Whether she is racing her Ducati 848, hauling lobster traps out of Cozy Harbor, advocating for deported veterans in Tijuana, Mexico, or volunteering at the Y to address food insecurity on the Boothbay peninsula, Kip Azzoni moves through the world with a whirling creative energy, deep kindness, and a fierce desire to help other people tell the stories that too often go unheard. 

Kip is described as a humanitarian-adventurer, and the label fits. She is part filmmaker, part inventor, part advocate, part road warrior, and fully committed to using whatever gifts she has to bring attention to people who are struggling, serving, grieving, rebuilding, or trying to find their way home. 

She is also a devoted member of the Boothbay Region YMCA, where she works outalmost daily when she is in town. “This Y is brilliant,” Kip says. “Not only is it a beautiful place to get fit, it does so much to lift up the kids and to support people of all ages. It’sno question the hub of our community.” 

The youngest of three siblings from Long Island, where both of her parents were physicians, Kip grew up spending summers in Southport at the home of her maternal grandparents. Those summers took root. Though her work has carried her around the country and across the world, Southport has remained one of her true anchors. Above the family homestead, Kip built a small cabin on a piece of land she loves, a place she returns to and refuel after loading up her Airstream with Tank, her St. Bernard, and heading toward the next story. 

Kip’s path has never been narrow. After graduating from Brooks and attending Pomona, she earned a master’s degree in screenwriting from Tisch at NYU, which helped deepen her interest in film, storytelling, and the power of narrative to shift perspective. She married, raised four children, invented the original smartphone credit card holder known as the CardSharkWalletSkin, and later wrote “Blood in the Water,” a book about the patent process and the challenges faced by independent inventors like herself. 

She speaks several languages, has written and produced films, developed television projects, started a nonprofit, created an app for children centered on compassion, and traveled between worlds that rarely overlap: boardrooms, film festivals, photo shoots, military communities, border towns, veterans’ organizations, and places marked by conflict, trauma, and resilience. 

One of Kip’s deepest commitments has been to veterans, and particularly those who have been impacted by PTSD. More than a decade ago, she worked with Martin Sheen on a public service announcement connected to veteran suicide prevention called “The Other Note.” This very personal journey is connected to her father’s stories and experiences with his fellow servicemen after serving in Iwa Jima in World War II. More recently, it is through the tragic suicide of one of her daughter’s fiancé after his return from deployment after he was unable to find the right resources to treat his PTSD. Kip and her former partner founded Rags of Honor, a family of brands dedicated to employing homeless and at-risk U.S. veterans. This clothing brand that celebrates veterans can now be found at Walmart.They also founded Veteran Roasters, a company where 100% of the coffee purchase goes towards hiring homeless veterans, providing them with employment, stability, and a path forward. 

For Kip, the purpose has always been clear. The goal is not charity from a distance. It is providingdignity, work, connection, and a “hand-up, not a hand-out” for people who served and came home carrying wounds that are not always visible. 

That same commitment to veterans has shaped much of her film work. In June 2026, Kip’s documentary “Personal Courage” was shown at the Bentonville Film Festival, an annual event dedicated to championing inclusive and underrepresented voices in entertainment. The film follows Army veteran Jeffrey Derma and his wife, Rebecca Cristina, as they move through the transition from military service into civilian life. 

Kip is working on a budding television series called “Radio Check,” inspired by her time this fall with veterans at the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Her goal is to involve veterans similar to the Rags of Honor model, not just as subjects, but to work with them as writers, actors, directors, and producers. For veterans, by veterans. She wants the show to be honest, human, and alive with the kind of humor that can exist even in the hardest places.“The stories are geared to collapse the distance between us and them,” Kip says, “with gallows humor in order to keep it real.” 

For the past three years, Kip has been intensely involved on a venture focused on women who have experienced military sexual violence. It is a difficult, painful, necessary project, and the funding has all but dried up due to the current administration’s policies. Her newest documentary, “He Said, She Said, Now Someone Is Dead,” is the coda on a body of work called “Aftermath.” This is the story of Angelina Resendiz, and Kip originally read about the case in a small newspaper article, called up Angelina’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, drove to meet her, and became part of a teamto tell a larger story about military sexual assault, institutional failure, grief, and accountability.The case has been in the news, and Kip and her team are fundraising now to finish the film to bring Angelina’s story to the screen. 

These are not easy stories to carry. Kip knows many people who have suffered deeply. She listens to stories that most people would rather turn away from, and she holds them close.When asked how she keeps herself balanced, and how she is able to keep her big heart open, Kip does not offer anything grand or abstract. She comes back to reaching out with small acts of good. 

“Bring some cans to the Food Pantry,” she says. “Volunteer for one of the nonprofits in town. Connect with people. Smile at strangers. Go and do something. And, ultimately, be curious and have hope because if there’s no hope, there’s no way forward.” 

That belief in small acts is part of what connects Kip’s global work to her life here at home. She is deeply impressed by the breadth of the veteran’s outreach organizations on the peninsula, including the large display of veteran’s banners in town. She is planning to offer a showing of “Personal Courage,” followed by a Q&A with two of her “Radio Check” colleagues, perhaps in late August. She imagines inviting local veterans and representatives from organizations such as the V.E.T.S. project, the American Legion, Togus, the Peace Gallery, and the Veterans Writing Project to take part.Stay tuned. 

Kip is courageous. She is tenacious. She is a mother, a filmmaker, an author, an inventor, a recent convert to cold-water dipping, a fisherwoman, a motorcycle racer, a humanitarian, a hugger, and a member of our Y with a kilowatt smile. She is kind, curious, humble, whip-smart, and nearly impossible to summarize. 

But perhaps that is the point. Kip’s life is not just a list of accomplishments. It is a pattern of motion toward people who need to be seen. She tells difficult stories because they matter. She moves toward pain because she believes compassion should have legs. She reminds us that hope is not a soft thing. It is something we practice, something we build, something we choose. 

Her advice to all of us is simple: “Marry your passion with your compassion, and stick with what you love.”