Two philanthropic foundations have selected MITA as the recipient of a total of $35,000 in grants to fund increased volunteer care of the wild islands of the Maine Island Trail. The William Bingham Foundation has just provided $20,000 to use for the restructuring and expansion of MITA’s Island Adopter Program. This closely follows a grant from the Quimby Family Foundation in late August for $15,000 to support new stewardship initiatives in the Cobscook Bay area.

“What both of these grants have in common is that they will help us get local community members more involved in the stewardship of Trail sites in their area,” said Doug Welch, MITA’s Executive Director. “That is what the Maine Island Trail has been about for over two decades, but these grants will help us to leverage our efforts even further.” He adds, “It’s impractical to try to provide stewardship of islands from afar, especially when you head east of Mount Desert Island, so we’re going to help coordinate people in local communities to take a more systematic, hands-on role in the stewardship of their own local islands.”

The crux of the effort will be a push to recruit more island adopters, give them better training, and focus their work more directly toward specific islands where they are most needed. Whereas adopters previously were given wide latitude to choose which islands to adopt and which stewardship activities they wished to participate in, the restructured adopter program will provide more guidance regarding where and how volunteers can pitch in close to home.

“A big part of this is doing a better job of communicating with volunteers and helping volunteers communicate with each other,” said Brian Marcaurelle, MITA Stewardship Director. “I think most adopters are willing to take on higher-priority tasks, but up until now we haven’t had the systems in place to direct them as efficiently as we’d have liked.” Marcaurelle said that these grants will help MITA develop new tools, such as a sophisticated volunteer database, that will make it easier for MITA to match up volunteers with the tasks that need their attention.

The result will be a volunteer corps that delivers more effective stewardship to the Trail’s fast-growing network of islands, according to Peter Adams, MITA’s Board Chairman. “I think this is a great opportunity to do what MITA does best—organizing local volunteers in the stewardship of their own local resources,” Adams said.

These announcements are a welcome development at the close of a tight fiscal year for the organization. And the news is all the more exciting considering the stiff competition MITA faced from other non-profits across the country, said Peter Kenlan, MITA’s Development Officer, who led the grant application team. There were 70 applicants for the William Bingham Foundation grant and MITA was one of only two applicants whose proposals were funded. “This is a tremendous vote of confidence in MITA as an organization and in the stewardship model we’ve been honing over the past 20 years,” according to Kenlan.

The public can expect to hear more about the initiatives funded by these grants in the coming months and for restructuring of the Island Adopter Program to be well on its way by the summer of 2010. MITA staff will be in touch with current adopters regarding any changes to the program as they take place, and will encourage members and the public not currently involved in the program to consider participating as an island adopter next year. More information about the program is available on the MITA website, www.mita.org/connect/adopt.