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Since 2011, the Camden Rotary Club has invested $177,500 in Midcoast Maine through its generous annual grants to supporting nonprofit organizations in Knox County and Lincolnville.

The club helps in other ways too, doing community services projects such as delivering supplies for holiday meals to families in need and hosting a free Fourth of July concert for locals and visitors each year. While the club is proud of these efforts and of its financial impact on the local community, members have recently sought opportunities to do even more hands-on service.

For the 2018-19 Rotary year, the club found a creative, fun way to combine a grant award with hands-on participation. A $5,000 grant provided scholarships for teenagers to learn about the ecosystems of Penobscot Bay and the human impacts on the environment through the Hurricane Island Foundation's Penobscot Bay Leadership Collaborative. Thanks to this funding, the students ventured last summer to the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership (HICSL), a scientific and education community that provides experiential, hands-on education programs and research opportunities.

Club members asked if they could do anything to help the center in a practical way. Indeed they could! The center needed some volunteers for an island cleanup — weeding the vegetable garden, collecting trash that had washed up onto the shores, trimming bushes and removing brush.

On August 5, 2018, more than 20 club members set out for Hurricane Island and spent all morning doing outdoor chores. Talented cooks in the center’s kitchen prepared them a delicious lunch, and staff members offered a history tour of the island, previously the home of a bustling granite quarry and boomtown and later a base for Outward Bound programs. Club members also learned about HICSL’s programs and had the pleasure of meeting students who had received scholarships thanks to the club’s grant.

The Rotarians who went out that day remember it as a highlight of the summer and hope to return this year.