Common Cents 2025 Nominees

🌱 Anchor ME Farm’s mission is to provide a safe place for people dealing with PTSD, depression, or other issues by interacting with the animals and doing de-stressing activities.

🌱 Belfast Area Childcare Services has two childcare centers in the Belfast/Waldo area that have been providing childcare for children for fifty years.  They take pride in providing quality care and healthy nutritious meals to children every day. They teach children about healthy foods and sustainable gardening. They spend a lot of time teaching children about our environment so that they can grow up to be good stewards of our planet.

🌱 Belfast Area High School Athletics is launching a capital campaign to raise money for building a new track and game fields. This is a huge project that will benefit the community at large allowing for community members to utilize the fields and track surface. The project will continue to enhance the athletic programming for our youth for years to come and will benefit several of the high school teams, as well as provide opportunities for local organizations to utilize the new facilities. In addition, the new turf field will be ecologically sound, filled with a wood-based filler, and requiring much less maintenance across its lifetime than traditional fields.

🌱 Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition works to support conservation and stewardship of natural, scenic, and public access resources of the Belfast Bay watershed through research, community building, and education.

🌱 Belfast Farmers’ Market Maine Harvest Buck’s mission is to increase our community’s access to healthy, fresh and local food. Our volunteer-run info booth allows SNAP shoppers to double their EBT dollars through bonus Maine Harvest Bucks. When shoppers use their SNAP funds at the market, they currently receive a 1:1 match of Maine Harvest Bucks to spend on vegetables, fruits, or food-producing seeds/seedlings with farmers’ market vendors. The MHB program directly contributes to a thriving, just, and sustainable food economy. Maine Harvest Bucks expands opportunities for Waldo County residents with limited access to fresh food (1 of 7 area households using SNAP, as of Jan 2023) to engage with local farmers and food producers. As a result, our local farmers and food producers see more customers and greater revenue, furthering the impact of funds spent within the local community. Support from Belfast Community Co-op Owners via the Common Cents program will aid the Belfast Farmers’ Market’s continued funding and administration of Maine Harvest Bucks. Every $1 donated yields $3 in sales and fresh food access for low-income shoppers using SNAP/EBT at the Belfast Farmers’ Market.

🌱 Belfast Flying Shoes (BFS) programs are broad in scope. Our mission is to build community and cultivate well-being for people of all backgrounds and identities in Midcoast Maine, through the joy of traditional music and dance. We bring participatory music and movement to people in PreK-12 schools, older adult residences, and the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center. Our programs for the general public include a monthly dance series, special workshops, and more (belfastflyingshoes.org). Like the Co-op, BFS is an efficiently managed, inclusive enterprise (albeit a nonprofit one) with a board and staff that govern by consensus. Our vision is a thriving, interconnected, and sustainable community, where people can regularly engage in healthy activities like our programs. BFS promotes a safe, inclusive, and equitable culture; we do this in discrete ways such as our use of non-gendered role terms at contra dances, and more generally via our Community Care Policy.

🌱 Belfast Historical Society and Museum is dedicated to the collection, conservation, preservation and interpretation of artifacts relevant to Belfast history. Visitors to the Museum will enjoy vintage photographs, maps, postcard collections and interpretive displays. An extensive archive and library are available for research.

🌱 Belfast Poetry Festival has celebrated the literary arts in midcoast Maine for the past 19 years. The work of poetry and other writing provides much needed food for the soul of any community, providing inspiration, connection, and creative sustenance. Through the literary arts, we learn about and from others’ experiences, deepening our experience of empathy, respect, cultural sensitivity, and diversity in all its forms. The Belfast Poetry Festival offers experiences for all audiences and backgrounds, creating invitations for broad engagement. Much like the Co-Op itself, the festival aims to be a nexus of opportunity and learning, and through its programming encourages creative investigation, cross-generational experiences, and community building.

🌱 Belfast Senior College enriches the 50+ adults in the community with lifelong learning experiences.

🌱 Bowsprit Foundation mission is to Create opportunities for young adults to gain practical skills experience through agriculture, forestry, food preparation, and traditional crafts. Guided by Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogy, and social therapy, our programs aim to assist young adults in developing skills for independence, a capacity to contribute to the community, and a sense of self-worth and hopefulness for their future. 

🌱 Colonial Theatre is now owned and operated as a not-for-profit. They seek to entertain, educate, and cultivate community connections through a diverse selection of films and live performances. Ticket prices are very affordable and they regularly offer free matinees so that all people can have the experience of attending shows. They also host many independent films and community conversations to help deepen relationships and expand our horizons. In 2025, they are looking to expand offerings to families through summer camps and “Science on Screen” offerings. 

