There is a lot of good energy around the islands these days. People are coming together more. From yoga classes to island sustainability meetings to weekly literary discussions to establishing a food buying club, several young adults have enthusiastically encouraged the rest of us to consider reducing our carbon footprints and to find more creative ways to spend our time. The response is positive.
On the last day of March, a group people from both Little and Great Cranberry Islands got together to share lunch and discuss island health care concerns and to create a vision for future services. The meeting at the Islesford Neighborhood House was organized by islanders and sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission. A follow up meeting on April 28 will assess needs, create objectives, and implement strategies. People seem more active, lately, in addressing community concerns.
When postmaster Joy Sprague was looking for a project to give to her daughters at Christmas time, she looked on the Internet for sites related to knitting and charity. Her search, combined with a friend’s enthusiasm for the book, “Three Cups of Tea,” led her to the Web site: Afghans for Afghans. Joy’s daughters received knitting needles and enough wool yarn to make a 30″ by 40″ blanket for a needy newborn in Afghanistan. In February, three Islesford knitters sent 9 blankets to the Cure Hospital in Kabul. Inspiring more people to get involved, Joy started the Little Cranberry Island Knitters, who meet at the library every Thursday afternoon. Everyone is welcome, whether they knit or not. At least 10 people are now working on baby blankets, growing the grass roots philanthropy. For more information, take a look at the islesford.com Web site and click on the link: Joy’s Afghans for Afghans.
Joy Sprague is one of a handful of year-round residents who actually grew up here. She began training for her current career in 1974 when she worked as the leave replacement for postmaster Natalie Beal. She liked the work so much she decided to skip college and aim for a full time job. When Natalie retired in 1977, after 23 years of serving the community, Joy was awarded the job of Islesford postmaster on Dec. 7. It was 17 days shy of her 21st birthday, and she became the youngest postmaster in the United States. She learned from Natalie to encourage summer vacationers to stock up on postage stamps from the island, thus supporting the tiny post office. In the early 1990s, Joy and Leigh Liebow (the postmaster on Great Cranberry) decided to try something new in boosting their stamp sales. They wrote letters to summer customers in late November suggesting they buy their holiday stamps from the island post offices. The personal touch and clever marketing increased stamp sales so much that Islesford and Great Cranberry stepped right in line behind Portland, Brunswick and Lewiston, as numbers four and five for the most “stamps by mail” sold in the state. At the same time, Joy encouraged the patronage of overnight express mail service by offering her homemade cream puffs to every 100th customer. She had so much fun doing it she began awarding the cream puffs to every 25th express mail customer, with photos celebrating the winners in the “Cream Puff Hall of Fame.” Joy’s passion for her work inspired Letitia Baldwin to write an article about her for Downeast Magazine. After that, stamp orders came in from places as diverse as Istanbul, the Fiji Islands, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, M.I.T. and the NASA space center in Houston. For several years in a row, the Islesford post office sold more stamps by mail than any other post office in the state of Maine. Although the sales that followed the Downeast article have died down a little, Joy still gets plenty of orders. One of her favorites is from the Smith dairy farm in Gary, Indiana, where the owner named a cow after her and sent her a picture of it. She still includes a handwritten note about Islesford with every stamp order she fills.
Joy’s enthusiasm for her island community extends well beyond the confines of the post office. Among her other pursuits over the years, Joy was the first woman to be Master of the Rockbound Grange #568 and has served as a selectman to the Town of Cranberry Isles. She studies the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay and has memorized many of her sonnets and poems. Joy has recited a number of those poems at public events, including the 214-line poem “Renascence” for an evening celebrating the famous poet, at the library in Camden. Joy is a member of the board of the Islesford Congregational Church, and has served on the board of the Islesford Neighborhood House. She has held a recreational lobster license since 1994, and can often be seen on a summer afternoon hauling her traps from a rowboat. Joy is a founding member of the Islesford Dip-of-the-Month Club, having taken more than 60 consecutive monthly dips in the ocean. When it comes time for the annual Wits and Nitwits variety show, Joy’s dance performance with lobsters is a must-see. To top it all off, as a single mother, she has raised two remarkable daughters to be outstanding adults.
Each day in the public eye, Joy does her work with grace, humor and patience. Her smile includes all of us in her zest for life, and she is often ready to share a good laugh. How can you not love a friend who secretly tapes a barnacle to her neck and then asks you to take a look to see what’s wrong? It’s no wonder there is so much good energy on Islesford, when we get to experience so much Joy in our lives.
Islesford
April 15, 2008