Presque Isle, Maine 

Oct 1, 2024
Presenter: Aroostook Mental Health Center (AMHC)
Population: 8,728

Days 6 & 7 of tour found us in one of the farthest flung corners of the United States, in upstate Maine bordering Canada. Our activities were organized by AMHC, who provides social services to a vast area across three counties. The city of Presque Isle is in Aroostook County, which is the largest county east of the Mississippi with over 6,800 square miles.

AMHC’s huge array of programs includes mental health support centers, residential behavioral programs for adults and children, substance use centers and residential programs, sexual assault services, general family support, and more. Rural Maine, as is often the case in rural America, struggles with substance use and mental health. Although AMHC provides structure and community to its clients, clients may feel isolated from the general population. AMHC and Gather Hear came up with a joint vision of curating concerts where folks from different pockets of the community - those who might otherwise not interact, or may even have preconceived notions of one another - could all gather to share time, space, and emotions together.

The venue for the Presque Isle concert was the local high school auditorium, where school was out for potato harvest. Potato harvest is an important season in Aroostook County; schools close for a week so that students can help with potato harvest. There is a lot of local pride for Maine potatoes! Although these days much of the harvesting process has been taken over by machines, our host family reminisced taking part in harvest as a children. When I said that I wasn’t sure I ever had Maine potatoes before, they called up a local farmer on the spot to deliver me a sack within a few minutes!

AMHC did a great job planning and promoting the concerts. We chose a weekday morning concert time - unconventional, but that was the time that we could bus in folks from a AMHC residential program. Clients of other organizations like those for adults with developmental disabilities were also bussed in. A lot of the retiree community showed up, as did families with kids who drove from more than an hour away, and adults of all ages. It certainly wasn’t the most quiet concert, but that’s not what Gather Hear was about. In fact, the musical experience was made more personal and uniquely memorable because it was punctuated by audible spontaneous expressions of happiness and excitement from the audience, and warm giggles that followed.

Maybe my favorite memory from these concerts is that one audience member came up to me after the concert, and asked me to fill out the “When I listen deeply” audience notecard. That was a first for me, and I thought it was so kind and thoughtful for them to ask me.

The concert was featured on the local news, which you can watch and read here. Apologies for my less-than-eloquent interview; I had woken up early in prep for the morning performance, and with fatigue piling up by this point in tour, I was pretty tired!