Another adorable fox photo! The Natural Resources Council of Maine chose one photo from Down East Magazine’s photo contest finalists as winner of this year’s Maine Outdoors Prize. Chris L’Abbé from Topsham, who took this photo, said: “To get this shot, I waited in an abandoned car for the mom to return to her den and the kits to run out and greet her. I hung a blanket in the open window of the car and hid below the seat, poking my lens through the blanket to capture this precious moment without disturbing the foxes. You can feel the love between the mom and her kits.“
Happy Wednesday!
New this week:
Practicing in a Fish Bowl
Registration is now open for the CCC’s free, virtual Q & A panel discussion, Practicing in a Fish Bowl: the ethics of confidentiality in a small community on February 7, 10–11:30 am. Contact Hour Certificates will be provided. Marjorie Withers, founding director of the CCC, will present the keynote. Panelists include Corey Schwinn, Clinical Director for Sunrise Opportunities, Sue Carroll Duffy, psychologist working with the Passamaquoddy tribe at Pleasant Point and founder of By The Sea Seminars, and Lois-Ann Kuntz, professor of psychology and Chair of the Arts and Letters Division at UMM. Register to join this Zoom event and download a flyer to share.
30th Annual ME Geriatrics Conference
Registration is now open for the 30th Annual Maine Geriatrics Conference on June 9th & 10th, IN-PERSON at the Harborside Hotel in Bar Harbor. Download this conference brochure for more info. Register here.
Maine Speaks workshop
You are invited to join Maine Humanities Council & Maine Access Points for a Maine Speaks workshop on February 2nd on Zoom from 6 – 7:30 pm. In this program, Katherine Gaude will guide us through a conversation where we will identify common tropes in the way we tell stories about drug use and we’ll discuss what happens when real experiences donʼt follow those expectations. Recognizing conventional narratives can help us move beyond them to more complex and empathetic understandings of what it is like to use drugs and/or be in community with people who currently or formerly use drugs. We invite both individuals and communities to attend this event. If you are affiliated with a harm reduction program, recovery center, or have a group of people that would like to attend collectively, let us know and we will make sure that you have the technical support to have a group viewing. We are asking that individuals and groups register for this event here.
Maine Access Points is Hiring!
The Maine Access Points’s Harm Reduction Health Education Coordinator is a part-time, hourly position, contracted for 2 years. This position will be responsible for overseeing a grant-funded project, Bridging Access to Peer-Led Harm Reduction Education in Maine’s Rural Communities. The coordinator will implement and coordinate a participant-led, drug user health program to provide participant-driven access to education on safer drug use, health and wound care, overdose education, safe sex and reproductive justice. The location of this position is flexible, but we prioritize applicants who can have their home base be at one of the existing MAP office locations in Brunswick, Machias, or Sanford. If you are interested in applying for this position, please apply through Indeed to send in a resume, cover letter, and an example of relevant creative materials. MAP encourages people with lived or living experience, BIPOC, and LGBTQ applicants to apply! Link can also be found on our Linktree here.
Introducing Wabanaki Voices Series
We are launching an event series called Wabanaki Voices. This series invites members and allies of Wabanaki communities to share their work, their art, their concerns and their vision. We hope to have at least one event per month and we welcome suggestions on participants! Email Jennifer Isherwood jishio@maine.edu.
The Downeast Rainbow Alliance offers Free Resources!
The Traveling Rainbow is a project that brings the community center to the people! Equipped with resources, a lending library, identity affirming items and staffed by some pretty awesome facilitators we are doing something special. It is something that is needed, to bring the support to the people, where they are, in the places they are already going. Visit our website to book The Traveling Rainbow for your school, organization or event.
Winter Clothing Drive
The Sunrise Prevention Council is looking for new or gently used winter coats, snow ants, hats, mittens, and boots of all sizes! Are you in need of winter clothing or know a family in need? We can help. Call/text Monica Olivares at 263-5270 or email molivares@sun-rise.org.
What to Know at the Beginning of Your Caregiving Journey
You may become a caregiver at any age. Caregiving is not a life event we know will happen in a certain time frame, like wisdom teeth coming in or giving birth. We expect that we may take care of our elders or aging parents, probably when we are in our middle age and have established our careers or had children. But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes an out-of-nowhere diagnosis or injury can upend the lives of a whole family in the span of a day. I’m not sure why our culture doesn’t embrace this truth and prepare for it. It would be so much easier to settle into the experience of caregiving resulting from a diagnosis or injury if we were comfortable in the knowledge that we may be a caregiver at 20, 50 or even 90. If you have friends or family you love, then someday — any given day — you may be called to care for them, regardless of whether you had other plans. Read full article here.
-Amanda Amanda Singleton, AARP, December 28, 2021