When people and organizations partner up, magic happens. Harpswell Aging at Home has proved this consistently.
Take its partnership with Bowdoin College, particularly the McKeen Center for the Common Good. Founded in 2008, the center enables students to use their talents and passions to benefit society through public engagement. For instance, they learn how to evaluate requests for grants from nonprofit organizations. Through the years, Harpswell Aging at Home has applied for and been awarded two such grants to support its food programs.
Harpswell Aging at Home also has provided Bowdoin with projects for first-year students undergoing orientation. One year, students assembled 200 emergency kits. They learned about Harpswell Aging at Home and Maine residents’ storm-related emergency needs while getting acquainted with their classmates.
Bowdoin students also have implemented their own ideas for collaborating with Harpswell Aging at Home. After hearing about HAH’s food programs, students have volunteered to cook. Some have tucked small artworks they’ve created into food containers delivered to recipients.
Bowdoin sophomore Mukudzei Seremani exemplifies such initiative. This accomplished young leader will serve as a community projects program assistant for the McKeen Center, exploring new ways for Bowdoin students to interact with Harpswell Aging at Home. (Learn more about Muku’s achievements at tinyurl.com/seremani.)
Recently, several Bowdoin sophomores pitched an innovative idea to the McKeen Center: a pen pal program that has students exchange letters with older adults. Dubbed Polar Mail after Bowdoin’s mascot, a polar bear, the program seeks to build a multigenerational community through letters. As the students explained in their application, letters provide “a space to … share experiences in a way that’s hard to replicate digitally” and “feel far more personal and thoughtful” than texts or emails.
After receiving the center’s approval, the applicants asked Harpswell Aging at Home to identify people who might benefit most. Gayle Hays, chair of Harpswell Aging at Home’s Health and Wellness Committee, arranged for donations of stationery and stamps for participants to use. An in-person workshop on letter writing was held. Harpswell Aging at Home volunteer Beth Chiquoine is serving as liaison for this nascent program.
Bowdoin students haven’t shied away from sweatier work that supports community. Consider the Bowdoin Rugby Football Club. Harpswell Aging at Home’s relationship with the club began this spring, when team members offered to put on a lunch for HAH. They hired a caterer and even set up games for the special event.
At HAH’s 10th anniversary celebration on Sept. 14, the “ruggers” were a hit—setting up tables, moving chairs, socializing with celebrants, decorating tents and charming everyone there.
Samantha Cogswell, an associate director at the McKeen Center, views students’ interest in engaging with older community members as inspiring. “HAH does such important work,” she said, “and that work connects so well with students’ interests on campus.”
Harpswell Aging at Home has another strong partner in Bowdoin’s Schiller Coastal Studies Center on Orr’s Island. Director Holly Parker emphasizes the center’s aim to be a good neighbor to Harpswell. She has let HAH use the facility for lunches, meetings and volunteer appreciation events.
The energy and creativity that students bring to Bowdoin’s partnership with Harpswell Aging at Home bodes well for the communities that the college and HAH seek to serve. As Surrey Hardcastle, chair of Harpswell Aging at Home’s Food Committee, puts it, “These young people are bright and caring; their contributions give me hope for this world.”
