Welcome To Housing Bi-Weekly Blog September 18, 2026

Believe it or not, September is flying by like a bat out of H, E, double hockey sticks. You never know where you're going to get volunteers or how you're going to get volunteers. Recently, the Maine Campus had a photographer go over to the warehouse at 333 Main Street in Old Town, and as it turns out, we had one photograph of a lot of our basic aluminum walkers piled up in the front office space of the warehouse.

With just a quick blurb, like a one-sentence caption, we ended up getting three University of Maine students interested in volunteering for us out of the blue. I believe as I edit this there are actually MORE than those three now judging from recent email inquiries.

Speaking of university students, we have Sigma Epsilon coming back to volunteer with us. We also have the folks from the Golden Key International Honour Society (Yes, it’s spelled as the European version of Honor). We also had a really good meeting with the One Circle Agency. It's a student-run advertising agency that's part of the New England School Communications (NESCOM), which is part of Husson University. As I said,  the meeting went really well. As a matter of fact, so did a Zoom meeting on Thursday of this week with the core team with their agency.

We're really excited about it because basically what they're trying to do is help us get up to the level of recognition that you see for food pantries and other organizations. Any time that we've had help from university students, whether it be University of Maine or Husson University, or any of the schools for that matter, it's like taking all these different things that you would normally have on a to-do list that you've always wanted to do but have not been able to do because of lack of time or lack of volunteers. These groups come out and you give them a big chunk out of a to-do list, and they take care of it, and they really enjoy it simply because of the fact that it's a good thing to do, but also because it's real-world experience.

I don't know how many people remember the movie Back-To-School with Rodney Dangerfield and Sally Kellerman. There's a scene where Rodney Dangerfield's character and his son are in a business class, and the business class is all imaginary. They don't even have a product. And when Rodney Dangerfield's character brings it up, the professor suggests they’re making “widgets.” So,  it's almost like a fairy tale. It’s GOOD to have real world experiences.

The “Count Our Blessings Camp-In” is now 100-percent sponsored. The Old Town-Orono YMCA is donating the venue, the printing has all been donated by The UPS Store in Bangor and this week we got the final two sponsors.

SO, in addition to Machias Savings Bank and Bangor Savings Bank kicking in $500, so is Sargent Corporation which I confirmed over the phone. Side note, they’re celebrating 100 years in business this year. And the folks from Tyler Technologies emailed me shortly after my conversation with Glenn Adams from Sargent, to tell me that they’re onboard as well.  

The other good news out there, is that after putting it off for months and months, the organization that Craig Saunders had recommended we reach out to, actually came through for us. He had heard about the Agnes M. Lindsey Trust and found their contact information for us. We did a letter of intent and they okayed it but it was many months later that we finally applied.

The upper end of their grants is $7,500, but going through the grants that were actually awarded in real life, they were generally about $5,000. We applied for five thousand dollars specifically for adaptive equipment and for things for children like cribs, the four-in-one cribs, and child safety seats when necessary. And instead of sending us $5,000, they awarded us with a $6,000 grant.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting to hear back from the Maine Justice Foundation, who reached out to us months ago and invited us to apply. And I'm hoping to hear from them fairly soon. The nice thing about the Justice Foundation and the correlation that we have with them is the fact that in addition to helping victims, such as women that are escaping domestic violence, primarily women, not always, but usually. We also help the people that are coming back from corrections back into the community to make sure that they get a good start too, because often times people commit crimes when they are desperate, whether it's economically, whether they have a mental health issue, or in many cases, problems with substance use disorder. So, we're really excited about not only getting more money than we asked for from one foundation, but also about being invited by another one to apply. I'm going to be working on press releases coming up. I've already done one, which talked about the “Count Our Blessings Camp-In at the Y, and also the fact that we have had some success with grants, and I'm excited about it because there's a lot of people coming through for us.

One of the things we're really excited about, as I mentioned in a prior blog, is the fact that the United Way is hosting an event aimed specifically at recruiting volunteers. We were going to try to get Rangeley Hall out at the end of Sylvan Road in Bangor with Eastern Maine Community College, but that would have cost us some money.

As it turns out, just before we were able to arrange anything in a formal way we received the email about the FREE event with the Heart of Maine United Way.

Even so, it was a great chance to chat with the new President of Eastern Maine Community College (a fellow Cookie Wrangler). Dr. Julius Edwards and I met when we were at a Community Meeting at Penobscot Job Corps. We both were pilfering cookies that were left over at that event. They said, “Take some back with you to work or to family,” and we did!

So, there's a lot of neat things going on, but I'm excited about the event on October 9th. Because we have several people that are going to be there from ten to two, including Craig Saunders, and there are a lot of people that I wouldn't expect to come out to an event like that, are offering to help. We're going to really pack the house with volunteers to help recruit more.

We have a business after hours coming up, and I hope to make this one. It's with Tyler Technologies. Tyler Technologies is a company started by a University of Maine alumni. It’s a great company as it offers UMaine students’ employment and not just in Orono but at any of their other locations.

Good Gravy! I just Googled the company, they’re headquartered in Plano, Texas and have 57, that’s FIFTY-SEVEN locations around the WORLD!!!

I need to head out for now. I plan to design an 8.5” by 11” sheet that highlights the sponsors including the YMCA and The UPS Store and promotes the fact that if people can’t make it to the YMCA, they CAN participate remotely. The whole idea is to spend a night without a bed to understand deep down what people who we help are often experiencing.

The bulk of the sheet though will be a coloring page with a camping theme.

Have a great couple of weeks.

Sincerely yours,

Christopher Olsen
Founder and Board of Trustees President
welcometohousing@gmail.com
call/text: (207) 745-1287