A conversation about sustainability this weekend became a reminder that places are shaped as much by kindness as by policy.

Carrie Jones

Jul 23, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Restaurant Barn.

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BAR HARBOR—One of the lowest points in my writing career was after I wrote a blog post about a fire that burnt down the Portside Grill in Bar Harbor.

It was a post where I talked about the kindness of the woman who owned that business—Vicki Hall—when I saw her earlier that day, and about the incredible kindness and work of all the firefighters (many of them volunteers) who came out to fight that fire.

I will always remember business after business stepping up that night, donating water and food, community member after community member looking for ways to help.

I was a volunteer firefighter then, too, but I was not fully trained. I helped outside the building. I hugged people who needed hugs, helped the firefighters doing the hard work, communicating what was going on to the people who needed that communication.

It sounds pretty positive, right?

Immediately after, a lawyer in town scoffed and said to me, “Do you really believe that schmaltz you wrote?”

I did, I told him.

Two seconds later he asked me if I even knew what schmaltz meant.

“Rendered chicken fat,” I told him, my hummingbird heart beating 6,000 beats a minute because I’m not terribly tough and I’m also not terribly good at confrontation.

I stood by that story. I continue to stand by it because I will always believe in the good of the people of my community even as people argue and make mistakes and react negatively instead of responding thoughtfully.

I believe in that goodness because I’ve seen it.

I am lucky enough to be co-writing the Bar Harbor Story. That means I get to witness that kindness, the way people build toward positive things even when the horrific happens, over and over again.

One of our goals here at the Bar Harbor Story has always been not to just give people free news if they can’t afford to pay for it (a horrible business plan, yes), but also to remind them that there is so much good in our communities, too. It’s about more than arguments over cruise ships, congestion, paid parking, hotels, soil tests, sound ordinances, Coast Guard parking spots, Tremont deer hunts, dumpsters, school reorganization.

That was reinforced at the Town Talk this weekend.

This weekend, I was lucky enough somehow to be invited on a panel about sustainable communities, sitting with people who have truly made a difference—Johannah Blackman (executive director of A Climate to Thrive, an MDI grassroots nonprofit that designs, implements, and shares decentralized, renewable energy solutions and climate resiliency initiatives); Puranjot Kaur (co-founder of Open Table MDI, which works to inspire strong, loving, and inclusive communities by bringing people together to share in nourishing food); John Zavodny (president of Maine Seacoast Mission which supports so many islands and rural communities with health care, education, scholarships, food assistance, and community-building programs); Andy Revkin (a superhero of a journalist covering sustainability issues for 42 years, mostly for The New York Times); and Dar Williams—author, singer/songwriter, professor.

It’s hard to report on a panel when you’re on that panel, which is why I’m breaking our typical format here and writing in the first-person point of view and filling this article with my own voice instead of my news voice.

But I’m doing it because I think the event was important.

Sitting there on this Saturday afternoon, listening to the words and songs of Dar and Andy; being inspired by Johannah, Puranjot, and John, as well as the amazing Genie Thorndike who hosted the event at her Hidden Barn Books with help from the Criterion Theatre, I was amazed.

Yeah, I was amazed that I was there.

But I was more amazed by all the humans next to me and in the audience.

In them, I could see story after story of good.

I saw the woman doing everything she could to teach island kids art who is driven to tears when her students enthusiastically wave to the Seacoast Mission’s Sunbeam as it brings more kids over to the island just to play.

I saw the man who does everything he can to help marine resources committee work make a difference.

I saw the woman who has saved one life after another after another. And I saw a man right next to her who has done the same thing.

I saw the woman who sings out people’s stories and connects those stories and those stories toward helping Acadia National Park, a woman who often wears a fancy hat doing it.

In real time, I saw the college professor offer to bring a talkative toddler downstairs to read books and play so his mom could listen to panel.

How beautiful is that? How kind?

I was overcome by the beauty of individuals who consistently (though maybe not always perfectly) choose good, choose action, choose to make our communities better.

Johannah, Puranjot, John, and Andrew all told stories of organizations that arose out of need and how people’s time and effort and hard work made things happen.

These organizations and the individuals I saw Saturday—the individuals I see every day that I leave my house—foster authentic connection.

Matt Slepin writes of a principle Dar focuses on in her town talks and work, “Positive proximity is the experience of living side by side with people and knowing that your life is better because there are other people, not despite the fact that there are other people.”

Dar Williams and the panelists all spoke to how we can create shared value and purpose in a community when we lean toward human dignity, when we listen and are vulnerable, where we embrace that schmaltz, where we’re engaged, where we give and don’t just take.

In an interview with Plough, Dar says, “What these places have in common is people who are able to help one another and to welcome outsiders. Solidarity combined with openness, hometown pride and worldly welcome. Everywhere I went, I’d look for that.

“I was looking for something more than proximity; it was positive proximity. I became passionate about understanding what builds positive proximity. My observations blobbed themselves into three categories: first, certain kinds of spaces; second, identity-building projects; and third, what I call translation: how we translate ourselves and each other.”

As a digital newspaper, that third element has always been a core part of our mission, but I think it should really be something we all should think about: How do we want to translate the stories of Acadia, Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Tremont, Trenton, Frenchboro, Cranberry Isle? The stories of our neighbors?

Is it by leaning into an us-vs-them mentality?

Is it by leaning into kindness?

We get to make that choice.

Each of us.

Authentic communities, positive communities, grow from concrete actions like putting in a playground (or refurbishing a wading pool), creating a garden, theater, cheering at a game, building a school or a library wing.

Authentic communities, positive communities, also grow from clear communication and defined ways to settle conflicts.

All the panelists spoke to how they do that.

People often throw rocks at the shiny things, the people and organizations doing good. But one positive text toward someone whose hurting? That lifts a neighbor up. One moment of listening? One instance of doing? That lifts a neighbor up, too.

We can be those neighbors.

That’s what I remembered again on Saturday listening to the panelists and the people sitting in the wooden chairs under the lofted bookstore ceilings.

We can be the communities that we want to be on this island, but we have to be vulnerable, we have to celebrate good, and we have to try.

It is easy—very easy and often very profitable—to look for evil, to vilify others, to jump to conclusions about something as innocent as a woman rolling her ankle in Acadia National Park and getting terribly hurt, or a car accident, or the rationale for a select board decision.

It should be just as easy to look for that beautiful good, the schmaltz, the moments of connection, to rejoice in the beautiful moments people create.

The communities of Mount Desert Island are gorgeous—not just in the landscape, but in the way we often choose to lift each other up.

But we have to choose to lift each other up and make that choice again and again in the stories we tell, the kindness we give, where and how we place our attention.

We have to try.

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WHAT CAN WE DO NEXT?

The Bar Harbor Story (us) is really interested in trying to build on the momentum of this event and maybe having a series of town talks or porch talks each month?

We are, however, not the best at organizing things (or even trying to get sponsors for the paper) because we’re running around trying to cover news, so we need help.

If you have ideas or you’d like to be involved, please give us an email. You can send a message right here.

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PLACES TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS AND PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE TOWN TALK

Maine Seacoast Mission

Open Table MDI

A Climate to Thrive

Criterion Theatre

Hidden Barn Books

Dar Williams

Andy Revkin

To find out more about the Bar Harbor Fire Department, just click here.

To find out more about becoming an on-call firefighter, click here. It’s an amazing group of people.

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