Maine Sea Coast Mission holds 99th meeting

BAR HARBOR – The Maine Sea Coast Mission, with its long history of spiritual outreach and social services for residents of several Down East coastal towns and nine of Maine’s island communities, held its 99th annual meeting Thursday on the lawn of its gracious seaside mansion.

The nonprofit organization’s trickle-down effect was particularly clear when some Washington County youth taking part in the mission’s newest program told the 25 directors just how interesting a summer they are having.

After all, they get to camp on the mansion’s lawn, hear the ocean at night and use the mansion’s kitchen to cook meals. They also bicycle and kayak, activities that some have never experienced before.

Keeping to its tradition of having recipients of mission services speak for themselves at the annual meeting, the youth represented the 250 or so Washington County kids who are part of the Ed Greaves Education Centers.

The EdGE was developed two years ago in honor of the late Edward Greaves of Addison. An advocate for Washington County’s young people, Greaves served as president of the board of trustees for the Sea Coast Mission before his death in July 2001.

The EdGE, as an after-school program, works with those in grades five through eight at the five grammar schools in Addison, Cherryfield, Columbia Falls, Harrington and Milbridge. Pupils enjoy substantive, character-building and leadership activities, which turn into an outdoor-oriented summer program for June and July.

Gary DeLong, executive director of the mission, also described highlights of work done through other ventures. These include the telemedicine health services aboard the Sunbeam vessel; emergency financial assistance; scholarships; the food pantry and recycled clothing shop in Cherryfield; and the dispersal of more than 3,000 Christmas gifts.

With more than $21 million in assets, the mission continues to be financially stable, DeLong said. He told the meeting attendees that a Pennsylvania woman with no identifiable connection to the Sea Coast Mission left it a $2.7 million gift in her will earlier this year.

DeLong learned of Leah Daniel’s gift just in early July.

“The mission receives many wonderful remembrances like that, but not of that magnitude,” DeLong said. “We don’t know the connection, but somehow along the way she or someone in her family had a warm spot in her heart for the Sea Coast Mission.

“Certainly in my five years here, this is the largest gift from an individual that has come to us.”

DeLong shared another bit of unexpected financial good fortune that Edward Mears, another man with ties unknown to anyone at the West Street headquarters, arranged for the mission to receive $25,000 a year from his trust forever. The first check will arrive by year’s end and that news surfaced just three days ago.

“Both gifts are so timely and so appreciated,” DeLong said. “We have increased our program costs by 60 percent in the last couple of years, with huge increases in new initiatives.

“This really will allow us to serve a lot more people who are out there at risk.”

In formal meeting matters, Frederick Hutchinson, former president of the University of Maine, and Jill Goldthwait, a former state legislator, both agreed to extend their positions as the board’s president and vice president, respectively, for one more year.