Set for Success: Thank you community

Thu, 08/21/2014 - 6:00pm

It is with a grateful heart that an expression of thanks and gratitude is extended to our community for the outpouring of support for Set for Success.

This huge back-to-school event, now in its third year, is equipping our elementary students from the regional school system with a new backpack and every teacher required school supply. Three hundred and twenty-five students and their families came through the doors to the Boothbay Harbor YMCA Field House on Sunday, Aug. 17. Students left filled with everything they need to be Set For Success as they return to school on Sept. 2. The school supplies given to each student came from the gracious hearts of so many in the Boothbay region and beyond.

Thirty event booths from local businesses, schools, library, churches, medical-health community, and other nonprofits set up shop, extending handouts of information and gifts to help support and educate our families with all that is available to them in the area. Eight local hair stylists came to offer free back to school haircuts and nail techs polished nails. Roughly 68 volunteers, including many from the schools, joined together to help welcome families, hand out school supplies, oversee a huge bounce house, sweep hair in the free hair salon and assist with the tedious job of setting up the event in the YMCA Field House and cleaning up after the event. Thank you everyone!

We could not have made this happen without the use of the YMCA Field House. A big thank you to Andy and Meagan Hamblett, Facilities Director Rose Mooney, Megan Deveau, Y volunteers and all the custodians for helping to transform that large facility into a venue to receive 1,000 visitors, thousands of school supplies, backpacks and all else that goes into this magnanimous event.

To our major supporters: Members and friends of the 13 churches on the peninsula; Big Al; Scott Larson, Newagen Seaside Inn, Compass Rose Events; Hammond Lumber; Evelyn Andrews of Hannaford Supermarket; Ed Hamilton Yachts, Wiscasset; Office Depot/3 M Corp; Rubbermaid Corp; Boothbay Harbor Rotary; Boothbay Region Lions; Boothbay Civic Association; Boothbay Region Garden Club; Southport Island Association; Linda Foster, MidCoast Payroll; Annette Nager, Shear Artistry Family Hair Salon; Bank of Maine, Boothbay Harbor; The First Bank, Boothbay Harbor, and the community at large. Your generosity and support in so many areas far exceeded our expectations.

To the families who came to the event: Thank you for your patience in the line waiting to enter at 1 p.m. Thank you for your excitement, kind words and smiles. We hope you left knowing how wonderfully invested the communities of, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport and Edgecomb are in terms of your children’s education.

There are others out on the peripheral who played a big part in this event, like the woman from Massachusetts who has been shopping for you since last fall and shipping school supplies to my Boothbay home — why? Because she has a huge heart and has the gift of giving even to perfect strangers! Folks from across the U.S. have sent monetary donations or purchased supplies — all for you, the students, and to help support the families regardless of income or any other status — this is for everyone! Sponsored by Boothbay Region Community Resources.

See you all next August.