We officially changed our name to “Women for Healthy Rural Living” in March!
We relocated to a beautiful, historical building in downtown Milbridge. We’re now at 87 Main St., right across from the Milbridge Commons.
Talking about the Milbridge Commons… what a year!
The gardens and park THRIVED!
Janis Lesbines, lead gardener at the Milbridge Commons, designed and planted the Ed Flanagan Pollinator Gardens. These beautiful flowers attracted pollinators… and humans, too!
The Bonebuilders Group took a weekly walk around the Commons track.
Downeast Roots hosted a series of small workshops at the Commons for their Downeast Roots Festival Series. Here you see Regina from Healthy Acadia teaching a family how to press apples and make cider!
We hosted the first ever annual scarecrow competition at the Milbridge Commons. There were eight scarecrows and all were incredibly creative and fun!
We had many AWESOME volunteers help us spread compost, deadhead flowers, water and more. A special thanks to the Pleasant River Garden Club who spent many hours helping Janis in the gardens!
Many helped us clean up the garden beds at the new WHRL as well!
Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com
The other gardens around town thrived as well! Farmers Michael and Myriam from Folkore Farm took care of the pick-your-own garden next to the Red Barn Motel.
Incredible Edible was even featured in Downeast Magazine.
It wasn’t just a successful year for Incredible Edible. We have been busy fixing up our new home! We moved into 87 Main St., renovated and repainted it, and started renting out the studio apartment and office spaces this fall. We still have two offices available!
Our board continued to work towards the benefit of our local community. At the beginning of the school year, we put together more than 20 health and wellness gift bags for teachers and staff at the Milbridge Elementary School.
We partnered with Maine Outdoor School, L3C to lead OWL: Outdoor Women Lead. Our blog posts and videos reached more than 6000 people via social media and our respective websites. Topics ranged from plant and bug identification to how to feel clean in the woods! We received funding from the Davis Conservation Foundation, Healthy Acadia, and the Maine Community Foundation to conduct in-person OWL programming in 2021. More information coming soon!
Shortly before the ground froze, we had the sculpture “Transitory” moved from the Milbridge Medical Center to the Milbridge Commons. This sculpture by Dominika Griesgraber from Poland is part of the Maine Sculpture Trail.
Through it all, we continued to meet and work towards our mission: to promote and advance the health and wellness of the woman, her family, and her community.
This year has been challenging for us and for many of those in our community; however, we can’t help but be proud of the amazing work our board, our employees, our volunteers, and our community does on a regular basis to strengthen and better this place we call home.
Thank you for a wonderful year, through the thick and the thin.
Please consider an end-of-year donation to Women for Healthy Rural Living. Thank you.