Joy can seem to be in short supply these days. So I want to tell you the following story:

My family had a joyful experience this past weekend when we went to see the Hearts of Pine, Maine’s new professional soccer team. The game itself ended in a joyless tie, but that couldn’t defeat the excitement of the crowd. People were just happy to be there: cheering, laughing, enjoying being together, in community. When the home team scored the first goal: the outburst was ecstatic. It was wonderful. It felt so needed.

And all over the stadium, there was a clear and direct message: Lead with your heart. I know that this is a professional sports team that has a whipsmart team of brand consultants. But they got this one right, because this is absolutely what we need right now: In the face of so much chaos and cruelty, the best antidote is love and community. 

Cruelty and chaos are corrosive. They only destroy. They cannot build or sustain. Love and care and compassion are what will sustain us. We get to see this everyday in our work here at Maine Initiatives. We see our community stepping in and stepping up to center love and care and community. What does this actually look like? 

It looks like people organizing in solidarity to support those most in need in our community. This is how we move: since the presidential elections last November, we have raised and mobilized more than $1 million in grants to support community-based organizations on the frontlines of community organizing, racial justice, outdoor equity, and immigrant flourishing. I want you to know about and be inspired by that story. 

But today, in the spirit of solidarity, I want to highlight and share three critically-important rapid response efforts that are mobilizing resources right now to support communities that are being directly targeted in the current social and political climate: 

• Maine Coalition for People’s Safety and Justice’s Solidarity Fund: Supporting Black and Brown Immigrant and Trans community members who are experiencing unprecedented threats to their safety, dignity, and basic rights. 
  
• Maine Philanthropy Center Readiness and Response Fund: Helping community-based organizations prepare for and respond to loss of federal funding, cuts to social programs, and targeted harassment of marginalized communities. 
  
• Maine Initiatives Immigrant-Led Organizations Rapid Response Fund: Providing rapid response funding to support immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations here in Maine. 

Each of these efforts is raising and pooling resources to bolster and support individuals and communities that are under direct threat and attack in the current social and political climate. Each one of these efforts is an invitation, an opportunity for you to stand up for love and community and care. You can support any one of them. But I invite you to have a vision of abundance and consider supporting all three. 

Every donation helps. Every gift is an act of love. Why not love more? 

This is how we can and will overcome this current moment of chaos: by choosing love over cruelty. In big and small ways. One day at a time. Where we live. In solidarity with our neighbors. 

This is the story of abundance and community care that you can help us write. It is Mainers taking action. It is all of us leading with our hearts. 

With love,

Phil

Photo credit: Somali Bantu Community Association, 2024 ILO Grantee