“Such a Blessing.” How One Maine Man’s Idea Will Keep His Neighbors Warm

Carrie Jones

Nov 01, 2025

BAR HARBOR—Shawn lives in Southwest Harbor in a home he’s rented out to people before when they needed a place to stay, a home he lives in now and is trying to save.

A malfunctioning sump pump meant his basement flooded. Some of that water impacted his furnace. He’s trying to get someone to give an estimate of what’s wrong and what it would cost to fix it.

And winter is approaching, Maine winter.

Enter the brand-new MDI Community Woodbank, Andrew Flanagan, and his volunteers.

“The wood bank is for people struggling to stay warm in their home through winter. With rising bills like oil, electric, taxes, food, and medicine. Lots of folks are in need of fuel. Firewood is one way that I can help,” Flanagan says.

Flanagan lives in Bar Harbor and owns Maine Wood Guy. He’s been a lumberjack with Timber Tina over in Trenton. He’s a volunteer firefighter in the town of Mount Desert. He’s a dad, husband, friend, but mostly he’s a guy who sees things and does things about the things he sees, stepping up.

“I started the MDI Community Woodbank after thinking about it for years. And when I saw the Downeast Wood Bank, I knew that I needed to start one on MDI,” he said of the wood bank that covers towns off the island. “They do a great job and I’m hoping that by next winter that we will be fully up and ready to help folks. Right now, we don’t have the wood or the funds to help.”

The need is great and as the wood bank begins, those involved hope that they will be able to meet the demand.

As Shawn and Linda and Dan Lunt load wood into Shawn’s white SUV, he keeps shaking his head, explaining his circumstances, and talking as Lunt, who works part-time as a social worker for the YWCA Mount Desert Island assesses his needs while they converse. She offers more help in other ways, picking up possibilities and clues like a detective, but the kind of detective that isn’t solving a crime, but finding out all the ways that she can help.

“The reason Andrew asked me to be on the board, and involved with it, is primarily so that people can have referrals to other social services that they may need, and that I do this through the YWCA in Bar Harbor,” Lunt says.

There’s a lot of need out there. There’s a lot of people who can use the help of experts like Linda Lunt.

And no, there is the wood bank, which is located at Hamilton Station. This is also where the YWCA MDI is creating 18 studio apartments for renters who work on MDI and whose income doesn’t exceed 80% AMI.

Shawn came once before this week, the first week that the bank has been open. He says he feels a bit guilty about that.

“No, no!” Linda and Dan say almost simultaneously. “You can’t. This is what it’s here for.”

“You are going to save so many people,” Shawn says, ducking his head down a bit as Dan passes him another log to load into his vehicle.

“We don’t want you to freeze to death,” Linda said.

They don’t want anyone to.

The first time Shawn was here at Hamilton Station, he met Flanagan, the founder.

“Isn’t Andrew nice?” Linda asked.

“Yes. He is a blessing. Such a blessing,” Shawn said.

Linda mentions Jeff Logee who dumped a truck load of wood at the site earlier, the other board members—Barbara Baron Gifford, Chad Kessel, Natalie Hinckley. She hopes to maybe convince some teens to do service hours helping with the heavy labor of splitting and stacking wood.

Currently, the logs are in various stages of being stacked and split. All of this—the wood, the work, the giving—seems a natural extension of Flanagan’s work and personality. Flanagan is a volunteer firefighter, a man known for fixing roofs, jumping (or climbing anything: tree, ladder, mountain) to help others when they need.

“Such a blessing,” Shawn repeats one more time when talking about Flanagan. Then he hoists another log into his car.

That’s the point of the Mount Desert Island wood bank, the only one on the island. Neighbors who have wood bring it. Businesses who have extra wood bring it. Neighbors who need it and have a wood-burning stove can take the wood for free to stay warm.

That might be harder because the current government shutdown has delayed funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

The program gives financial assistance to homes across the country for heating (and cooling) needs. Millions of citizens depend on those funds to heat their homes. The emergency funds are usually released to MaineHousing, November 1. The worry is that local offices that distribute the funds will not be able to help people pay bills in a timely manner.

At the same time, electric rates (a heating source for some Mainers) and natural gas costs are expected to rise.

According to an article in TIME by Simmone Shah, “The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) estimates that the price of electricity and natural gas will increase at twice the rate of inflation this winter, with prices for home heating this winter estimated to increase by about 7.6% from last year on average. This is on top of 2025 already being a record year for utility rate increases, along with the explosion of new data centers which are also making residential energy bills soar.”

“Early morning and late night is when you get cold,” Shawn says as he takes more wood from Dan.

Linda shakes her head knowingly.

For some households with lower incomes, heating costs can eat up one-third of their annual incomes. Half of Maine homes use wood for heat or to supplement their other forms of heat.

The closest wood bank is the Downeast Wood Bank, which serves families in the towns of Blue Hill, Brooklin, Ellsworth, Lamoine, Sedgwick, Surry, and Trenton.

“I’ll be warm tonight,” Shawn says before he leaves, window rolled down as the chill late October air whirls the leaves around the ground at Hamilton Station.

“Thank you so much,” he says. “This has helped me a lot.”

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HOW YOU CAN HELP

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Woodbanks.org

MDI Woodbank Facebook page

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All photos, Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story unless otherwise specified.

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HOW TO HELP OR GET HELP OR LEARN MORE:

To contact the MDI Community Wood Bank to donate or if you need wood and would like to coordinate a pickup time, email them at mdicommunitywoodbank@gmail.com.

Hardwood donations can be delivered anytime at Hamilton Station, #831 State Rt. 3. in person.

Cash, check or Venmo is also being accepted.

Machias Savings Bank can take donations anonymously, so just head on in and tell them what you’d like to donate to.

More information is also available at the Facebook page, which is here.