FREEPORT, Maine — Portland’s A Company of Girls teaches young girls and teens to feel empowered through theater and music, but it’s not too much of an overstatement to say the group might not have survived without the Quimby Family Foundation, said one of the company’s leaders Friday.
A Company of Girls was one of 68 nonprofit organizations working in Maine that was given some of the nearly $1.3 million in grant money awarded at the foundation’s eighth annual luncheon Friday.
Devin Dukes, managing director of A Company of Girls, said that after the group learned it was losing $45,000 in state money due to Department of Health and Human Services cuts, the $20,000 award from the Quimby Family Foundation was enough of an offset to help keep the company afloat.
“This is something that keeps us going,” Dukes said. “We are relieved, to say the least.”
The celebratory tone at the Freeport event, held at the Harraseeket Inn, represented a change for philanthropist Roxanne Quimby and her family compared to just three days earlier, when the Penobscot County commissioners became the latest government officials to line up against Quimby’s proposed Maine Woods National Park in the Katahdin region.
Dan O’Leary — CEO of both the Quimby Family Foundation and the affiliated Elliotsville Plantation Inc., the Quimby organization focused on establishing the 70,000-acre national park — acknowledged that Quimby most often appears in the news because of the proposed park, which some politicians and locals have opposed, saying it would infringe on the region’s traditional economic and recreational uses, including logging, snowmobiling, hunting and fishing.
Park proponents have argued it would generate revenue for the region through increased visitors, and could be paid for mostly through a large endowment Quimby has pledged to create.
In addition to the park, which she proposed to donate to the National Park Service, Quimby and her family annually give away millions of dollars to nonprofits across Maine. But whether those regular gestures of charity are enough to earn Quimby some goodwill among those in the area of her proposed park, O’Leary wasn’t venturing any guesses.
O’Leary said he preferred not to answer questions about the park. Rather, Friday’s event is to focus on the work being done by grant awardees, he said.
“This year, for the first time, we were able to visit all 84 grant finalists,” O’Leary said, noting that nearly 300 organizations applied during this eighth wave of annual foundation awards. “The board agonized over these decisions.
“It really makes you proud to be part of Maine [to see the work being done by all the grant applicants],” he continued. “The whole family — Roxanne included — is really proud this is part of their lives. These are real people doing real work because they want to make a difference.”
The former Portland Museum of Art official said the foundation’s grant awards and annual luncheon are unique in Maine because they offer personal networking opportunities between not only foundation officials and donors, but also other grant recipients. Most grant programs, he said, are administered exclusively from a distance through application mailings, email and maybe follow-up telephone calls.
The Quimby Family Foundation grant program is also different because it allows its money to be used to cover operational costs, said grant recipient Jamie Silvestri of the Bath-based mobile art therapy program ArtVan.
The ArtVan was awarded $10,000 from the foundation this year, Silvestri said, and the organization — which brings after-school art programs to kids in low-income housing developments in the southern midcoast, Lewiston-Auburn and Biddeford areas — will use the money to cover administrative costs during periods of time when the group isn’t conducting or getting paid for programs.
Those periods add up to about 10 weeks each year, she said, and typically are spent marketing the programs and planning. Silvestri said the grant money also will allow ArtVan to hire a fundraising and development specialist, Luanne Schoninger.
“There aren’t a lot of foundations that support operational costs,” Silvestri said. “Most foundations focus on projects.”
Patricia McBride of the Maine Irish Heritage Center, housed in the historic 1892 former St. Dominic’s Church in Portland, said her organization’s award of $20,000 will help pay for a heating system in the old building. The heat will allow the group to host programs throughout the calendar year and create new opportunities for outreach and fundraising.
“This is huge for us to be recognized by the Quimby Foundation,” McBride said.
I’m so tired of the anonymous people in these forums who say the nastiest things about Quimby and her family. It gives Mainers a bad name to see so much petty bad-mouthing, whether you disagree with her or not.
Wahhhhhhh !!
