Mr. John Zavodny, president of Maine Seacoast Mission, will lead the service at the Wilson Memorial Chapel on Ocean Point on Sunday, Aug. 4. This is the mission’s 98th summer visiting the chapel. The offering from the service will be donated to Maine Seacoast Mission. The service is at 9:30 a.m. All are welcome.

After earning his PhD in philosophy at the University of Tennessee, John Zavodny spent the next 20 years in higher education before joining the Maine Seacoast Mission as Scott Planting’s successor. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother is a sharecropper’s daughter from the deep South, and his father is a first-generation American from eastern Europe. The son of a U.S. Navy sailor, Zavodny is proud to now be a small part of the Mission’s seagoing history. He is the first member of his family to complete college and understands firsthand the transformative role education can play. As a former minister, he understands the central role spirituality plays in people’s well-being. John and his wife Anna have relocated from Belfast to Ellsworth, a location in arm’s reach of all Mission programs.

A non-denominational, non-profit organization, Maine Seacoast Mission “provides spiritual, health, and youth development programs in coastal and island communities from Midcoast to Downeast Maine.” One of their far-reaching, high-impact programs is EDGE, an afterschool program serving nearly 750 children in Washington County. The Mission supports coastal and island communities in many ways, including providing valuable medical services via the Sunbeam V.