🌱 Come Boating’s mission statement is to create educational boating related programs that preserve & broaden the maritime heritage shared by the Belfast area community & strengthen our connection to the sea. We offer rowing to all age groups to any & all experience levels from beginner to experienced racer. Rowing is an excellent form of exercise & encourages a healthy lifestyle.

🌱 Coyote Center for Carnivore Ecology and Coexistence’s mission is to enhance awareness of the value of carnivore presence on our planet by providing a wide range of creative, educational, and research experiences for the people of New England.

🌱 Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Waldo County provides books mailed monthly to children from birth to age 5 at no cost. The establishment of home libraries for preschool children enhances literacy for all in the community and promotes early education and democratic engagement.

🌱 Ecology Learning Center is a public charter HS with the mission to deeply root students in Maine’s ecological & cultural landscapes, foster authentic real-world learning through mentorship & craft, and cultivate compassionate and resilient leaders prepared to engage in the challenges of today & tomorrow. Their vision is to inspire high school students from Waldo County and beyond to roll up their sleeves and engage in their local communities through service learning and apprenticeships. Guided by the unifying theme of “ecology” (the study of the relations between organisms and their environment), students enact and embody ecological principles by making meaningful connections between school and community.

🌱 Family Promise of Mid Coast Maine serves families who are experiencing housing insecurities which frequently impacts their ability to access the local food economy as well as impacting their physical health. By assisting them, we hope to empower them to move toward a more sustainable and predictable living situation.

🌱 Friends of Katahdin Woods and Waters – Wabanaki Benefit Foundation The Wabanaki Benefit Foundation is a brand new initiative created through the tekαkαpimək Visitor Contact Station in the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. Their mission of “honoring our ancestors’ dream of the health and prosperity of our people, through fostering our collective traditions of respectful relationships and giving.”, will help Wabanaki communities bridge the economic gap that currently stands today. Through the goal of developing economic self-sufficiency the Wabanaki communities will be able to sustain themselves into the future. I believe the Wabanaki Benefit Foundation aligns with “A greater understanding of health, food systems, cooperatives, and economic & environmental sustainability.”

🌱 Friends of the Belfast Free Library raising awareness of the local library and supporting the library financially to increase literacy will increase the ability of the community to understand health and the benefits that food has on their lives leading to a decrease in unnecessary medical expenses.

🌱 Friends of the Harriet L Hartley Conservation Area was formed to protect a sensitive area of pristine land on the South side of Belfast from industrial development. There is a high likelihood of serious environmental impacts to the watershed, Belfast Bay, nearby air quality, and all the creatures that call it home. The intertidal Conservation Area and the adjoining 56 acres of field and mature forest are home to a huge diversity of flora and fauna, including shore birds, beaver, snowy owls, bobolinks, bats, and much more. The Little River Trail traverses the property and is a popular and unspoiled recreational area for all ages. The property represents the last remaining undeveloped corridor of land that extends from the shore of Belfast Bay into the City of Belfast. FHLHCA represents the hopes of hundreds of community people who are passionately resisting the unjust corporate development of a beloved community treasure.

🌱 GreenStreets! plants, cares, protects, and advocates for public urban trees in Belfast. They have planted more than 1,000 streets, schoolyards, parks, and government buildings with trees. We protect the water as well as slowing storm water runoff and offsetting climate change including increased heat events. Healthy towns have trees lining the streets sheltering people and fostering a healthy economy. GreenStreets! has zero paid staff and is all volunteer run.

🌱 Lincolnville Central School Garden is reviving our school garden and investing in environmental and outdoor education to promote a sense of health, food systems, cooperative learning, and working and pursuing environmental sustainability. Hopefully, the community will come away with a greater understanding of the benefits of investing in a garden, nature, and awareness for our youth.

🌱 Maine FFA Association is a student led organization that exposes students to experiences in the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources fields. Maine FFA is an inclusive and democratically governed organization at both a national, state, and local level. Maine FFA has over 300 members, with chapters located throughout the state in middle and high schools (including CTE). Students directly contribute to Maine’s agricultural community and food systems through volunteerism, school based work, and supervised agricultural experiences. The Maine FFA is led by a team of student officers who play key roles in leading workshops, communicating with stakeholders, planning state convention and more. The organization has a constitution and changes are voted on by student delegates from each chapter using Parliamentary procedure.      

🌱 Maine Performing Arts Company provides scholarship opportunities for young performers pursuing Music, Dance, and Theatre education through Maine performing arts schools and instructors throughout the state of Maine. MPAC also produces theatrical performances for Maine owned, youth-centered theater companies that need funding support in order to put their students on stage.

🌱 Marine Mammals of Maine (MMoME) non-profit that responds to stranded marine mammals and sea turtles, provides triage and rehabilitative care to pinnipeds, and conducts research and education to promote marine conservation. MMoME operates the State’s only rehabilitation facility for seals, with the ultimate goal of returning healthy animals to the wild to thrive. Marine mammals are sentinel species and essential to healthy ocean ecosystems upon which we all rely and since about 60% of the animals in MMoME’s care have had some form of human interaction contributing to their stranding, a greater understanding of how to share the shore with these species is an essential component of environmental sustainability.

