WTH Bi-Weekly Blog for July 24, 2026
Welcome To Housing Home Goods Bank
Bi-Weekly Blog for July 24, 2026
Greetings,
Here it is, Friday night, the night of the day that I’m SUPPOSED to have this blog completed and ready to email over to Joe Lawlor. But is it ready? Heck, No!
It’s been a very busy couple of weeks. One of the really cool things happened in three steps. We received a phone call when we were having some very humid weather. Apparently the Gentiva Hospice program that has patients in Stillwater Healthcare (same place I stayed in after I had my triple bypass and 2nd grand opening) in Bangor and Hibbard Nursing Home up in Dover-Foxcroft. Apparently, they needed some fans and rather than trying to dig up what little we might have at the warehouse in Old Town, I went online and found some nice pedestal fans online that were available at the Bangor Walmart. They were looking for 8 fans in total but because they were a good deal, I ordered 10 altogether.
The lady who reached out to me sounded very interested in the work we do and in fact was familiar with WTH as we’ve helped her and her associates with their clients in the past.
I was thinking she would make a great prospective volunteer but having just met her (not in person yet) I didn’t want to scare her off by asking her about it. Apparently, I didn’t have to ask, she expressed interest in either a conversation or an email, I can’t remember which. But as it turns out she meets with EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians), doctors and I think she said firefighters.
The third step was when I invited her to be interviewed in my podcast, People, Places and Parables as hospice work is very meaningful but after seeing my father being helped by a hospice volunteer, I saw it as very intimate, but challenging. It reminded me of a lady who used to foster terminally ill children that I met when I worked at Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine and Kinship Care.
As we had planned, after the recording of the podcast, we talked about the Board of Trustees and the teams (Marketing, Volunteer Development Community Outreach) and Committees including the Finance/Budget Committee and the Governance Committee. I asked her if she would be interested in acting like a liaison between our program and some of those resources I mentioned before.
In addition, trying to do the Founder's report so that when the agenda comes up, the meeting is limited to one hour, and as the founder/president I generally have more information than is needed. One of the things we're going to do is ask for an update from our meeting that we had with the chef. Lisa and I met with the chef up at the Old Town Orono YMCA. One of the things that we're going to be adding to the flyer that'll be going into the packets is the Chef's Challenge. I am not exactly sure what Chef's Challenge is but basically making a simple meal with some very basic ingredients at the event. The event is on a Saturday into a Sunday on October17th to 18th.
I’ll be assembling an 8.5-by-11-inch pocket folder to distribute. It will include a general flyer about Welcome to Housing, a flyer about the event, and the three-up handouts we already have. I created a three-up sheet that recipients can take back to their offices, scan or photocopy, cut apart, and share with employees or fellow club members—such as those in Kiwanis, Rotary, or similar groups. The flyer we created earlier is a bit more detailed.
I need to add more detail to the larger flyer about the “Stone soup parable”, stone soup story, stone soup challenge—whatever you want to call it. Also, put in a quick blurb about the chef's challenge and also discuss some of the things that we need to get ready.
I think if we start working on getting spark plugs at different locations in different businesses, clubs and organizations, we will have a good turnout at the event in October. We want to build in a lot of pieces to the event and will do so as we have people to take the ball and run with it. This coming week I hope to call Hannaford and ask about the logistics of their returnable container program in terms of a behemoth drive. In other words, leading up the event, seeing if we can stuff a bus full of Clynk bags labeled with the scanner code labels. Planning is everything. I never liked the saying about “It’s easier for forgiveness than it is to get permission.” I ALWAYS try to ask for permission and because of that, many doors are opened to things I’m working on, whether it’s for jobs I have had or in the case of Welcome To Housing, for causes that I volunteer with.
I have been using Facebook Messenger to chat with long time Hannaford Supermarket Manager, Victor “Vic” Wood. Somewhere I have a photo I took of Vic behind the wheel of a van lent to the March of Dimes for WalkAmerica back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Vic has ALWAYS been a champion of good community causes. Hannaford has a store in Old Town at Old Town Plaza down the opposite end of the plaza from the YMCA. A while back they sold the “Community Bags” at the Hogan Road Hannaford and WTH received $1 from each bag that sells for $2.50. Vic told me this fall they have another promotion, this one with small plans and using the same idea will be giving WTH proceeds from the sale of those plants priced at $2.50 each.
