Greetings Courageous Steps Supporters / Partners, 

It has been a busy first 6 months of 2022, with lots of growth occurring. It truly has been a busy stretch for our organization and will continue to be busy for the foreseeable future. Here are just some highlights from the past few months: 

Green House Village Preschool: Our largest program is about to add more services to better support our children (and families). Through expanding our offerings, we will be able to support more families and extend their programming options to better serve their specific needs. This is just the beginning of some exciting changes we plan to be implementing for the remainder of 2022. 

Courageous Steps also received a $7500 grant for the Green House Village Preschool which will benefit programming throughout the remainder of 2022. 

Operation Find Me: Courageous Steps received a $1,000 grant through the Walmart Foundation to continue its' work on expanding the initiative into the Hancock county region. This will occur over the next few months. More plans are in the works to help expand into other regions of Maine. Our initiative website is also going through an upgrade so please be patient as we work through this update. 

One Word Challenge: The students of Marshwood Middle School completed their One Word Challenge which was the first One Word Challenge since 2019. Thank you to the students and staff for being our first school in Southern Maine to participate in this impactful initiative. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZE1EjlCoZk

Wishlist Initiative: The Courageous Steps Project has awarded several donations to schools / organizations through our Wishlist Initiative this year. We were able to award donations to Unified Basketball programs that participated in our March festival, and also approved many requests submitted on our website. 

Scholarship Fund: Courageous Steps recently awarded nearly $2,000 in scholarships to graduating high school seniors from Old Town High School and Foxcroft Academy. Congratulations to Logan Gardner of Old Town High School and Connor Plante from Foxcroft Academy for receiving scholarships. It is a pleasure to continue awarding scholarships to support the next steps of our scholars. 

Events: We've had a very productive spring season of events. Thank you to those that have supported our events in 2022, many of which have returned after a 2 year hiatus due to COVID-19. We have our 2nd Annual Golf Scramble coming up on Monday July 11th, and our 9th Annual Back-To-School Drive coming up on Wednesday August 3rd. In addition, we have our Costumes & Cocktails Halloween event returning on Saturday October 29th. You can find more details on all these events on our website. 

Future Growth: I have been working aggressively with our team to continue finding ways we can grow and respond to the needs of those in our communities. With the impacts of COVID-19 really starting to come to the forefront, it is more important that we do what we can to support the expansion of programming and services to better support children and young adults with various abilities and challenges. In the coming months, I will be announcing major steps we are taking to support these efforts. 

Connecting with Connor: Starting this summer, I will be doing more to reach out to families of children and young adults in our communities to learn more about how we as an organization can respond to their needs. A series of free webinars and/or discussions will take place for the remainder of 2022. As always, you can reach out to me via email at: [email protected]. 

On Thursday June 9th, founder & Chairman/CEO Connor Archer awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Step Forward Scholarship Fund to Old Town High School graduating senior Logan Gardner in pursuit of her post-secondary educational path. 

Courageous Steps has awarded many scholarships since 2015 to graduating high school seniors at Old Town High School (where Courageous Steps originated from) and has continued to expand it's scholarships to benefit other students around the Eastern Maine region. 

"It is our pleasure to continue supporting our young scholars as they pursue their next chapter. Courageous Steps has always been committed to supporting our high school seniors and we hope to continue expanding our scholarships in the next couple of years" said Founder & Chairman/CEO Connor Archer. 

The other recipient this year was Connor Plante from Foxcroft Academy who has received a $750 scholarship from our Step Forward Scholarship Fund.

"Both stories were extremely moving and inspiring and we could not be happier with our selections" adds Archer. 

The Courageous Steps Project is seeking to expand its' scholarship fund to award more scholarships in 2023 and 2024. But we need the help of our supporters and partners to make this happen. Please reach out to Connor Archer if you are interested in contributing at: [email protected]. 

The Courageous Steps Project received a $1,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to expand our initiative efforts into other communities around the state of Maine. This grant will directly support the development of resource sheets / maps and outreach in the Hancock county region. 

"Courageous Steps continues to have a growing presence in other communities around Eastern Maine and beyond. We are thrilled to be expanding this 4 year old initiative into other parts of Maine" said Founder & Chairman/CEO Connor J. Archer. 

Archer adds that Courageous Steps has other plans to expand the initiative into all regions of Maine in the coming months. "We have a plan to expand into other regions of Maine, to ensure that all communities have the necessary resources for preventing incidents of wandering in our communities" said Archer. 

The Courageous Steps Project's Operation Find Me Initiative was founded in 2018 to provide wandering prevention resources to schools, families, public safety agencies, and communities to better inform the public on surrounding areas in our communities all over Maine. The initiative was kickstarted through a generous grant from the Wireless Foundation of Giving. To learn more about this initiative and other initiatives under The Courageous Steps Project, you are encouraged to visit our website and follow our Facebook page.