🌱 Nibezun celebrates culture as medicine, provides an inclusive space for healing, and promotes sustainability for all people and future generations. Present and future generations nurture the sacred unbroken relationship with Mother Earth and each other, living in balance on the ancestral lands and waterways of the Wabanaki.

🌱 No Greater Love Food Pantry strives to offer well balanced, fresh and healthy choices to all our patrons in need. They work closely with Good Shepherd Food Bank and are Food Safety certified through them. They operate solely on donations both product and monetarily. They work closely with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who houses us in their downstairs hall as well as the Waldo County Pet Food Pantry. 

🌱 Out in the Open connects rural LGBTQ+ people to build community, visibility, knowledge and power. They are a multiracial, majority working class, grassroots, movement and capacity building organization based in Wabanaki territory throughout the states of Vermont and Maine. They envision a resilient community of communities that works toward the transformation of our economic, social, and political relationships.

🌱 Pay It Forward Kids, Inc serves Many Kids and Families in Maine by paying for school lunches and donating holiday gifts.

🌱 Peace Ridge Sanctuary’s mission is to provide permanent sanctuary to once abused and neglected animals, with a particular focus on farmed animals. They promote compassionate lifestyle choices through humane education and steward 1,725 acres of farm and forest land for conservation and wildlife protection.

🌱 Pope Memorial Humane Society‘s mission is to ensure the compassionate care, treatment and placement of companion animals in transition and enrich the lives of pets and people in our community.

🌱 Queerly ME is a nonprofit dedicated to creating and increasing LGBTQIA+ visibility, resource accessibility, and Queer centered outdoor programming encouraging long lasting community connections in Maine. They aim to create better understanding around the outdoors and environmental sustainability through our educational programming. Their programming centers LGBTQIA+ community members and specialists, creating safe and comfortable learning spaces outdoors that otherwise traditionally center cisgender, heterosexual white men. Through educational programming in Midcoast and Central Maine, they are dedicated to dismantling the marginalization that the LGBTQIA+ community faces in the outdoors by creating spaces where Queer people feel supported and empowered to engage in nature as their authentic selves.

🌱 Ready By 21 Mentoring/The Garden Project is an edible landscape and deer fenced garden located on restored town land just before the entrance to the Stonington Transfer Station, making it accessible to all. Group directed ,peer to peer leadership focused on the health and wellness of local youth, involving multi generational programming that extends to the entire community.

🌱 Restorative Justice Project Maine‘s mission is to offer a community response to harm and wrongdoing using an alternative path from the current justice system so the person harmed and the person who caused harm can thrive in a safe and respectful place while holding the person who caused harm accountable for their actions and centering the voices of those harmed.

🌱 Rockweed Center is an all-volunteer, donation-supported community center offering drop-in hours and meeting/event space for groups and individuals working towards a more inclusive, healthy, and woven-together future.

🌱 Safe Harbor Sanctuary is a non-profit animal sanctuary located in Brooks, ME.

🌱 Sebasticook Regional Land Trust (SRLT) is a membership-supported conservation association working to conserve and restore the lands and waters of the Sebasticook River Watershed in Central Maine.  We focus on land conservation, habitat restoration, and environmental education.

🌱 The Belfast Maskers provides hands-on opportunities for people of all ages and abilities. Through the performing arts, we continue our long-standing commitment to the enrichment, entertainment, and education of our community.

🌱 The Farwell Project is a multi-faceted project that serves as a community hub for learning, teaching, connecting with neighbors, and preserving the unique rural character of Waldo County. Through its many programs and relationships, it reaches teens, artists, musicians, historians, train enthusiasts, and many more. The Farwell Project is entirely run by volunteers.

🌱 The Game Loft promotes Positive Youth Development through non-electronic games and community involvement. Game Loft’s out-of-school programs are FREE to all Waldo County youth ages 6-18.

🌱 The Healing Garden’s mission is to support our community and the State of Maine in “getting upstream” of the vast and complex mental, emotional, and physical illness we are all witnessing. We share naturally easy tools for stress reduction and emotional self-regulation and guide people to engage the healer within. We are a non-profit educational community-based organization dedicated to empowering individuals and our community to expand unity consciousness, self-awareness and heal through science-based holistic energy medicine, meditation, natural healing, and conscious communication. The Healing Garden is dedicated to community-centered, conscious healing modalities in a beautiful natural environment. We are an economic incubator, as we provide a connection hub between healers & holistic practitioners and those in need of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. We lead and teach people to use their bodies as instruments of consciousness to expand their awareness, self-regulate, and heal their lives. For those in a state of wellness, we provide opportunities to learn to access and share life-giving energy with others, so that as a collective, we thrive in vitality, oneness, and wholeness.