I asked Lisa Maxcy to write up a quick blurb about the “Chef’s Challenge.” As I said the meeting we had with the Y’s Chef went really well, his resume is impressive, far beyond Maine. As Lisa and Chef chatted about food preparation, my eyes probably glazed over like a donut. My wife of 40+ years is an incredible cook but by the same token, I specialize in eating food and washing dishes, but when it comes to food prep, I’m lost. Years ago I worked in a Damariscotta restaurant and that cured me. Hospitality on the other hand, fascinates me.
At this coming week’s Trustees’ meeting, I'd like to do what Dennis Wint has suggested, which is to really focus on setting goals, and I agree with that. I think the only challenge we have right now, where it's summertime, is getting new volunteers in because there aren’t enough people on the board to really run any of the teams other than what Craig is doing and what Joe was doing and hopefully will be doing again. Joe was doing marketing; Craig was doing fundraising along with Lisa. And we also should look into what we would like to do. We need to have some sort of a reception, I think that's focused specifically on
educating people about what we do.
At some point, I do agree with Dennis Wint that we should try to do as much as we can with a captive audience. But I'd also like to look into possibly getting a sponsor or two and finding out the cost of having a lunch gathering at Eastern Maine Community College's Rangeley Hall in Bangor. I actually spoke with the new President of EMCC on the phone the other day. We met a while back at the Penobscot Job Corps community meeting. After the meeting was over, he and I found ourselves taking cookies with us that were left over and we were encouraged to take with us. Good Chocolate Chip Cookies like members of the United State Marine Corps says, “No man left behind” we agree the same is true for great cookies. It lends a whole new meaning to the expression “When the chips are down,” I would answer, “Lighten Up! And have a cookie!”
We've done this before at another location, the Bangor Savings Bank Clif Eames Learning Center (now owned by OHI as BSB has moved most operations to their Operations Center on the waterfront in Bangor), so I think it would be good to look into again this fall, most likely mid to late September. We had a good speaker, Sean Yardley. If we're going to do this, we need to get a couple of people to talk about Welcome To Housing. It would be great to have a grateful recipient speak, something we did in the past when WABI-TV came out to our first location we had at the Old Town Plaza and the landlord had a tenant wanting to expand into our 2,267 square space and we needed to find a new location. It would be good to have a simple lunch and talk a little bit about what we're hoping to do in October.
We can answer so many questions like “How can people get involved with the quote-unquote teams?” The only part of the different groups under the Board of Trustees that should be considered a “committee,” is the Finance Committee and also the Governance Committee and the rest are “advisory” groups to the Board and the term “Team” at least in my opinion, sounds more welcoming and approachable by new potential volunteers.
I also have to avoid a little confusion because now we have two volunteers with the same name but spelled differently. We have Melony Stockley. The second or newest to join is Melanie Pomeroy. Melanie is an RN as I mentioned with Gentiva Hospice.
And the challenge with community outreach is we want to not only find people that need help but also get it to the point where we have people that are excited to learn about what we do. Not only learn about what we do but also get involved with us on a deeper level than just showing up at a couple of meetings here and there.
The challenge with community outreach is not only finding people who need help, but also inspiring others to learn about our work and become more deeply involved—not just by attending an occasional meeting, but by taking an active role in supporting our mission.
Well, it’s now almost 8:00pm on Saturday, July 25, 2026 and I need to call it a week (or rather two) because three times now I have dozed off writing this and awakened to see several lines of one letter where I leaned on one key and “Away we gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
You get the idea. Have a great couple of weeks and I will share more with you then.
Gratefully,
Christopher Olsen
Founder and Board of Trustees President
Podcast: People, Places and Parables.
https://www.youtube.com/@PeoplePlacesParables
call/text anytime: (207) 745-1287
