Last weekend, Pine Tree Society’s Interpreting Services staff traveled to Pine Tree Camp to host Sign Tree Camp.

Sign Tree Camp is a unique retreat designed for adults who are deaf and have an intellectual disability.

Many of our campers live in communication isolation as the only deaf person living in group homes scattered throughout Maine and beyond. Sign Tree Camp offers a fun, language-accessible camp experience in a barrier-free environment.

Over the weekend, campers enjoyed fall activities like pumpkin painting, nature walks, and a Halloween costume party!

“We always love to see old friends in an environment where everyone can communicate,” said Maura Nolin, Director of Interpreting Services. “Campers asked if they could come back for seven days next year.”

Learn more about Sign Tree Camp.

View more photos here.

For the last full week of September, we celebrated Deaf Awareness Week! We ended it with attending Deaf Culture Festival on Mackworth Island.

In 1958, this week was first celebrated for only one day (International Day of the Deaf) by the World Federation of the Deaf, but was later extended to an entire week.

In this video, Tim Wilbur, scheduling supervisor for Interpreting Services, is seen signing, “What is your name? My name is Tim”

The Deaf Community is a culturally and linguistically rich community, whose primary language is American Sign Language. When communication is necessary between people who use ASL and English, a professional interpreter bridges the language gap. In many situations the use of qualified interpreters is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Learn more about Pine Tree Society’s Interpreting Services.

The Adaptive Outdoor Education Center and Pine Tree Camp collaborated this weekend to bring all people with varying abilities a weekend full of adaptive water sports, beach fun, and a memorable camp experience.

Bruce Albiston, founder of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center and former Pine Tree Society board member, said this was their biggest group yet.

 “Three years ago was our first year and we only had 16 people,” Albiston shared. “This year we had people on a waitlist!”

Campers of this weekend’s Adaptive Water Sports Camp enjoyed paddleboards, kayaks and canoes, and pontoon boat rides. This year was the first waterskiing was available.

“We never have trouble finding volunteers. We just continue to grow,” Albiston added.

There were smiles all along the shores of North Pond for the two day, three night weekend. One camper exclaimed, “It’s incredible. The volunteers lift me in and out of my wheelchair just so I can kayak. I can’t wait for next summer!”

To learn more about the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center and the programs they offer visit their website.

Pine Tree Camp offers our fully accessible facilities for retreats, meetings, conferences and special programming. Learn more here.

On Friday, September 21, Pine Tree Society will open its doors for the Bath Art Walk to unveil two new paintings created by Maine artists Richard Hasenfus of Georgetown and Marieluise Hutchinson of Cushing.  Hasenfus’s “Winter Lighthouse” and Hutchinson’s “The Perfect Snowman” were painted for Pine Tree Society’s 2018 holiday card series.

Also on view will be over 60 paintings representing “A Maine Retrospective: The Art of Pine Tree Society’s Holiday Cards.”  This extensive collection dates back to the early 1960s, covering a span of more than 50 years. 

“In the 1960s, Pine Tree Society had the idea that a Maine-themed holiday card would be a perfect fundraiser,” said Noel Sullivan, president and CEO of Pine Tree Society. “More than fifty years later, that tradition is still going strong and we have acquired an extensive collection of quintessential Maine art.”

The art featured in this show has raised more that $3 million dollars to support and transform the lives of Maine people with disabilities. One hundred percent of proceeds from annual holiday card sales support Pine Tree Society’s programs. 

The paintings showcase a variety of mediums and styles and are a visual time capsule of Maine in the winter, from country scenes to woods and fields to the rockbound coast and iconic lighthouses.

Featured artists Richard Hasenfus and Marieluise Hutchinson have both designed cards for Pine Tree Society before.  Richard Hasenfus’s first card design was in 1969 and that painting, “Peaceful Harbor,” will be on display.

If You Go:

Friday, September 21

4:00 – 7:00pm

Pine Tree Society

149 Front St., Bath

Refreshments will be served

 

2018 holiday cards can be ordered online here.

When John W. Conner passed away in 2017 at the age of 86, there were two things really important in his life that his family wanted to pay tribute to:  the Shriners Hospitals for Children and Pine Tree Camp. 

“A lot of what he wanted to do, was able to do, and did do was because of Pine Tree Camp and Shriners Hospital,” his son John D. Conner recalled.

John W. Conner grew up on a farm in central Maine and was diagnosed with polio in 1935 during the Great Depression.  He spent much of his childhood away from his family at the Shriners Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts, only coming home for six weeks in the summer and two weeks at Christmas.  At Christmastime in 1944, he came home for good to be with his five brothers and sisters.

A year later, Pine Tree Camp was founded and became a place his doctors recommended he go each summer.  It was during one of those summers that he designed the iconic Pine Tree Camp logo.  Since that time, John’s emblem has been a positive symbol for the thousands of campers who drive down the camp road each summer and have their lives forever changed.

“Pine Tree Camp is family for so many people,” John D. continued. “My father was away from home so much as a child that his family truly became those he spent so much of his life with at the Shriners Hospital and Pine Tree Camp.”

John W. spent many years travelling back and forth from Maine to Springfield for continued treatment for polio including three spinal fusions and extensive physical therapy.  Over time, he regained the use of his limbs and was able to lead a very active and full life.  He often said, “I do all the things others do, I just do them differently.”

John W. was an avid sportsman who loved the Maine outdoors.

“We never mastered being a Mainer quite like he did,” his son John D. fondly remembered.  “Dad loved to fish, especially fly fishing.  I can still hear him grumbling about any type of fishing except fly fishing.  He often carried me in to Kokadjo to fish the Roach Ponds for trout, the only fish that existed to him.”

“I imagine he first learned how to fish at Pine Tree Camp,” John’s sister Victoria said.  “The spirit our father had for fly fishing was undeniable.  Passing that along to his children and grandchildren brought him much joy.”

John D.’s three children spent many summers with their grandfather learning the art of fly fishing and how to be a Mainer.

“And Dad learning to duck as their flies tended to catch him more than the fish.  He never hesitated to hunt and be as much of an outdoorsman as he could. He trekked many of the Baxter State Park trails and climbed Mount Katahdin, something I hope to do with my children and sister in the future, in honor, memory, and for him.”

Victoria recalls how their father didn’t talk about his struggles with polio. 

“I remember going for walks with him, witnessing his limp, helping take his boots off in the winter — little things like that to help; but the disability never became a topic of conversation, because my Dad never viewed it as a disability.  I think his years at Pine Tree Camp contributed to that mentality of breaking through barriers and adopting a mentality of inclusiveness.”

When John W. was in his early 80s, Victoria brought him back to Pine Tree Camp so they could walk the grounds together, see what had changed and reminisce about the early days.  He was using crutches and it brought to mind an old photo of him when he was 10 years old standing with crutches on that very same lawn.  It is a memory that will stay with her forever.

“My Dad was very proud of his years at Pine Tree Camp.  My visits with him to the camp over various stages of our lives really demonstrated how much the camp did for him as a young man and the great impact it had on him his whole life.”