The Next 40 Years Begin Now for Friends of Acadia.
Jul 10, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop.
BAR HARBOR—Forty years after a handful of Mount Desert Island residents created Friends of Acadia to help a cash-strapped Acadia National Park, the conservation nonprofit marked its anniversary Thursday by celebrating decades of accomplishments while urging the community to rally behind a new generation of challenges that ranged from climate change and housing to rising visitation and uncertain federal funding.
That accomplishment of forty years, Friends of Acadia President and CEO Eric Stiles said, has come from the people of Mount Desert Island and their unwavering commitment to Acadia National Park.
That unwavering commitment must continue, representatives said.
“The park will need us all in the years ahead,” Stiles said.
For speakers including Stiles, Board Chair Bill Eacho, and Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider, the annual meeting was a look backward but also a call to action and embrace of the community—5,000 strong—that supports the nonprofit and its work for Acadia National Park.
That goal of being 5,000 strong was mentioned back in 1989 by then director Duane Pierson in an Bangor Daily News interview. At the time FOA, had just 500 members. He called the board “a hardworking group of concerned individuals” mostly worried about ANP funding.
Eacho spoke of that collective impact of Friends of Acadia, of Acadia National Park, of the community as being nothing short of transformational.
That collective impact helps trails and carriage roads to not just be maintained, but sometimes to continue to exist.
That impact comes from the hard work of volunteers shouldering bags of dirt to restore mountain summits.
It comes during the darkness as trail groomers heading out in the early morning hours making sure that people can cross country ski.
It comes with the donations to help restore the Carroll Homestead and now the Baker Island Lighthouse.
It comes from a ton of work mixed with joy mixed with thought.
The impact comes riding along on a free Island Explorer bus system that’s served 10.6 million others while getting a lot of cars off the roads on Mount Desert Island, Trenton, and Acadia National Park. The ridership in the Island Explorer’s first week of summer operation was up 15%.
The speakers pointed to projects ranging from the Acadia Gateway Center, Island Explorer transit system, and workforce housing to trail restoration and habitat conservation as examples of what partnerships can accomplish, while urging supporters to help ensure the park remains resilient for generations to come.
“How do we care for this? How do we leave this in better condition?” Stiles asked as he referenced the founders of the park as well as the volunteers who created Friends of Acadia.
Schneider suggested that FOA’s 40th anniversary was also a time to dream about what is possible here.
Acadia is a sanctuary, he explained. It is a park where people can find their place, their space, their story.
“The challenges facing Acadia today are different than our founders imagined,” Schneider said.
Those challenges require the same community and ideas and determination as those founders had, the same qualities that began FOA, the same qualities that have made Acadia National Park a place of story, growth, transformation, and awe.
“Our job is simply to leave it stronger than we found it,” Schneider said.
The Friends of Acadia annual meeting, at the Bar Harbor Club, on July 9, celebrated the organization’s and Acadia National Park’s successes in not just the past year, but the last forty years, and how the nonprofit looks to help the park in the next forty.
“It is our charge, as we pass on that baton, that we invest for the future, we build for the future, we manage for the future,” Stiles said.
Eacho spoke of how that Friends of Acadia community is now more than 5,000 strong and thanked them for being a part of “the extraordinary community.”
“Today is a celebration of that shared love and care for this park,” he said.
The change and projects come in large ways—such as the Acadia Gateway Center, the Harden Farm housing project, the Island Explorer partnership.
“Last fall, we celebrated the opening of the new Acadia Gateway Center, a major step forward in sustainable transportation more than two decades in the making. The beautiful new center will give visitors an easier way to explore the park car-free by improving access to the Island Explorer shuttle, helping to reduce pressure on busy roads and parking areas in Acadia and surrounding communities,” Stiles and Eacho say in a joint statement at the beginning of FOA’s 2025 impact report.
The work also comes in smaller ways, ways of individuals working together for good.
“Across the park, Friends of Acadia members and volunteers also helped advance important trail, habitat, and historic preservation projects. Hikers carried thousands of pounds of soil to fragile summit vegetation restoration sites. Volunteers and park staff restored historic carriage road vistas, reopening views that are part of Acadia’s remarkable cultural landscape,” the men wrote. “And generous supporters helped raise much-needed funds to help restore the Carroll Homestead, one of Mount Desert Island’s last remaining examples of 19th-century farm life and an important educational resource for local schools and thousands of park visitors.”
And it has come when times were tough for the park.
“We are deeply grateful to the Friends of Acadia community — members, local businesses, and community partners — who stepped up during last fall’s government shutdown to help support Acadia National Park. At a time when most park staff were furloughed, visitor services were disrupted, and entrance fees could not be collected, this outpouring of support helped sustain the park during one of its busiest seasons and demonstrated the strength of the community that cares so deeply for Acadia,” Stiles and Eacho wrote.
