Whitefield Cares!

Hi all –

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful late summer and watching as we slowly move toward fall.  I thought it was past time for me to touch base so here I am!

If you are like me, you have been staying close to home, thinking about the things that matter most, like family, neighbors, and the people we care about.  I did send out a query to see if people were interested in helping with the Community Housing Improvement Project but the response was…..crickets.  And that makes sense to me right now.  Try as I might I find it hard to engage in anything other than staying healthy and keeping in touch with my friends and family so I totally understand that response.

Having said that I hope things will gradually get better, maybe not until next year or later but we will get through this pandemic, and we will regroup when we do.  I expect that winter this year will be even quieter than usual with even less social contact and that’s appropriate.  Next year if an opportunity presents itself for Whitefield Cares! to engage, then I will send out the word and we’ll resurrect our enthusiasm!

In the meantime, please take care.  The need is likely higher than ever for us to support our community and we will have the opportunity to dig in and make a difference.

Best,

Lise Hanners

Hi all –

I hope this post finds you well and busily working in the garden and/or enjoying the outdoors.  I haven’t touched base in a while but it does seem that requests for help are increasing a little, likely because this pandemic has stretched on for a while and is likely to go on for quite a bit longer.  I hope you will be able to keep your interest in helping your community members strong!

I’ve had a request to find volunteers willing to deliver a food box to a woman in Pittston.  That is not Whitefield but is close by and a neighbor of ours nonetheless!  She is elderly, lives alone without a car, has some difficulty moving around and is not able to get enough food to sustain her.

My request is this – would you be willing to come to the food bank twice a month to pick a box of food that the volunteers will prepare and deliver it to her house?  The food bank volunteers are so well organized that all you need to do is drive up to the door at St. Denis church and tell them you are delivering the box for this woman (I will tell you the name if you are willing to help!), they will put the box in your trunk, you drive to the woman’s house and drop it off at the door.  No contact at all which we’re all getting used to!

The woman lives off the Kelly Road in Pittston so it’s not far away.  I’m hoping that if we get several volunteers then one person could do two weeks and another could deliver on the other two weeks, something like that.  The food bank is open the first Friday of the month (so that’s the 5th this month, and the first delivery would be on this Friday), then the food bank is open on subsequent Saturdays for the rest of the month, open 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM.

Please let me know if you are willing to help out (email through Whitefield Cares!, email lisehanners@gmail.com, or call me at 207-656-2033) and I will put you in touch with Janet Ober from the food bank so she can provide additional details.  And thank you for helping with Whitefield Cares!

Best,

Lise Hanners

Hi all –

I hope this finds you and your families well and managing well enough these days.  I just wanted to touch base so you’d know that Whitefield Cares is still alive and well, just quiet.  We got out of the blocks quickly at the beginning of the pandemic and organized people to drive groceries etc. to those who needed help, but we just haven’t had many requests for help.  We did have two requests, both for food, which we were able to take care of through the Whitefield Food Pantry which has been very busy.  On normal Saturdays the food bank sees about 8-10 families come through and last week there were 26 people who came to pick up food boxes so the demand has definitely increased.

I think what we didn’t anticipate is that the disease would spread slowly through our community which is wonderful but means that our expectation that people would need drivers to bring food to them didn’t happen.  It’s still early days of course so that may change but that’s why those of you who volunteered to drive have not heard from me!  That’s a good problem to have but this just highlights the fact that we are not in good contact with our own community so we likely are just not aware of people who need help.  The good news is Darlene Beaulieu, the Town Administrator, is very aware that we are out here and available to help so she is directing people to call me which is great.  And Chloe Maxmin has mobilized an armada of people to call seniors and others in the District just to touch base and ensure that needs are met (sign up to help on her website!).

I still have everyone’s contact information who volunteered to help and I will call if the need arises.  Hang in there, enjoy the Spring, and stay safe!

Best,

Lise Hanners

Hi all –

I hope this beautiful day finds you well.  I had a great conversation with Brittany Gill who run the Community Housing Improvement Plan based in Bristol.  They distinguish their nonprofit by adding an “Inc.” after CHIP, to separate them from the Central Heating Improvement Program run by Maine Housing and distributed by KVCAP.  I’ll explain further about CHIP Inc. below – but KVCAP distributed LIHEAP funds (enough acronyms yet?) for heating fuel and they also do weatherization, house repairs, etc. but apparently they have a long waiting list.  They are supported by Federal funding and have a strict set of requirements for support.

CHIP, Inc. is a non-profit based in Bristol, Maine and they focus on central and eastern Lincoln County, including Whitefield.  The organization was started by Ruth Ives who was the Carpenter’s Boat Shop founder in Bristol and they are supported by donors from Lincoln County.  They do a variety of home repairs as well as one-time fuel assistance (100 gallons of heating fuel or firewood).  Brittany Gill explained that the program is for those in need but they are much more forgiving and will assume the best of their neighbors so the process is not onerous.  If someone needs their trailer re-skirted, or the floor rebuilt, a ramp constructed, or window inserts, they can call 207-677-3450 and leave a message and Brittany will return their call to schedule a time for repairs (in normal circumstances of course).  CHIP, Inc. will pay for the materials and their volunteers do the work – this seems like just the opportunity Whitefield Cares! has been looking for, to match our volunteer work force with knowledge and a vehicle to find people who need help.  I will add CHIP, Inc. to our Resource List.

Their website (chipinc.org) is down for repairs but Brittany anticipates it will be up and running in April.  They have a community work day in September and she will be keeping an eye out for needs from residents in Whitefield, assuming we can gather safely by that time.  If not, we’ll do it later!  This is a great example of us using existing groups to facilitate their interest and ours.   Isn’t Maine great?  Hang in there everybody.

Great news!

Whitefield Cares! has received our first funding!  We received $1,010 from the Thriving Older Adults Strategic Goal Fund of the Maine Community Foundation.  We asked for support for printing and mailing the Resource List to all Whitefield residents in an effort to better distribute information in Town.  In addition, we asked for funding to print and distribute a town-wide survey to ask residents what is working and what is not working for their lives in Whitefield, to allow us to specifically target our work where it is needed the most.  A small group of us is already working to prepare the survey questions so now we can move forward more quickly!  Very exciting news and we hope to see you at the next regular meeting on Wednesday March 18 at 4:00 at the Elementary School.

Yesterday my husband and I were doing some stocking up at Sam’s Club in Augusta. I saw a young woman employee at a food sample table cough into her plastic -gloved hand then continue setting out free food samples. I called my husband over to me before he snarfed one up and told him what I had seen.