🌱 The Maine Monitor/Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting delivers high-quality independent and nonpartisan investigative and explanatory journalism to inform Mainers about issues impacting our state and how communities are applying solutions to meet these challenges. Their mission is to inform and inspire people in Maine to connect and engage in Maine’s democracy and our future. 

🌱 Torchlight is a community multimedia studio prioritizing accessibility to production tools and skills, building long term sustainability for local public broadcast media outlets, creating new education and youth mentorship opportunities, and improving community health through storytelling and social connection. Torchlight seeks to use media arts as a tool for empowering local voices through storytelling (cultural preservation, oral histories, and countering narratives typically applied to rural or lower income populations), economic resilience (youth workforce development, higher wage job creation in rural areas, training organizations to help tell their stories), and social advocacy (foster civic engagement, encouraging youth to participate in social change efforts within our communities).

🌱 United Midcoast Charities Identifying needs. Supporting solutions. They strengthen community-focused organizations in Midcoast Maine. Providing financial support, strategic guidance, and tangible resources. They are a central binding force for greater strength, covering the areas of food, housing, health & safety, and economic security.

🌱 Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Belfast Post 3108 VFW members are veterans that have served overseas in combat zones to protect the very freedoms that Americans enjoy on a daily basis. Furthermore, the post is active year-round supporting community events that help sustain the sense of community and belonging to the Belfast region. Finally, the VFW members aid other veterans and active military who are in distress and need assistance.

🌱 Wabanaki Reach supports the self-determination of Wabanaki people through education, truth-telling, restorative justice, and restorative practices in Wabanaki and Maine communities. They design structures and processes to be responsive to Wabanaki communities and beneficial to Wabanaki people. They envision a future when Maine and Wabanaki people join together to acknowledge truth and work collectively toward equity, healing, and positive change. Aspiring to restore right relations, responsibility, compassion, love, reciprocity, abundance, and joy. They believe in the natural strength and beauty of Wabanaki culture, language, and ways of being. They believe in the power of Wabanaki people learning the truth about history and reclaiming traditional healing practices. They honor and promote Wabanaki values of taking care of one another, of being grateful, joyful, loving, and forgiving.

🌱 Waldo County Bounty’s mission is to work to ensure that everyone has access to fresh, nutritious food by collaborating with local farmers, organizations, and community members toward an equitable food system. 

🌱 Waldo County Climate Action Coalition (WCCAC) is a coalition of organizations whose mission is to “collaborate to reduce impacts of climate change and build sustainable communities in Waldo County.” ​Focused on amplifying the respective organizational efforts by working together on renewable energy transition, weatherization, land restoration and conservation, food insecurity, transportation, public health, and other impacts of climate change.

🌱 Waldo County Peace and Justice strives to support justice and peace both locally and globally.

🌱 Waldo County Pet Food Pantry, Keeping pets at home and out of area shelters.

🌱 Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts started in 1986 on the clay-rich ancestral territory of the N’dakina, Watershed reclaimed an abandoned brick factory and transformed it into an incubator for creativity and community in contemporary craft. Dedicated to fostering a space where diverse backgrounds and lived experiences, skills, and perspectives create a culture of inclusion, we are proud of our decades-long history of genuine DEI work and how it impacts our rural midcoast Maine community. Among many initiatives, we introduced groundbreaking arts workshops for people living with HIV/AIDS in the ‘90s, established the Zenobia Fund in 2017 to provide full scholarships to artists of color, and continue to proactively include and welcome international, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented artists to Maine, often with financial assistance, to explore clay as a medium. Our core value of inclusivity, shared with the Belfast Co-op, results in an infusion of artists of color and other underrepresented groups into our community–as essential ingredient in adding diversity to midcoast Maine. In addition, we operate under values of sustainability and provide meals, largely sourced locally, for our artists-in-residence.

🌱 White Ash Learning Cooperative offers nature immersion programming for youth and adults. Food is a primary focus of each program, whether it be through foraging wild foods, processing food from local farms, or preparing snacks and meals together, children are in an ongoing daily relationship with food in numerous ways. There are endless opportunities to learn about what is nutritious (and delicious!) as well as creating relationships with the ecosystem we live in that provides so much food and local farmers. 100% of White Ash programming is available on a sliding scale basis with more than ⅔ of families utilizing the sliding scale. No one is turned away for lack of funds.

🌱 WindowDressers brings community volunteers of all economic and social situations together to improve the warmth and comfort of interior spaces, lower heating costs, and reduce carbon dioxide pollution by producing low-cost insulating window inserts that function as custom, interior-mounted storm windows. We strive to provide 30% of our inserts to people who otherwise would be unable to afford them.