She’s been a little nasty a time or two too. I guess when vinegar doesn’t work you try honey. (Not from Burt’s Bees though I hope).
Awww no need to cry Spruce, everything will be OK!
“I’m so tired of the anonymous people in these forums who say the nastiest things about Quimby and her family. It gives Mainers a bad name to see so much petty bad-mouthing, whether you disagree with her or not.”
Could it be part of why Gov. LePage’s personal experience is that people from Maine are not so well respected out of Maine, too ?
I read the same diatribe from you about our governor.
Go figure…………..
I am tired of anonymous people who seem to think others can’t speak their minds if it doesn’t march in step with theirs. Just because Quimby chooses to offer donations to causes- as many others who have the means do- doesn’t change Mainers’ feelings about her arm-twisting “proposal” for a park/legacy. Good for her and the causes she donates to that she is helping them. On the other hand, not every donation that is given gets all the publicity and patting themselves on the back that Quimby’s do every time she is about to make another run at turning this area into a national park. Mainers do NOT have a bad name! Not all of us can be bought and many of us stand strong with our own opinions and beliefs-like the one that a national park/federal control is not needed or wanted here. I realize you believe Quimby’s plans will help your grand plans for the area, but many of us disagree and will continue to disagree as long as it takes. Perhaps you should be concerned about the things that Quimby says about Mainers- those comments are what I consider petty and hateful. Comments like that could reflect badly on Mainers except for the fact that in this instance, she only showed her true colors and made herself look bad. BTW, SpruceDweller, if you don’t like comments from “anonymous” people, don’t read them…wonder why your parents named you “SpruceDweller” as I am sure that must certainly be YOUR real name. lol
I actually like your post because it is a step in the right direction, toward mature and intelligent discussion. I honestly think when people act like children in here, hurling petty comments like “I hope the Kittery toll gate don’t hit her in the A**” it actually hurts their position, and gives an impression of an unruly mob, which cannot defend its view through reason.
It’s just common sense that you should behave with more dignity, because rude childish behavior is almost always negative for the side in a debate that displays it.
Come on spruce, who are you kidding. I have read your comments in the past and we all know what your all about. Good Lord stop it!
I think you mean what you’re (short for you are), not your (as in your arm), all about.
What a wonderful gesture, thank you so much.
Quimby may make some donations we never hear about. Stephen King is very generous. I have heard of donations he makes that are never publicized
Ya but It’s ok for her to bash us as fat old welfare cases in an out of state mag that she thought surely none of us serfs would see well guess what we did she deserves everything she gets I’m not impressed this is just blood money
I have seen many of the fat welfare cases (the case files, not the people). They exist
Awwww, that’s sweet. Good old Roxanne currying favor in order to get friendly with the local Maine yokels, so she can have her park, then gate it off so we can’t get in.
That’s great.
I can only applaud anyone with the financial means to do so to be so generous. Whatever negatives anyone might find in her association, when you put up the money to help people, you put up the money and there is nothing wrong with that. Alternatively, she could keep it all to herself but she is not.
There will be no money lost out of pocket…Just a shell game the rich play.
Lepage and the holy right took the money from the kids and the Quimby’s stepped up.
Actions are mightier then the ugly mouths of the republican party.
Put your crack pipe down and get a job.
So Quimby is buying votes. How much is your soul worth?
Obama uses taxpayer money in the same way to purchase voter blocks.
AAnd now we got the second gen Lucas thanks mom as her mouth piece
Dan O’Leary sounds like a dummie. Wasn’t this the guy you came to her “rescue” at one of those meetings in Millinocket? As though anyone would be surprised that he was defending his boss. Now he doesn’t want to talk about the park? Who really cares what he thinks?
Sorry Roxanne !
No Sale !
NO PARK FOR ME
Give her a chance, she is being extremely generous
No good deed shall go un punished. Which of these good deeds will you reproach?
I would think Quimby is a 1%er. Please correct me if I am wrong but don’t you despise the 1%ers?
No I don’t hate the rich. Why should I ;)?
