Giving Health

What is Giving Health?

Giving Health is Healthy Acadia’s annual weeklong campaign to raise awareness and build support for healthful resources and programming. We are committed to ensuring that our communities are places where everyone can live healthy and thrive.  

Over the last few years, our Giving Health campaign has grown and has brought our community together. Through monetary donations of all sizes, items donated through our wish list, volunteer signups, partnerships, and even through community members spreading the word about our work and fundraising efforts we have been able to raise the needed funds to support important programming and resources. 

Giving Health supports individuals and communities to thrive. We come together again this year and we are grateful for all the ways you are Giving Health. 

When is Giving Health?

Our 2024 Giving Health campaign begins the week of Giving Tuesday! Stay tuned for details.

Special note: Gifts made in advance and earmarked for Giving Health 2024 will also go toward this campaign!

Words and Stories that Inspire 

Recovery Supports for Women and Children

We are grateful that since opening in 2020 Safe Harbor Recovery Home for Women and Children in Machias has housed 27 women and 37 children. We are thankful that when our community in Washington County saw the need, we collectively were able to come together with our partners at Downeast Community Partners, Community Caring Collaborative, and AMHC (Aroostook Mental Health Services, Inc.), and also supported in part by MaineHousing. to address these critical needs. Together we made health happen. Safe Harbor still has needs and with your help, we can continue to serve women and their children as they build healthy lives. 

Healthy Youth Opportunities

“I've learned to not let anyone walk over you in a relationship. I've learned not to do drugs. I've learned a lot about setting boundaries, and we need those boundaries." DETLC Participant

Our youth are our future! When we launched Downeast Partnerships For Success five years ago, building a work plan around schools and community groups and other partners to help us provide social activities for youth and families with a focus on preventing substance use, we had no idea how successful it would be! To date, 2,899 youth have been positively affected by an array of programs including those we offer directly, such as Downeast Teen Leadership Camp, and those we have supported with grant funding such as the Downeast Rainbow Alliance - which is a coalition of young adults, health care workers, educators, organizers, LGBTQ+ community members and allies whose mission it is to provide advocacy, education, and support for the LGBTQ2IA+ community in Washington County. These  are just two of  many important projects! We have seen youth’s lives change with these programs. 

Workforce Development 

Creating a nurturing environment for personal and professional growth is key to overall health and well-being. In recent years we have expanded our engagement in workforce development, including through supporting Extended Learning Opportunities for youth that boost youth employment and career exploration programs, and through our role as Eastern Maine’s Area Health Education Center (AHEC). Our AHEC work brings students enrolled in medical and other health field studies to Downeast Maine to experience health care in rural community settings, and supports continuing education opportunities for current professionals. The goal is to build the rural healthcare workforce, which we know is so important for all of us, including our older adult populations. This is another way we Give Health and work to make our community stronger, and it’s done in partnership with many employers and other partners.

Juneteenth Downeast

Over the last three years, Healthy Acadia has had the opportunity to be a fiscal sponsor and a key partner of Juneteenth Downeast, a collaborative effort of many community organizations, businesses, and individuals, including MDI Racial Equity Working Group, Greater Bangor Area Branch NAACP, YWCA MDI, Downeast Diversity, The Exercise Design Lab, Black Spirit 4 Life, Mano en Mano | Hand in Hand, The Jackson Laboratory, and Friends of Acadia. 

Together, this dynamic collaboration - led by the vision and direction of Black and people of color in the group - has organized both the Juneteenth Downeast Commemoration and Weekend on the Water, and is building out events throughout the year to offer get-togethers for Black, people of color, and blended families, as well as educational opportunities to help rebuild connections to the land and to each other and to replenish that which was taken away. We have seen and been inspired by the depth of the impact of this important work, and are proud to be part of making it possible. Downeast Juneteenth couldn’t do all this without community support. 

Downeast Restorative Harvest

Imagine a garden, but not just any garden….We not only imagined it, but we are creating it now! Did you know we are partnering with the Washington County Jail, Maine Department of Corrections, other community partners, and individuals like you to establish an innovative community garden program in Machias? We are and we are so excited!  This garden will engage jail and prison residents, members of the recovery community, agriculture educators, and other community members in growing food for the jail’s kitchen as well as for donation to local food assistance programs. This not only means more healthy food, but also job-skills development, greater whole health, and reduced recidivism for participating Jail residents. We are all working together so we can be in the garden to Give Health!

Overnight Warming Center

Last winter, recognizing the crisis as temperatures plummeted and hearing from both Healthy Acadia program participants and partner organizations of a great need to support our unhoused community members, Healthy Acadia opened an Overnight Warming Center for the first time. From December 2022 through April 2023, we served 91 unique individuals and hosted a total of 1,277 cumulative bed stays. We collaborated with partners and  many community members who gave to make the Center a safe and comfortable space to stay out of the cold throughout Maine’s harsh winter. Thank you to so many for donating  meals, personal care items, and funds which made this Warming Center possible. This is just another big example of how we can Give Health together.

"When I started coming here I was not even thinking about recovery, I just wanted a warm place to watch TV.  But I kept coming and everyone being so non-judgemental and not pushing me into it, made me want to try."  Individual supported by the Warming Center

Ways to Get involved

We are often asked by community members, “How can I support Healthy Acadia?” There are many ways you can support Healthy Acadia every day and especially this week during Giving Health. Choose one, or many!  - Whatever works best for you. Just know that whatever you decide it will make a difference and it will help Give Health to others! 

Thank You for Your Support!