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Gov. Janet Mills honors Volunteer Maine award winners
Summary
Governor Janet Mills announced the 2026 Volunteer Maine award recipients, recognizing a bank, a nonprofit, two individual volunteers and a volunteer team for thousands of hours of service statewide.
Governor Janet Mills announced the recipients of the 2026 Volunteer Maine awards, honoring organizations and individuals across the state for sustained volunteer service.
Mills said the awards, presented this week, recognize work that fills unmet needs in Maine communities, from meal service and pantry support to hospice companionship and home-repair projects.
Mills noted that Volunteer Maine — also known as the Maine Commission for Community Service — was created by executive order in March 1994. She said the commission was set up to renew community values, bridge cultural diversity, empower young people and address environmental, educational and public-safety needs.
The honorees named by Mills were: Androscoggin Bank, recognized for an outstanding business volunteer program whose employees contributed nearly 6,000 hours to almost 200 nonprofit organizations; Finding Our Voices (Camden), recognized for an outstanding nonprofit volunteer program that since 2022 has operated "Finding Our Smiles," a statewide initiative providing free dental care to survivors of domestic abuse (Mills relayed that a survivor described the program as "a phenomenal blessing signifying validation, worthiness, closure, and hope"); Anne Behnke of Lewiston, named Maine volunteer of the year for 40 years of hospice volunteering at Anwell Hospice House, donating more than 300 hours a year; Nellie Young of Eliot, named Young Maine volunteer of the year for hundreds of hours of service at school and abroad, including fundraising for a nursery and culinary school in Peru and leading students to refurbish a greenhouse for a local retirement home; and The Regulars (Lincoln County), honored as an outstanding volunteer team for more than 150 household projects including building ramps and securing railings.
Mills said she is proud to continue the awards during her tenure and thanked Maine's roughly 1.4 million residents for their contributions to communities statewide. She closed the message by again identifying herself as governor and thanking listeners.
The announcement was a recognition and celebration rather than a formal policy action; no votes or motions were recorded in the remarks.