I do hate evil people like Paul Lepage and his vile gang of supporters
“No I don’t hate the rich. Why should I ;)?”. Slimy but good answer, you know exactly where I was going with this.
I really don’t know what your talking about. You maybe parinoid and projecting your own feelings on others.
Forget it Lord, now that I think about it you will never get it.
I hope it does but only after collecting her “dolla twenty five”. Oh wait, that’s in Lowell…
Not even a dollar went to the farmers. Roxanne……..You may want to consider changing your mission statement for your foundation. I do have great respect for the environment . However, not for you or your product. I can buy something similar and far less expensive from the locals.
Maine Farmland Trust? I thought that was for farmers?
Please Mainer’s continue to battle being taken over and taken in. I have seen what has happen to Southern Maine, the people from away taking over, buying up the real estate. They are using high taxes and low wages as a wedge, to displace the current population, Maine is designated the rich retiree State, they seem to want only a population hiking and looking over their portfolios. We lost all the processing plants on the coast, they have conquered Southern Maine, now they are moving in on Up North, next will be the beloved Downeast. Snowe and Collins looking the other way, and a Great Gov removing anything that might help Mainers. Resist by all means this attack on Maine’s people, we are here, the great freedoms Maine life has always been something of the reward for the hard winters.
Mainers would do well to demand higher educational standards for their children, stop blocking the ability of real work to be and remain in this state and demand that parents actually rear their children rather than behave as children themselves. People from away buying up land also pay taxes which means Mainers don’t pay as much as without them. Only in Maine have I heard such prejudice toward anyone. Without those pesky “flatlanders”, you would all pay much more tan you do now, have fewer customers in the summer, etc. Perhaps rather than revile them, ask them how they are successful and see what you can do to be able to buy the land yourself.
If people from away bought land, that might be okay, but the problem is they come with a almost panic minded need of regulation, laws, codes, code enforcement, new regulations, and on and on. There once was a Maine where a person could buy land and built their own home, without interference from anyone. This is a long story, and not always understood,at the same time the industry has left the State, leaving a lot of poor Mainers even poorer. The measure of success was not really money to most Mainers, which in today’s world is a disadvantage. I still do not think that money has become the measure of success with most Mainers. That is interesting you mention that, but, most different is the culture. From here to then, one may look down upon the other. The Hippies in the 60’s and 70’s fit fairly well, it was when the more well-to-do flatlanders came demanding the above mentioned changes to our free and easy way of doing things.
It really isn’t up to anyone to do anything but participate in community and government to make changes. Sit home and complain and life goes on in spite of it. If you are already doing this, great. If not, you have only yourself to blame. I have seen more than enough of this Maine “culture” to realize that they have largely brough it upon themselves. Being distainful of others, especially those who are “different” like flatlanders or as I have seen, even people from neighboring towns is not going to resolve the issues at hand. Then again, being a free country, do what you wish, as us others will as well. When people are generous and give, I applaud them. When I observe people sitting around complaining and pointing fingers, I tune them out. Personal responsibility enters in greatly.
As they say in Maine,”Well lardy dardy do!”
Thanks Roaxanne.
It sure sounds like Roxey is trying to buy something.
I will give credit where credit is due, Quimby’s foundation is helping many,,,, other than in the areas that she is at war with.
Why should Quimby lift a finger to help the communities she is trying to collapse. For decades she has had massive contempt for Katahdin area residents, calling them old fat stupid welfare cases, burning people out of their homes, continuously getting caught in lies about her project, and blackmailing people to get her way. Let’s not forget those that are helping her by harassing and threatening local residents.
People up here refer to it as war, and both vote and conduct business with those that dont support Quimby. In a way many should thank Quimby, because she has stirred-up the communities soo much that on a local level, both Republican & Democrats alike are working together for a common good- getting rid of Quimby…! (proven in many local, & state votes)
Acts of kindness….?
A handful of kindness doesn’t replace the hurt she continues to levy on Northern Maine
Still trying to buy votes for a national park I see.
I wonder how these donations will affect her effective tax rate.