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Joy Barresi Saucier and Noël Bonam’s Aug. 10 column on piloting Vietnam’s Intergenerational Self-Help Club model in rural Maine names something urgent: neighbors helping neighbors as infrastructure, not sentiment. I’d urge one addition: don’t limit it to older Mainers.
A state stays economically vital when residents of every age can meet their basic needs and see a future worth staying for — affordable housing, living-wage work, child care and opportunity for young adults entering the workforce. Many of Maine’s small towns already have the housing stock and vacant storefronts to welcome people back; what’s missing is the everyday support system that makes staying, or moving in, feel possible.
A hub-and-spoke model built on the same principle — neighbors both giving and receiving help, paid fairly for skilled work like caregiving, tutoring, or childcare — could serve a young family as readily as an aging parent. In my 30-year career as a counselor, counselor educator, and coach, and through six years of receiving significant community care myself, I’ve seen firsthand how much these interventions matter across the whole lifespan, not just at sunset.
Maine’s revival won’t come from one generation alone. I hope the ISHC pilot conversation makes room for all of us.
Kathleen “Kitty” Fallon
Berwick