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Neighbors help Neighbors in many different ways. Island Connections volunteers, who give of their time and talent, are the backbone of our organization. Whatever your time frame there is an opportunity for you to help your neighbors.
Read our Volunteer brochure >>>>
Check out the volunteer opportunities below to see if you would like to become Island Connections' newest volunteer! Give us a call at
207-288-4457, we would be happy to answer your questions.
Organize and maintain our history of newspaper clippings, pictures, posters and awards. Create in-office and kiosk displays. Organize meeting minutes and reports.
Participate in the governance of Island Connections. In addition to monthly meetings of the full Board, members are active in one or more committees having advisory and oversight responsibilities regarding different aspects of the organization.
Design and produce brochures describing various Island Connections programs and activities. Existing brochures were produced in Microsoft Publisher and printed in-house.
Provide telephone reassurance calls to seniors who live alone or are lonely. The volunteer and care receiver determine the schedule. Frequencies vary from every day to once a week. The goal is for the senior to hear a friendly voice on a regular basis. A secondary goal is to serve as an "alarm raiser" if the situation warrants
Drivers provide individualized transportation for seniors and/or disabled individuals to medical and other appointments. Volunteers use their own vehicles to provide door-to-door rides. Destinations are varied but most often include the various clinics on MDI, Trenton, or Ellsworth.
Volunteers also do longer trips to Bangor to see medical specialists. Drivers determine their schedule and where they are willing to drive to. Some drivers prefer to stay on MDI. Others are willing to go to Bangor only if they have some personal errands to attend to there.
Transportation is Island Connections largest program and we greatly appreciate any and all driving you would be willing to do!
Pickup food from the Bar Harbor Food Pantry and deliver it to neighbors homes. All the
deliveries on a particular run are in the same geographical area. Currently we regularly deliver to Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor.
Volunteers visit seniors in their homes and sometimes take them out to do errands. Visits are generally arranged weekly or several times each month. The program is for the volunteer to be a regular presence (or friend) in the senior’s life.
Island Connections mounts several fundraising events each year. We are looking for people with a variety of skills to make them a success! Organization and planning are always important, but so too are less glamorous tasks like hanging posters around town and people to staff the event. We are considering sponsoring a duck race next year for which we will need a small army of volunteers.
Help craft plans for diverse fundraising activities to keep Island Connections thriving financially.
Help prepare proposals for grant making organizations.
Learn how this volunteer powered organization works from the inside. Interns work on a variety of projects and typically work 2 or 3 afternoons a week. Appropriate for a High School or College Student.
Volunteer drivers are needed to deliver lunch time meals to individuals in Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, & Tremont, as well as the dining rooms in Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor. Meal Delivery is a cooperative venture with the Meals for ME program of the Eastern Agency on Aging and the Community Kitchen located at Malvern-Belmont Estates, part of the MDI Housing authority. Pickup times vary between 10:45 and 11:15 and most routes are deliverable in less than one hour. A mileage reimbursement is available from the Eastern Agency on Aging.
Island Connections publishes several general newsletters each year. These are presently distributed as inserts to the Bar Harbor Times. We are looking for help with design and production of the newsletters. Layout is done using Quark Express.
The Bar Harbor Times makes column space available on an every other week basis. We seek editors/writers to establish the purposes of the column and to produce columns that further the general purposes of Island Connections.
In addition to usual office activities, volunteers are heavily involved in the rides program, accepting requests for rides and entering the requests into our computerized database and calling volunteers to schedule drives. We have a specific need for a office staff on Tuesday mornings, 9:00 AM- 12:00 PM.
Operation Keep Me Warm teams winterize homes for low income people throughout Maine. Island Connections with help from the Jackson Lab coordinates the teams operating on MDI. We need people to fill out our teams.
Responsible for taking digital pictures of Island Connections activities throughout the year. Pictures will be used in a variety of ways including general promotion in local newspapers, brochures, kiosks, fundraising, and showing donors how their money supports Island Connections. We have a digital camera and a photo printer.
Throughout the year Island Connections sponsors a number of events for seniors and disabled people such as a trip to the Bangor Flower Show, Tea and Popovers at the Jordan Pond House, a Summer picnic, and a Thanksgiving Dinner. These events require extra volunteers from cookie bakers to sign posters to escorts for neighbors using walkers and wheelchairs.
Island Connections has a van with a wheelchair lift used in our transportation program. We are looking for people with good driving records who would like to transport wheelchair neighbors in our van to appointments. Training will be given on how to operate the lift and tie down a wheelchair.
"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
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Archivist