Ecotat Gardens at the intersection of Route 2 and Annis Road in Hermon.

“The public is invited, and those who plan to attend are encouraged to bring lawn chairs,” Reynolds wrote. “It should be a very enjoyable way to spend a summer evening.”

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.