News of The Rotary Club of Portland, Maine October 29, 2020
State of Mind: Becoming Maine | by Rusty Atwood
Steve Bromage, Executive Director of the Maine Historical Society, was originally scheduled to be our program speaker on Friday, March 13, coinciding with the opening of State of Mind: Becoming Maine, and two days before the planned statewide celebration of Maine Statehood Day.
The ensuing days, weeks and now months have been fraught with uncertainty in all aspects of our lives while “Zoom” has become a key component of the connective tissue in American society. The Maine Historical Society has chronicled many challenging times over its 198-year existence and is meeting this current challenge head on as well.
Mr. Bromage, together with his intrepid staff and an engaged board of trustees, has not only kept the ship afloat, but has expanded the Society’s reach with virtual programs/exhibits and relevant examination of how history can be an invaluable guide in anxious times.
The history of the region now known as Maine did not begin at statehood in 1820. What was Maine before it was a state? How did Maine separate from Massachusetts? How has the Maine we experience today been shaped by thousands of years of history?
The current exhibition at the Maine Historical Society, State of Mind: Becoming Maine, analyzes Maine as the homeland of the Wabanaki people, as a European province, as part of the District of Massachusetts, and the State of Maine. It will consider Maine's Bicentennial milestone in relation to: Maine's formation as a state 200 years ago; the significance of the Missouri Compromise; how the idea of "Maine" is perceived by people today; and how the changing landscape could alter Maine's future. The exhibition features manuscripts and items relating to statehood, historic maps, contemporary artwork, and opportunities to learn about the experiences of Wabanaki people alongside the early settlers, including: European American, African American, and Acadian communities.
Steve will provide a brief history of how Maine separated from Massachusetts, a long and complex series of events, and eventually became a state in 1820.
Jesse Harvey Scholarship Fund Announced
Catherine Nash, Jesse Harvey’s Mom, joined our meeting and read the following letter to us:
“As Jesse Harvey's Mom, I have always asked how I got to be related to this great man - his vast gifts were all his own.
Jesse always told the truth, sometimes to his detriment. Jesse worked making things fair for everyone, especially those people most marginalized. Jesse built good will everywhere he went and formed friendships with the most unlikely people. Jesse’s life was devoted to making this world, and his contributions to it, beneficial to all people concerned.
Jesse grew up in Africa, moving to the Sudan when he was 2. When he was 3, I worked for the United Nations World Food Program in N’zerekore, Guinea. We lived for 2 years in a distant village with Refugee camps surrounding us. I headed a sub-office catering to 35,000 Liberian refugees who fled during their civil war. When Jesse was 6, I took him to my work in one of the Liberian camp’s food distributions. Jesse observed that it was smelly and hot. (I did not subject him to any more of them, I just wanted him to see where Mom went every day.) We then moved to Abidjan for 2 years where I covered 4 more West African countries. Even in Jesse’s young years, he was aware of the suffering of so many people. We moved to Bangladesh for two years, then on to Nepal for 2 years also catering to refugee populations there. Jesse fit in in every country we lived in and excelled in all the International schools that he attended.
I would like to think that this had a beneficial influence on him, though I maintain that Jesse’s gifts were all his own. Even at the time, I remember feeling myself a bit of a sell-out -- how easy was that to give food to the poor people I served? I thought I could never work on the more complex issues that the United States faced. But Jesse did face them, took them head on and acted courageously upon them in a profound way to improve a heartless society. Jesse’s work lives on in the form of educating people on the stigma of language as a start, and went on to then train the trainers (thanks to a Rotary Scholarship), learning life-saving methods that inspired and led to more people doing the same outreach to the most marginalized people.
Jesse continues to shine down his love and compassion for all of us whom he left behind to carry on his great work. Jesse’s love and compassion will be memorialized in the Jesse Harvey Memorial Scholarship, USM, which will be given to a student in recovery who will live in one of the Sober Living Houses that he founded. I only hope we can all continue to carry out this work with half of his brilliance, energy, integrity and pure love and compassion for all people.”
Thank you.
To support this cause, checks may be made payable to USM Foundation and mailed to:
USM Foundation
P.O. Box 9300
Portland, ME 04104
Or see the ROCC Scholarship in Memory of Jesse Harvey online at the link here.
Changes in Maine’s Electorate| by Ben Lowry
Last Friday, we listened to a fascinating talk from Dan Shea, the government department chair at Colby College, who walked us through some of the issues we all face with the upcoming national election and within Maine in the senatorial election between Susan Collins and Sara Gideon. Like most of us, Dan agreed that the saturation of political ads over the past many months has left him with that “Woodstock feeling.” It was fun and exciting for a while but now the rains have rolled in and we as an electorate have been left soggy and covered in thick political mud. The state of Maine has never seen the fundraising that this race has brought in, with Gideon’s $63 million changing the way we look at campaigns.
