Welcome To Housing’s Bi-Weekly Blog September 19, 2025

My fingers as well as my toes? Still crossed that we’ll have a chance to work with the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce (BRCC) program, the Bangor Region Leadership Institute. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we’re hoping to be selected to be their nonprofit partner.

One of the MANY things I love about this program that I sparked, is the endless opportunities it brings. When people learn what we do, when they actually UNDERSTAND what we do and how we do it, they contact us and express interest in getting involved.

A great example of that is someone who jumped onboard after one chance meeting at a BRCC Business After Hours. That would be our Trustee and Chair of the Fundraising Committee, Craig Saunders of Machias Savings Bank (MSB).

He’s opened numerous doors for us. Donations from him matched by is employer. He also is the first donor who has payroll deductions going to the Heart of Maine United Way, designating those deductions to Welcome To Housing (WTH).

Craig and D.J. Samuelian both worked in tandem to get us signed up for the Hannaford Supermarket’s Clynk returnable program (bottles and cans). It took yours truly a while to learn to log-in to the Clynk account to see the numbers (number of containers as well as dollars raised) and to refrain from messing with it. The payout comes every quarter, or every three months.

If you’ve followed any of these bi-weekly blogs or any social media posts, we’re ALWAYS looking for groups of people to work together to help us.

Good Morning!

It’s Tuesday the 16th of September, and I need to remember to visit Darling’s Kia in Bangor. They’re collecting cash donations all September long at their dealership and they have their Ice Cream freezer on hand in the showroom. Darling’s family goes WAY back in the area for transportation and they do a lot of community service, and we were chosen for the month of September.

Meanwhile, right after getting out of the weekly meeting of the Maine Reentry Network, I noticed a nice email that was like the one from the Beyond The Game, the large group of student athletes from Husson University.

I hope to meet with them very soon.

The email I received this morning though (to which I responded in the affirmative) was from the Service Director from the Golden Key International Honour Society from the University of Maine (Yes, Honour IS spelled that way in their case).

Good morning,

My name is Mackenzie Michaud, and I am the Service Director for the University of Maine's chapter of Golden Key International Honour Society. Golden Key is an honor society that has pillars of academics, leadership, and service. We volunteer with a variety of organizations in the community, including the Bangor Homeless Shelter and the Old Town YMCA. 

I wanted to reach out to ask if there would be an opportunity for Golden Key to volunteer at Old Town’s Welcome to Housing Home Goods Bank! We would love the chance to support your mission. If you are willing to collaborate with us, we would be happy to work with your organization to coordinate what dates work best and how we can assist based on your current needs. 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,

Mackenzie Michaud

Service Director

Golden Key International Honour Society

University of Maine

If you told me back in June of 2011 after I had my conversation with (now retired) the Director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, Dennis Marble, that we would progress this far, I wouldn’t have believed you.  

Today is the 18th, a Thursday and one of the many joys of Welcome To Housing is the fact that no two days are ever quite the same, similarities, yes, but not the same.

On the day that one volunteer decided to step down after bringing a LOT of good to the organization, later the same day we have at least two and possibly more that will fill in that gap.

ALSO, the same day, yesterday, I received a call from one of the truck rental companies we HAVEN’T worked with yet, so that’s always a plus.

A gentleman from the company called me and said they had about half of a 26-foot box truck filled with household items from furniture, kitchenware and more.

So, when the truck from the rental company arrived, it turns out it was closer to full as the young man named Caleb said he underestimated. As it turns out the items were all from a person who was a hoarder but after emptying their house, decided to abandon all their goods and what we received was mostly in decent shape except for a rather stained and dirty mattress but the truck rental company was planning on disposing that anyway and did not saddle us with it.

As it turns out, before they called The Salvation Army and were referred to us, they had the sad duty of taking things to the transfer station, even things that had a LOT of use left in them.

I am excited to attend the first meeting of the Bangor Committee looking at the distribution of Opioid Settlement Funds tonight. What’s great is that I will be getting a ride there and I don’t have to worry about finding parking near City Hall and trying to use my rollator or Hurrycanes to get to the council chambers which are now on the first floor.

Friday the 19th is here, and I am happy to share that the Opioid Settlement meeting went really well. It was nice to have Craig Saunders with me. Unlike the process when funds came in from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), it sounds like the City of Bangor, one of the many recipients, is also talking with another recipient, Penobscot County which is being facilitated by the County Commissioners. I’ve already been in touch with them and their application process according to their grant facilitator, Wendy Dana, should be ready to go in early October.

It was nice to see Scott Pardy the founder and head of Fresh Start, Inc., who has something like 20 sober homes. I also had the opportunity to meet the Director of Wellspring, Inc. which in addition to having a recovery house for men and one for women, has a third house for mothers with children. The BEST part of meeting her was how enthusiastic she was about WTH and what we do, and we plan to meet and talk in the near future. I hope that we can set up a more formal arrangement to get volunteers from there when we have large volume moves of donations.

We were asked a question I anticipated and that was how many people we serve who are in recovery from, or in some way affected by opioids. That in my mind can include the many people who have had their lives turned upside down from someone in their life who has either overdosed or done something as a result of opioid use that’s caused job loss, or even an eviction.

I had a couple of setbacks this week. WTH wasn’t chosen to be a nonprofit partner with the Bangor Region Leadership Institute as there were an overwhelming number of nonprofits that applied. I also like to think, there’s always next year, but hopefully we’ll be much further on our way to building our committees, and I may have also found a group that would consider organizing the Pajama-Rama event.

The other setback was the resignation of a board member and volunteer Lisa Tissari. She did a lot of work with our SCORE mentor, Dennis Wint on finishing up the Bylaws and she most recently was taking care of the sorting and distribution of the medical/adaptive equipment. I think I share the same sentiment as most of our other volunteers in wishing her the very best for Lisa and of course her ADORABLE Corgi, Arlo.

Well, it’s a gorgeous day outside and I think I will wrap this up for now and I will fill you in on more happenings with Welcome To Housing as they come to be.

Enjoy the cooler temperatures and the changing of the leaves and please join me in hoping we end up with some more rain so we can see Mother Nature pull our great state of Maine out a drought situation…

Almost forgot, speaking of droughts and gardens and the like. This weekend we (my beloved Robin and I) hope to try out the bulb auger on the newer drill.

We recently got a new powerful cordless drill as well as the auger. It will allow us to drill holes in the ground to plant bulbs that should winter well and spring up in the… well spring.

Peace, Empathy and Love to all of you.

Gratefully,

Christopher Olsen
Founder and Board President