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2025 ANNUAL REPORT
A message from Board President Becky Heden
Island Connections had another stellar year supporting our community. Our volunteers helped surpass the previous number of medical and grocery rides in one year. Our community helped make the Sugar Showdown and the Mary Parker race a huge success and our donors continued supporting us throughout the year.
The Board of Directors saw a few changes in 2025. Our dedicated Board Members share in occupying executive positions. Our new Vice President is Sydnie White, Peter Scott has taken over from me as treasurer and Debby Smith is staying as Secretary. Past officers continue to serve as important members of our board.
The future of Island Connections looks healthy. The strength of "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" says it all.
Report from Executive Director Carissa Tinker
2025 ended up being yet another record breaking year here at Island Connections. Despite the annual total being a mere 7 one-way rides less than our record year, 2022, the need for our services was the highest it has ever been in 2025. This trend becomes clear when we separate medical and grocery rides from meal routes. Our volunteers provided 163 more rides to medical appointments and to the grocery store than ever before. The number of meal routes completed was lower last year, a number driven less by community need and more by the scope and funding of the partner program that operates them.
Another key difference between 2022 and 2025 is how often we had to say "no" to ride requests. Turning someone away is never easy, and it's something we work hard to avoid. As demand for our services has grown, we are no longer able to make exceptions to our ride acceptance policies, and at times we've had to pause new requests for a given week to ensure we can fully cover the rides we've committed to. This means that the true level of need in our community is higher than the numbers show. This is where volunteers make all the difference. More drivers mean fewer "no's" and more neighbors getting where they need to go.
Last year was also a record year for trips to Bangor, Brewer, and Blue Hill, for the second year in a row. This marks a clear trend that our Neighbors are having to travel further for medical care, with some being referred all the way to Blue Hill for simple treatments such as wound care. 9.4% of our medical rides last year were to Bangor, Brewer or Blue Hill.
We held three fundraising events in 2025: our second annual Sugar Showdown in February, Dine-Around Day in August, and the 8th Annual Mary Parker Memorial 5k in October. We also ran our 6th Match Challenge, which raised over $60,000. Individual donations continue to play a vital role in supporting our services, every donation helps to ensure that our community stays a safe place to live independently, regardless of disability or age.
We held three fundraising events in 2024: our first ever Sugar Showdown in February, Dine-Around-Day in August, and the 7th Annual Mary Parker Memorial 5k in October. We also ran our 5th Match Campaign, which raised over $32,000. Each donor plays a critical role in ensuring that our community stays a safe place to live independently, regardless of disability or age.
In total, our volunteers drove an estimated 62,654 miles last year to ensure our Neighbors had access to food and medical care. That is equal to driving 2.5 times around the equator! 22 new volunteers joined us, and as usual that was far surpassed by the number of new Neighbors needing our services, with 63 new Neighbors last year. A total of 115 volunteer drivers donated over 2800 hours of their time throughout the year. Our devoted volunteers are the driving force of Island Connections, and we are always in critical need for more volunteers to join our team.
Island Connections' overall goal is to continue providing free transportation, delivering food to our neighbors, and being recognized in the community as an essential resource. It is through the big hearts of our core group of volunteer drivers and the generosity of our donors that we are able to do this good and much needed work. We are looking forward to another successful year!
*Please note: You may notice differences in some 2019 and 2020 figures compared to previous reports. This is due to revised reporting methodologies. Specifically, the inclusion of two types of rides under a single tag in past reports has been rectified for accuracy in this year's data.