BOLD IDEAS
The work of Friends of Acadia and of the park often starts with a bold idea, Stiles said.
That’s how it worked for the Acadia Gateway Center. It’s how it started with the Island Explorer which began in 1999.
“For three decades, Downeast Transportation has been getting cars off the road,” Stiles said.
It began with an idea and people working toward the realization of that idea.
Similarly, a bold idea is how it worked for Friends of Acadia itself. People wanted to take care of the park when the federal money for maintenance and stewardship wasn’t coming.
And a bold idea is also how Acadia National Park began.
Acadia National Park’s story is interwoven with the communities that it lies within, and also the Wabanaki. Together, they create the story of the people, of the land, of the traditions, and of the communities and individuals who step, stroll, swim, dance, and sing in its boundaries.
“National parks are America’s best idea. Full stop,” Stiles said.
This community, he said, is more committed to its national park than any other.
“Acadia National Park is the North Star,” he said.
The building of the park, Stiles said, took commitment.
“Forty years ago that same sense of commitment, that same community that birthed this national park came together,” Stiles said of Friends of Acadia’s origins. “We birthed this, but it takes a village.”
That commitment to the park, and of the 5,000-strong that make up FOA, has never wavered.
When Stiles came to Acadia back in 1993, carriage roads had blow-outs. Debris cluttered culverts. Trails and carriage roads were narrow, overgrown.
“In the 1980s, you’d be lucky to get one mountain bike through that space,” Stiles said.
In 1985 there was no federal money to work on any trails in the park that year.
“That did not deter the people of Downeast Maine,” Stiles said.
That time of need birthed Friends of Acadia.
Never underestimate what a handful of people inspired by love and drive can create, Stiles said.
“We don’t like to tread water; we want to soar,” Stiles said.
REASONS TO CELEBRATE
“There are immense challenges at Acadia National Park, but we always come forward with immense solutions,” Stiles said.
Climate change, federal funding, increased visitation, part of navigating through that is important. So, is accessibility.
“This is a cradle-to-cane park,” Stiles said.
He referenced photos in his office. One was of his then-toddler playing in the water at Seawall and another was of his 80-something dad out enjoying the carriage roads.
“If this is the community that can, Eric is the president and CEO that can as well,” Schneider said to attendees.
He spoke of the impact of the park, of FOA, of the people who he works with, the staff and volunteers of the park and FOA, but he also spoke of Americans.
“America’s vision has always been about ordinary people believing in something bigger than ourselves,” Schneider said.
And he spoke of how one good idea can inspire others.
Yellowstone, in 1872, became the world’s first national park. Now 100 nations around the world have park systems. Now there are 433 sites that tell the stories of who we are as Americans and illustrate the collective values of Americans, Schneider said.
“Our national parks are not just landscapes but living stories of our triumphs,“ Schneider said.
In the park, you might encounter a hiker contemplating a life change; someone scattering ashes; another couple getting married.
If the original park creators walked into the room, what would they think, Schneider wondered.
“They would recognize the spirit of partnership” that continues to this day, he explained. That spirit of partnership has placed “more beds into the housing inventory in a shorter time than has ever happened.”
There are 56 under construction at Harden Farms, an eight-bedroom housing complex at Dane Farm, six renovated, Jordan River Road two-bedroom townhomes ; and a 13-pad RV camp in Southwest Harbor.
“Those aren’t simply 100 bedrooms, they are homes,” Schneider stressed.
“We’re doing this work beside the Wabanaki Nation,” Schneider said.
In 2025, Bill Hudson’s gift helped Friends of Acadia establish a new endowment. That expands programs connecting “Wabanaki and other Tribal Nation youth with outdoor experiences, cultural learning, and career development opportunities in Acadia National Park,” according to the 2025 impact report.
An outdoor classroom grant program allows FOA to support projects in all Wabanaki schools as well as 33 other Maine schools.
Wabanaki scientists and plant gatherers have held co-stewardship workshops about sweetgrass ecology and, according to the report, “directly informed restoration priorities.”
Restoration and stewardship have been key to FOA’s work.
Last year, volunteers shouldered bags of soil and hiked them up the trails, bringing them to the top of Sargeant and Penobscot Mountains.
“Stewardship is a full contact sport. Stewardship is putting a bag of dirt on your back and climbing up a mountain,” Schneider said.
And it happens because people care, volunteer, and do the tasks.
THE NEXT BIG PROJECT
Friends of Acadia has its sites set on the restoration and saving of the Baker Island Lighthouse, which stands in the southeastern entrance to Frenchman’s Bay.
The current lighthouse was built in 1855. The one it replaced was constructed in the 1820s.
Now, Stiles said, they are in “a race against time” to save it after nearly two centuries of wind, salt, weather, and age have taken its told.
