What is Healthy Peninsula?
Healthy Peninsula is a nonprofit community health organization serving the towns of the Blue Hill Peninsula (Blue Hill, Brooklin, Brooksville, Castine, Penobscot, Sedgwick, Surry) and Deer Isle (Deer Isle and Stonington) located in coastal Hancock County. The total population of the region is approximately 13,000 year-round residents. The area has a complex mix of locals, tourists, and “people from away” who have settled permanently, including many people who have retired to the area and many families have lived and worked in the area for generations. The wide economic diversity, from affluence to extreme poverty, affects both young families and older residents. The extremely rural nature of the area exacerbates the many challenges facing those living in poverty, including food insecurity, healthcare, and employment instability.
While community resilience and self-sufficiency are sources of pride in these local communities, the realities of our geography and demographics present challenging barriers to community health, including affordable housing, labor and child care shortages, food insecurity, social isolation, and increasing confusion and frustration with healthcare and community-based resources. In addition, as many healthcare and social service providers have consolidated into larger, more urban service areas, people in this region face increasing challenges as they attempt to access the range of health and quality-of-life services that impact overall health. Community members report that it is increasingly difficult to find information about community services, events, and resources and even more difficult to meaningfully access them.
Healthy Peninsula addresses these complex community needs with diverse and innovative approaches.
Founded in 2001 as one of the Healthy Maine Partnerships, in 2012 we became an independent organization committed to listening and learning from and with community members to collaboratively improve community health. While previously the State dictated our focus areas, since 2012, we have developed initiative areas to respond directly to community-identified priorities using a hybrid collective impact approach of convening partners to develop system-level responses combined with providing direct service to fill resource gaps. Our three initiatives - Healthy Aging, Healthy Eating, and Healthy Families – are specific enough to maintain thoughtful, mission-based focus, but flexible enough to respond to changing community health needs.
We provide direct services in collaboration with volunteers and community partners to increase community members’ access to basic resources (food, healthcare), their access to health/social service/community-based services, and their capacity to adopt healthy habits to improve health and well-being. We convene community coordination bodies in each of our focus areas to encourage information-sharing, avoid siloed, duplicative programming, and contribute to the overall effectiveness of the health, social service, and community-based organizations in our region. In many of our initiatives, we collaborate with Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital to support their community health priorities in an effort to increase access to health care and create collaborative approaches to address social determinants of health.
Throughout our programming, we provide resource connection, orientation, and referral for individuals, family members, community partners, and others. As a trusted organization with a proven track record, providers and local community members reach out to us for guidance with challenging community health issues, barriers, and opportunities for partnership. Through outreach, collaboration, community connections, and the slow work of building trust, Healthy Peninsula has become a dependable, creative, and capable partner in creating an engaged, connected, and empowered community where all residents can live, learn, and age safely and in good health.
Healthy Peninsula Nondiscrimination Policy
Healthy Peninsula deeply values its community of Board members, staff, volunteers, and partnering organizations who participate in our programming. We are committed to creating an open, welcoming environment where each individual is celebrated and respected. We recognize the need for continual learning in order to maintain a supportive, equitable
workplace and are committed to ongoing growth and development.
Healthy Peninsula is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate in employment, recruitment, Board membership, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, or military status, or for any other discriminatory reason.
We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all staff, volunteers, partners, contractors, and Board members. We endeavor to create a diverse Board of Directors. We aim to build relationships with a wide spectrum of partner organizations as we work to promote health and well-being for all members of our 9-town community.
If you would like additional information, please contact our office at 207-374-3257 or info@healthypeninsula.org.