PORTLAND — The World Affairs Council of Maine presented its 2026 awards Thursday, June 11 at its 49th Annual Membership Meeting. This year’s program honored two Mainers whose work, in different ways, connects this small state to the wider world. Mary Allen Lindemann, co-founder and owner of Coffee By Design, was this year’s recipient of the Council’s longstanding Bea Chapman Minott Award; and Khaled Habash, owner of The Scenic Route Tours, was honored with the Council’s first-ever Citizen Diplomat Award.
Presented annually since 1994, the Bea Chapman Minott Award honors the person who most exemplifies the spirit of the Council’s founder, a Portland educator, journalist and civic leader who, from her base on Peaks Island, became a driving force behind the public diplomacy efforts that led to the Council’s formation in 1977.
This year’s award recognizes Lindemann, who has spent more than three decades building Coffee By Design into a Portland institution that is fiercely local and deeply global. Under her leadership, Coffee By Design has developed long-term sourcing partnerships with farmers and cooperatives in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Honduras and El Salvador, and works closely with the International Women’s Coffee Alliance to advance women farmers’ leadership, income, and decision-making power across the global supply chain.
She has also been a steadfast partner of the World Affairs Council of Maine. In 2021, Lindemann partnered with the Council on The Story of Coffee, a public program tracing coffee’s path from women-led cooperatives in Burundi to coffeehouses in Portland. She has organized and hosted meetings for International Visitor Leadership Program delegations, sponsored the Council’s Governor’s Breakfast, and consistently welcomed the Council’s work into her café and community.
The Citizen Diplomat Award, presented for the first time this year, recognizes Mainers whose work, often quiet and outside the spotlight, shapes how international visitors experience the United States.
The Council’s inaugural recipient is Habash, owner of The Scenic Route Tours. For the last few years, Habash and his team of driver/tour guides have helped welcome over 30 delegations of emerging global leaders from nearly 80 countries around the world. As Leesa Fields, U.S. Department of State Liaison for the Japan Shipbuilding Group, put it after one such visit, Habash “went above and beyond to make sure the group had a positive experience.” Habash and his team provide not just transportation but connection, sharing local knowledge, bits of history, culture, and emulating the spirit of citizen diplomacy in Maine.
In addition to the membership, Board of Directors and sponsors, Katherine Brown, president and CEO of Global Ties U.S., the nation’s largest citizen diplomacy network, joined the celebration and offered remarks on the powerful impact local communities can have on strengthening U.S. relations around the world. Brown spoke on the role of citizen diplomats — the everyday people in communities across the country, whose hospitality, conversations, and connections do the slow, durable work of building mutual understanding between the United States and the world. Global Ties U.S. supports a national network of community-based organizations carrying that work forward, including World Affairs Council of Maine.
“Maine is a small place with a wide welcome mat and an outsized impact on the world, and these honorees made that visible in the most concrete way,” Allison Hodgkins, executive director of the World Affairs Council of Maine, said.
The 49th Annual Meeting marked another year of citizen diplomacy in action across Maine. Through the Council’s partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, Mainers across the state have hosted, driven, mentored, taught, and shared meals with emerging leaders from more than 40 countries this past year alone.
The Council will mark its 50th anniversary in June 2027 and is actively welcoming new members to be part of the year ahead. Membership is open to anyone — students, professionals, retirees, business owners, neighbors — interested in connecting Maine to the wider world. Annual programs include lectures, the weekly Seven in Seven newsletter, the Great Decisions discussion series, host opportunities with visiting international delegations and opportunity to be part of a growing community of Mainers for whom global engagement is local work. To learn more or to join, visit www.wacmaine.org/membership.
Founded in 1977, the World Affairs Council of Maine is a Portland-based nonprofit dedicated to bringing the world to Maine and Maine to the world. Through public programs, educational partnerships, and the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, the Council connects Mainers of all ages and from every part of the state to global perspectives and emerging leaders from around the world. The Council marks its 50th anniversary in June 2027. Learn more at www.wacmaine.org.