The keeper’s house has already been stabilized, asbestos removed. The next step is stabilizing the lighthouse tower.
“For FOA this project is especially meaningful for our 40th anniversary year,” Stiles said.
That’s because FOA’s first major project was restoring Bear Island’s lighthouse back in 1988.
THE IMPACTS
After the meeting, staff and volunteers had set up different stations on the lawn. Teaching fellows, leave no trace summit stewards, park rangers shared what they were doing, explained projects, said hello, greeted guests with handshakes and hugs.
Oli’s Trolley’s Lizz Strum led a toast to celebrate FOA’s anniversary on the lawn.
“It’s a pleasure to run a business” that is an advocate to the park, Strum said, lofting a champagne flute. “Here’s to 40 years of Friend’s of Acadia and here’s to 40 more.”
Every year, Friends of Acadia talks about what the organization has done for the national park. It’s a celebration of work and of volunteerism and care. It’s also a celebration of legacy.
Impacts can be huge, such as the housing projects, but they can also be on a personal level.
Transformational experiences occur in the park all the time, Schneider said.
Friends of Acadia’s work is to more than housing and Vice President of Conservation Stephanie Clement explained the impact to attendees.
“In 2025, staff and 264 volunteers carried more than 5,000 pounds of soil to the summits of Sargent and Penobscot, resulting in 51 new restoration sites and nearly 53 square meters of restored habitat,” the impact report states.
The impact report also included FOA’s financial statements. It has approximately $969.8 million in net assets, much of which is restricted. Its program expenses are just over $10 million. Its operating expenses are just over $12 million; both have decreased from the year before.
The work is a litany of effort: trail repairs, rehabilitation on the Bubble trails, an accessible boardwalk on the Hemlock Path, Hunter’s Beach trail restoration, a raptor intern, educational programs, advocacy, streamflow monitoring in Otter Creek, Great Meadow biodiversity monitoring, infrastructure repairs. The list goes on and on.
Under all the work, Clement said, are two key components: reducing the barriers to the park and making sure the park stays strong and well funded.
“Together you make a real difference for our park that we love,” Clement said, overcome a bit with gratitude. “Thank you for a wonderful 2025.”
THE AWARDS
Each year, the organization gives awards to recognize the good work, volunteerism, and dedication from individuals within its community.
This year was no different and the group celebrated the dedication of staff and volunteers.
JIM LINNANE
Linnane received the Excellence in Volunteer Award.
The Excellence in Volunteerism Award is one that honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions of time, labor, or wisdom toward park stewardship.
According to Clement, Linnane has volunteered with FOA for 21 years. First, he was a steward working on the carriage roads and trails. Then he worked with winter sign shop volunteers and the membership table and at the Wild Gardens of Acadia.
“He not only loans his time to FOA, but also to Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Land and Garden Preserve, the Northeast Harbor Village Improvement Society, Frenchman Bay Conservancy, the Bar Harbor Garden Club, the Bar Harbor Historical Society, the Jesup Memorial Library, and the American Legion,” Clement said. “I’m wondering if Jim’s wife, Eileen, ever sees him sitting down.”
She said his service was exemplary.
“He is often the first person to offer his assistance when we have a need. He said to me humbly, ‘You know others do more annually. My experience is really just longevity and enjoying it.’ That’s part of the joy of knowing you, Jim,” she said.
Jim’s e-mail tag line is “Call me what you will, please be nice.”
“Well, Jim, we are calling you an outstanding volunteer, and we are grateful,” Clement said.
The award reads, “For dedicating more than twenty years of service in protecting and preserving Acadia National Park’s natural and cultural resources; for being an excellent leader in introducing new people to the idea of volunteerism and for encouraging them to give back to the park; for steadiness in service whether raking the paths of the Wild Gardens or the ditches of the carriage roads; for selflessness in giving of your time, not only to Friends of Acadia, but to multiple conservation organizations that partner with the park; and for being generally enthusiastic and the first to raise your hand.”
“A lot of people deserve this award,” Linnane said. “I’m just lucky.”
JOHN KELLY
John Kelly received the Friends of Acadia’s Distinguished Public Service award.
That award honors “public servants in agencies for exemplary performance of duty in protecting park values and for notable achievement in establishing effective partnerships,” Clement said.
Kelly, who serves (or has served) on multiple Bar Harbor boards, has spent 26 years in Acadia National Park and 39 in the National Park Service.
“His reach has been extensive, from interpretation to outdoor recreation planning to his current role as the management specialist at Acadia,” Clement said.
In his roles, Kelly works often with Clement and FOA. Projects include the Island Explorer partnership, the former Acadia Night Sky Festival, and transportation improvements.
