Bangor poverty activist Guay dies School committee member, working-class voice leaves ‘a hell of a legacy’

BANGOR – Judy Guay, a longtime city resident and advocate for issues related to poverty and low-income families in Maine, died on Tuesday night at Eastern Maine Medical Center at the age of 64.

Guay, who raised five children, two stepchildren and a foster child, turned a long history of volunteerism into activism and eventually joined the Bangor School Committee, where she was a member for 13 years.

“She was really the only committee member who came from a working-class family,” state Rep. Patricia Blanchette, D-Bangor, a longtime friend, said Wednesday by telephone. “She brought more compassion and caring to the school board than anyone I can remember.

“She left a hell of a legacy.”

Janice Clark of Bangor served on the school board with Guay from 1981 to 1985.

“Judy was a gift to this community,” Clark said Wednesday. “She always had the best interests of the school kids at heart and always kept a focus on providing what was needed for kids who needed someone to advocate for them.”

Guay started volunteering by teaching Sunday school at her local church and then moved on to Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout den mother and helped organize the first Parent Teacher Association at Downeast School.

In 1981, she was one of the founders of the Maine Association of Independent Neighborhoods, or MAIN, a low-income advocacy group, and served for many years as its president.

Gov. John Baldacci, a Bangor native who started his political career in his home city, expressed his sympathy Wednesday to Guay’s family.

“She stuck true to her principles and values throughout her life,” the governor said in a statement. “She gave people everything she could. She gave things that mattered and reached out to those who struggled to make ends meet.”

In an October 2004 interview with the Bangor Daily News, Guay said she believed that everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, should have the same opportunities.

“One of the things I found as a low-income person is that I didn’t have any right to make decisions that affected my life,” Guay said shortly before she was honored by the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine with its “Hands of Peace” award.

“But I found that once I got involved in the decision-making process, I could help make things more positive in my life and others.”

Chris Hastedt, a public policy specialist with Maine Equal Justice Partners, said in October 2004 that he remembered meeting Guay for the first time at MAIN’s inaugural meeting.

“She’s one of those people who warm your heart when they come into a room,” he said. “She’s never afraid to tell the truth, but she tells it in a way that people actually hear it.”

Guay served on the boards of directors of Pine Tree Legal Assistance, the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center and the Maine Women’s Fund. She also worked for 15 years as a client advocate for the ASPIRE Program, which helps connect families leaving welfare to transitional services.

“She really was an inspiration to people who said ‘I can’t do that because …’,” Blanchette said. “That just wasn’t in Judy’s vocabulary.”

A service for Guay will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, March 3, at Brookings-Smith Funeral Home in Bangor.

Bangor Daily News reporter Ruth-Ellen Cohen contributed to this report.