The poet Edith Sitwell wrote in her autobiography, “winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
As the cold settles in around Maine this December, we begin the ritual of pulling out the winter clothes and warm blankets, gathering dry wood and preparing to gather with family and friends to celebrate the holidays. In the shorter days and colder nights, there is a heightened awareness of the comforts of home.
Inside the Rockport subdivision where I live, my neighbors and I are fortunate enough to be looking forward to all those comforts in the months to come. But just around the corner, in a building I can see from my house, the mood is more anxious.
Two winters ago, the Knox County Homeless Coalition purchased the property behind my house and began renovations, creating the Hospitality House. I met the director through the process and offered my help. Their mission was one I supported, but it wasn’t until a couple weeks later that it really hit home and I gained clarity about how I could make a difference for the homeless of my area.
I was running late on my way to work at Camden National Bank, where I serve as the bank’s president, and because Murphy’s Law never fails, I was stuck behind a school bus. For a couple of weeks, I had noticed that a small motel on my commute had been oddly busy for February. When the bus stopped at the motel and half a dozen little kids got on, it became clear why.
Right under our noses, in the beautiful town of Rockport, homeless families were living at the roadside motel while they waited for the shelter to open. And kids, who make up 33 to 50 percent of Maine’s homeless population, were along for the ride.
This realization was the seed that grew into what is Camden National Bank’s Hope @ Home initiative. The concept is simple: For every home purchase, we donate $100 of unrestricted funds in the buyers’ name to a nearby shelter. We don’t ask for it to go to certain people, certain things or for shelter staff to spend any time reporting back to us what they did with it. We let go of that piece because we trust them.
We also — and, I will admit, this was the tougher piece — had to let go of how people became homeless. While little kids without a stable home will tug at anyone’s heart, we also had to be OK with helping adults, regardless of how they became homeless and with any vices, addictions or bad decisions along the way. Setting that aside, we had to believe homelessness isn’t something anyone would choose — for themselves or for their neighbors.
We chose to help.
With the unrestricted money, shelters have been able to immediately fund whatever their first priority may be. At Hospitality House in Rockport, $100 can buy 50 lunches, 30 pairs of mittens, 15 pairs of kids’ snow boots or Christmas presents for five little kids. They could use it for food, for heat, for staff costs, job training, tutors — whatever they need most. At this point, we’ve been able to donate over $27,000 to shelters around the state. Next year Camden National will double that amount.
The program also has revealed how tightly the homeless population is woven into the fabric of our communities. A long-time customer and Camden resident stopped me at a restaurant to say how pleased she was that Camden National created this program to raise the awareness of the homeless. An employee in Milo emailed me to say how glad she was to be a part of this, because she went to high school with some people who are homeless now. At the dry cleaner, a clerk approached me to say thanks — she knows many homeless people, too. It’s no surprise: One in every 500 Mainers is homeless today.
This year, when I open my home to family and friends for the holidays, I’ll be giving thanks for something new: having my eyes and mind opened to a problem I believe we have the power to fix.
Greg Dufour is president and CEO of Camden National Bank.