“John has been a great partner, always willing to answer questions, and a great sounding board for ideas and concerns,” Clement said. “We are thrilled to see one of our longest-running partnership projects, the Acadia Gateway Center, come to fruition, and it was the perfect opportunity to acknowledge John for his outstanding work.”
Kelly thanked Clement as well as Downeast Transportation’s Paul Murphy.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Kelly said.
That ‘a lot’ includes twenty-six years of community meetings. Kelly praised and thanked the people who tirelessly work to supervise him and work with him.
He also singled out his wife, Heather.
“Thank you for loving me and supporting me all these years,” he said.
His award text reads, “For his outstanding leadership advancing the Island Explorer partnership from early stages to the opening of the Acadia Gateway Center; for his finesse in helping Friends of Acadia navigate challenging projects; for his dedication to park planning, carrying projects forward such as the preparation of Acadia National Park’s Foundation Document and the Transportation Plan; and for his skill in representing Acadia National Park in twenty-six years of community meetings, full of diverse opinions and passionate people.
“We, the Board Members, Honorary and Emeritus Trustees, and Staff of Friends of Acadia gratefully present John Kelly with our Distinguished Public Service Award. We thank you, John, for your extensive knowledge, your strategic vision, and for your broad reach that fosters so many positive partnerships for Acadia.”
Rebecca Cole-Will
FOA Vice President of Gift Planning Lisa Horsch Clark presented Rebecca Cole-Will with the Marianne Edwards Distinguished Service Award .
Clark called the award FOA’s highest honor, an honor Cole-Will easily deserves.
“If you’ve spent any time working with Acadia National Park, chances are you’ve eventually found yourself saying, ‘Let’s just ask Becky,” Horsch Clark said. “Need a speaker for a Friends of Acadia event? Ask Becky.
“Need help understanding a complicated resource management issue? Ask Becky.
“Need somebody to show up for one more meeting, one more program, one more community conversation? Definitely ask Becky.
“And somehow, despite an already full schedule, the answer is almost always yes.”
Horsch Clark said that Cole-Will’s career at Acadia has been extraordinary.
“Trained as an anthropologist and now serving as Acadia’s Chief of Cultural and Natural Resources, she has spent years protecting both the park’s natural treasures and its cultural heritage,” Horsch Clark said.”Her work has strengthened partnerships with the Wabanaki Nations, advanced science-based stewardship, and helped ensure that Acadia’s stories—both human and natural—are preserved for future generations.”
Those accomplishments are just a piece of Cole-Will’s story.
“What many of us know best is Becky the partner, Becky the teacher, Becky the problem-solver, and Becky the friend. Over the years, she has shared her knowledge generously at Friends of Acadia events, a regular speaker at the annual George B. Dorr Society events and at Pints for a Purpose, and at special gatherings celebrating Wabanaki culture and history. Whenever I’ve reached out for help, she has been there—often with an answer before I’ve even finished asking the question,” Horsch Clark said. “And she somehow manages to do all of this with good humor, humility, and an enthusiasm that makes everyone around her feel welcome and valued.”
The requests of Cole-Will aren’t treated as obligations.
“She treats them as opportunities—to connect people, solve problems, build partnerships, and help others succeed,” Horsch Clark said.
“Her leadership has strengthened Acadia National Park, but her generosity has strengthened the community around it. That combination of expertise, humility, and service makes her uniquely deserving of this honor,” she concluded before giving Cole-Will the award.
Cole-Will said, “I want to thank all the Wabanaki folks” who are working with them and forging new relationships with Acadia.
“We simply could not do this without you. Thank you,” Cole-Will said to the Wabanaki, FOA, and the attendees. “Much like Norway’s fans of the World Cup, ‘We all row together.’”
The award text reads, “For her unwavering commitment to the stewardship of Acadia National Park; for elevating the preservation of cultural resources alongside the protection of natural resources; for her deep respect for Native cultures and dedication to fostering meaningful relationships with the Wabanaki Nations; for her collaborative spirit and readiness to say “yes” whenever the park, its partners, or its communities need her; and for her exceptional leadership in conservation, science, resource management, and public engagement.
“For always being willing to lead a complex project, tackle an unexpected challenge, attend one more meeting, speak at one more event, or help advance one more good idea; for approaching every opportunity with enthusiasm, good humor, and generosity; and for demonstrating time and again that Acadia is stronger because of her willingness to step forward whenever needed.
“We, the Board Members, Honorary and Emeritus Trustees, and Staff of Friends of Acadia, gratefully present Rebecca Cole-Will with the Marianne Edwards Award, our highest honor. We celebrate your dedication to Acadia National Park, your commitment to collaboration, and your belief that lasting conservation is built through strong relationships and shared purpose. We thank you for your vision, leadership, energy, and steadfast service.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
A video of the annual meeting is on FOA’s Facebook page.
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