The question that Dan delved into was one that asked, “Has Susan Collins changed”? After being seen for many years as the most bi-partisan senator in Washington, she has begun to vote much more often along party lines, siding with Democrats just 10% of the time in the last two sessions. And, in a recent poll of Mainers, 45% of voters say she is no longer independent, with that number jumping to 55% in voters under the age of 40. But these numbers say as much about the voters in Maine as they speak to Senator Collins’ political leanings.
Maine now has an increase in registered Democrats, with 36% of voters statewide registered “Dems,” compared with just 27% of registered voters being Republican (and 32% Independent). As the population continues to shift toward York and Cumberland counties, two very “blue” counties so, while Collins may indeed seem to be swaying toward less moderate inklings, the electorate in Maine seems to suggest that her campaign for a seventh term in the Senate will certainly be her most difficult. Winning 58%, 62% and 69% of the vote in her past three re-election bids, Collins is in a race where, for the first time, she is behind in the polls at this late juncture. Her greatest hope is that the state sees an influx in “split ticket” votes, with voters voting for a Democrat (Biden) and then her. But, with split ticket votes dropping nationally from 30% in 2008 to just 5% in 2016, this seems a bit of a reach. And why are there so few split ticket votes? Professor Shea suggested that the position of Democrats and Republicans has grown far apart over the past several years, with the key factor being the theory of “affect partisanship” in which each party sees the other side as “the enemy.” Twenty years ago, less than 20% of people looked unfavorably upon the opposing party. That number has now climbed to 60% and seems to be rising with each Trump rally or accusation by the media against either candidate. While Paul LePage, a divisive figure in Maine, was seen as “extremely unfavorable” by about 33% of the state’s electorate, President Trump’s rating is at 46%, with 55% of women seeing him in the harshest of lights. Thus, the split vote hope for Senator Collins seems a necessity.
For years, the polling numbers have been used to give us a feel of how voters feel about candidates, issues, or the entire voting process. With 78% of Mainers feeling negatively about the vast vaults of out-of-state monies pouring into Maine’s senatorial race, the 2020 election, from Augusta to Washington to far flung hamlets throughout this nation, has taken on an eerie feeling, making it a novel and fascinating look at how the power structure of the country is more than just about two well-meaning candidates squaring off. This election, and the polls leading up to the November 3rd vote, have done little to quell the nerves of Democrats. The GOP remembers well the polls leading up to the 2016 election, leading us all to sit and wait with bated breath, regardless of party affiliation. COVID, civil unrest, and now the harshest political battle of my lifetime, 2020 will certainly be a year to remember.
For those of you who enjoy statistics and the semi-scientific results of polling, please take a look at some of the polling information used by Professor Shea in his presentation. These can be foundhere.
Club Contributes to COVID Relief in DR
Roger Fagan shares news from Moises Sifren at El Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan) Hospital in La Romana, Dominican Republic, reporting on the impact of the Club’s donation. The 3H team contributed all of its $5,000 budget and the Yarmouth Rotary Club contributed another $1,000.
The hospital used the funds to purchase quantities of face masks, hand sanitizer, and other hygiene products, as well as funding medical personnel for visits to four different bateyes for preventive visits related to COVID-19.
Moises Sifren said that the medical clinic’s staff visited very poor communities where most of the people living there are Haitian, training them in measures to prevent coronavirus infection. These visits also included distribution of medications. He said the contribution was used to treat 190 patients through the hospital’s staff.
Moment of Reflection
Shifting the World's Balance
Members of the Club planted 1,000 purple crocus bulbs in Rotary Grove last Saturday in recognition of World Polio Day. The bulbs were sold by the Portland Sunrise Club as a fundraiser to commemorate Rotary’s work to eradicate polio. Often, we think we need to engage in large efforts to change the world. Moments like this demonstrate that Rotarians working together on small stages, connected together across the globe, provide a power of focus that shifts the balance in the world.
Speaker Schedule
October 30 | Steve Bromage, Maine Historical Society
November 6 | Veterans Day Event
November 13 | Vin Veroneau, President, J.B. Brown Company
November 20 | Heather T. Pacquette, VP Retail Services, Hannaford
November 27 | NO MEETING
December 4 | TBD
December 11 | Rich Cantz, President, Goodwill
December 18 | Greg Mitchell, Economic Development Director, City of Portland
