Family Harbor House Happenings – November 2025
November 8, 2025
Open House
Please join us on Saturday, November 15, from noon to 3 PM! This is your opportunity to visit Family Harbor House and see how wonderfully the space has evolved. You'll be able to tour the site, and meet the Board and our new director, David Beseda. You'll see the renovations done by White Cap Builders, who donated their labor, design, and project management. There will be refreshments to enjoy as well.
Family Harbor House is located at the lower level of the United Methodist Church at 23 Mill Lane in Belfast. There is a parking lot at the lower level, near the entrance to Family Harbor House, as well as parking at the church entrance. When you arrive it will be during the last hour of the church's Christmas Fair. Please go downstairs to Family Harbor House.
New Director
We are so pleased to announce that we have hired a part-time director for Family Harbor House--David Beseda. David comes to us as a social worker with an extensive and varied background. He was a founding Executive Director for Community Housing of Maine, a Board member of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, and served as a guardian ad litem, among many other endeavors that qualify him for this new position. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of New England. David jumped into helping at Family Harbor House immediately, showing up to join the painting crew multiple times. We are so fortunate to have David joining our team!
Volunteer Appreciation
So many people are helping as we create and build this program. We want to continue to express our gratitude along the way! We had a terrific painting team who took on the major job of painting all the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining room and hallways. Then more hard-working volunteers showed up to wash windows, window sills, and baseboards. They also cleaned those bathrooms--smiling and chatting the whole time. And furniture has been coming in steadily now. The rooms are starting to fill up. The Board feels so fortunate for all this volunteer support. It seems we just have to ask for help, and it's there.
Family Harbor House Happenings
August 25, 2025
Thank you for your interest in Midcoast Maine Homeless Coalition’s transitional housing project--Family Harbor House. In this, our second newsletter, we have some exciting news to share.
First and foremost--a private donor made an extremely generous gift to this initiative, in the form of stocks worth $52,000. We deeply appreciate this contribution to our vision. And the construction adaptations are underway! Whitecap builders started on August 11.
Their major work includes erecting two walls: one will provide each family with a private room of their own, and the other will separate Family Harbor House from the basement of the church. Painting started in the office area at the same time. The part-time staff person and a steady staff of volunteers will use this office as their workspace.
Family Harbor House Happenings
July 3, 2025
Thank you for your interest in Midcoast Maine Homeless Coalition’s transitional housing project--Family Harbor House. This is our first newsletter via email. You are receiving it because you’ve expressed interest in, or are already involved with, this exciting project. We hope you would like to receive more newsletters in the future. (If not, just drop a line back in reply.)
Right now, we have heartening financial news to share. Some of us have begun learning about grant writing, and with some success! We recently received a $25,000 grant from the Windover Foundation. We have several other grant applications under consideration. We also received two gifts. The Belfast United Methodist Church has kindly given us $5000. And an anonymous donor contributed a very generous $20,000 to our endeavor. We deeply appreciate all this support.
As many of you are aware, construction adaptations are needed at Family Harbor House before it can open. These adaptations include erecting two walls. One wall will ensure that each family has one private room, and the other wall will separate Family Harbor House from the rest of the church basement. We will also be installing two showers, a stove, a washer and a dryer. We are hopeful that this building process will start in mid-July.
Many of you have expressed interest in volunteer opportunities once the housing unit is up and running. The UU Church now has volunteer coordinators, and they are starting to put together our first team to work at Family Harbor House. There will be more updates to come. Thank you again for your interest and support!