A real fish story Faith in Action to benefit from community art project

The good news is the salmon are going to be huge this year. Four feet long, in fact.

The bad news is they won’t taste very good.

Artists and business owners from around Hancock County have paired up for a project designed to lure visitors to the area, provide free public art and raise money to help elderly and disabled people in the area.

Similar to previous celebrations in Belfast and Rockland, “Fishing for Friends” will decorate Ellsworth with two dozen fiberglass salmon sculptures, each one uniquely adorned by a local artist.

The fish, chosen because of the city’s proximity of the Union River, will be unveiled during a private party Thursday at New Land Nursery on Route 1A in Ellsworth. After that, they will be posted at businesses, churches and other community areas for the summer.

At the end of the season, each 4-foot statue will be auctioned, with all the proceeds benefiting the Faith in Action Community Connection, a group of volunteers from area churches and community groups who help meet the needs of elderly and disabled people.

The fish will be festooned with things such as paint, sequins, beads, glass and sticks. One fish will be wearing a top hat and tails, and another will be disguised as a lobster. “I think they are going to be pretty dramatic when they are done,” said Josephine Cooper, Faith in Action program director.

Cooper’s hope is that the project will unite the community while also promoting the good deeds of the coalition, which formed in Ellsworth about two years ago. The agency considers itself nondenominational; many, but not all, of its 85 volunteers are from area churches.

“Some of the people we’ve helped, and continue to help, go on to volunteer for us,” she said.

A national organization established through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Faith in Action trains volunteers from many faiths to provide nonmedical help to people with long-term health needs. There are more than 100 chapters in the United States. Eight are located in Maine.

According to the organization’s Web site, 80 percent of Americans who receive help from Faith in Action chapters are physically disabled. Sixty-four percent are 65 or older. Forty-six percent live alone and need help with daily activities such as running errands, doing yard work or getting to medical appointments.

In Ellsworth, volunteers help by providing transportation, preparing meals, shoveling snow or simply by visiting or telephoning the 150 or so people who receive aid through Faith in Action.

Cooper said the program is available to anyone, and none of the volunteers preaches to or proselytizes those they are helping.

“It’s more about doing the good works that religions have in common,” she said.

Ann Maske of Sullivan is familiar with the work of Faith in Action. Her 83-year-old mother, Ruth Ober, is one of the group’s most active volunteers. She drives people who need rides, whether to medical appointments or elsewhere.

Maske said there may come a time when her mother needs similar help. She and her husband, Jerry, a retired minister, are showing their support by decorating a fish sculpture.

“I believe, and our family believes, that keeping old folks independent as long as possible is very, very important,” she said.

For weeks now, the Maskes have been cutting pink, blue, purple and green pieces of iridescent glass into scales inside their store, Angel Antics Glass Crafters in Sullivan, and gluing the pieces in a mosaic pattern on the fiberglass form. Their finished product will be displayed at New Land Nursery, their Fishing for Friends sponsor.

Projects like the one by Faith in Action are held every year all over the country.

For four years, the city of Belfast hosted a similar community program with bear statues, which also were auctioned at the summer’s end. The sale usually collected between $20,00 to $45,000, half of which was given to charity.

Instead of bears this year in Belfast, it will be birdhouses, hundreds of them, said Belfast Mayor Michael Hurley, who now owns a company that sells fiberglass forms to cities and agencies holding similar celebrations.

“When done right,” he said, “it is a very popular thing. People enjoy the art and the kids have a good time.”

A similar program ran two years in Rockland, which used lobsters.

Cooper said Fishing for Friends organizers and participants are growing anxious to see the finished salmon and are looking forward to having the creatures all over Ellsworth.

“I can’t wait to see them,” she said. “We are all getting very excited.”