2020 was an incredibly dynamic year for The Maine Children’s Home, as in every community and in every home. Although it was filled with many new challenges, it was also an inspiring year as so many individuals, groups and partners stepped forward to help us continue doing great work.

Here are some key points we wanted to highlight:

• We implemented the $250,000 grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation to strengthen and grow our mission and impact.
• We honored the work at The Children’s Place for twenty years on the Dorothy ‘Bibby’ Alfond campus. Regretfully, we were challenged to close our model program in February. We are deeply thankful to the many teams that helped to raise, care for and support hundreds of infants, toddlers and preschoolers to grow and learn. With the change, we were able to welcome Bright Beginnings Learning Center to our campus to pick up the torch and to continue to see quality childcare offered.
• We created a new partnership with The Children’s Center of Augusta to lease space for OT, PT, speech and behavioral support for youth from this community in the Parks Building.
• We were able to respond very quickly in March to keep programs and services running during COVID-19, keeping clients, staff and the community safer. The MCH staff have gone above and beyond to develop new remote supports and to find new ways to do their work.
• We rapidly developed and implemented telehealth services for the Turner Family Counseling Program. This was a long-term goal, but it became a reality in under a month last spring.
• We grew The Connected Community at MCH for trainings, the blog, social media posts and outreach and support in new and dynamic ways. We are very pleased with a new partnership with Maine General Health to help support our TBRI trainings over this next year.
• We were a recipient of a Small Business Administration Payroll Protection Plan Loan, which was a loan that was later forgiven.
• We received a significant bequest from the estate of Irene Robinson to further support and endow our work.
• We continued a partnership with Waterville schools to house the alternative school on our campus, and worked tirelessly to continue to educate students in this time of COVID.
• We expanded partnerships with both the Skowhegan-area schools and the Alfond Youth and Community Center to share counseling and clinical support externally.
• We created a successful learning pod for the teen parents to meet their needs on a daily basis so students could learn and make high honors from October through the end of the year.
• We successfully engaged in a marketing study with Marketing That Matters to grow our reach and our impact.
• We developed a revitalized MCH Strategic Plan for 2021 – 2023.
• We saw a very successful Red Stocking Annual Fund campaign for 2020.
• We celebrated an outstanding Christmas Program that served nearly 1,600 children this winter – all without about 10% of the usual size of the volunteer team.

We are successfully moving forward as an organization and teams of supporters to fulfill our mission and make life better for Maine children and their families.

Thank you for being a follower and supporter of the mission and the work of The Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers throughout 2020. We have tremendous pride in the MCH Staff, Board and Volunteers that guided and sustained us all through 2020. This is an exciting message to share some of the great accomplishments over the past year. Our success is your success.

Please reach out if we can be of help to you or your family as we all continue to move through this difficult pandemic time.

With sincere gratitude,

Rick Dorian

Executive Director

The Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers