Annual Chamber Awards

This award recognizes an organization or business that demonstrates a strong commitment to community involvement and service. The winner of this award is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that provides firewood as a heating source for families struggling to stay warm in their home. 

There is no charge, and families can pick up a 1/2 cord of seasoned firewood per month. This year volunteers worked almost 4,000 hours to process and distribute firewood to 200+ families on the Blue Peninsula. They take monetary donations, hardwood donations, and are always looking for an extra hand to share in the work.

For these reasons, the DownEast Wood Bank, won overall favor in this category.

This award honors a recently established business making a strong early impact. The winner of this award has its work cut out for them as a new kid on the block, but has demonstrated in fast order that it is up for the challenge. I know what I am talking about when I say that being in the media landscape these days is tough work, so to see a new news source start out with so much love and support makes me really proud. 

Committing to coverage of an area from the fishing village of Stonington to the former mill in Bucksport is a lot, but this group has tackled tough stories and has added dimension to the conversations happening in the community.

Join me in congratulating The Rising Tide as this year’s Best New Business.

This award celebrates a business or organization that enhances the cultural life of the peninsula. According to one person who nominated the winner of this category — “They’ve got it all; arts, heritage, creativity for children, especially, and community-building activities abound.”

This organization is truly a place where the community comes together. The activities you can find on a given day ranges from chess club to an opera screening. There are also writing groups, interesting talks and did I mention that everything is free, so it is accessible to anyone in the community? All this culture – for free!

For these reasons, the Blue Hill Public Library came out on top in this category.

This award recognizes exceptional service and dedication to customers. This can be a business or an individual employee. This organization turns clothing into food. Figuratively, of course, but it has created a means to feed people through the donations it receives. And it does it in a way that has gotten it recognized by the community. 

This organization also runs on volunteer power and its tireless volunteers have the community in mind as they operate the thrift shop that supports its sister organization, the Tree of Life Food pantry. 

The winner of this award is the TurnStyle Thrift Shop.