HOULTON, Maine – When Gateway Ambassador Kim York recently heard that Houlton Regional Hospital was courting several new physicians, she knew the ambassadors’ welcome packets had to be ready.
“I was at a meeting last week and the hospital CEO said she was in the process of interviewing eight to 10 doctors,” York said during a Gateway Ambassadors meeting on Wednesday night at the Summit Academy in Houlton. “That moved up the welcome packets. We’ll have to be ready quickly.”
The welcome packet idea got underway earlier this summer when the Houlton Gateway Ambassadors, a volunteer group dedicated to making the Houlton experience a good one for visitors and the community, decided to tackle the community’s perceived “from away attitudes.”
What was just an idea in June is now becoming reality for the group as welcome packets, new resident surveys, and detailed inserts about the community are being assembled and ready for distribution to newcomers.
Cecilia Rhoda, who leads the ambassador initiative, decided that something needed to change after she heard about a family in her neighborhood moving from the Aroostook County town because they did not feel welcome.
“That made me very, very sad,” said Rhoda during the June meeting.
At the time, other ambassadors also shared tales about people they had run into who admitted they did not feel welcome in town. One woman shared that she met a man from Poland at the downtown library and he said that even though he has lived in the community for 14 years he did not feel welcomed.
Much like the 1920s national Welcome Wagon approach to newcomers, the Gateway Ambassadors have developed a several-pronged approach to meeting the needs of people new to town.
Many of the things locals take for granted, like town office locations and phone numbers, churches and commonly used contacts for plumbers, electricians, and even what to do with the trash are a mystery for people new to town.
That’s why the welcome packets that include pertinent town information and business giveaways and coupons are part of the town’s embrace of people from away.
One committee has planned detailed routes for fun day trip outings that might include scenic drives, places to stop for lunch and the best route from one attraction to another. There’s even a list of 100 fun things to do in the Houlton area.
To include as many local businesses as possible in the endeavor, the ambassadors recently sent letters to more than 200 area businesses asking if they would like to add something to the welcome packet, said York.
“It could be a coupon, a menu, pens or magnets,” she said. “If they give us 200 items they will be in 200 bags.”
Additionally, during Wednesday’s meeting, Johanna Johnston, executive director of the Southern Aroostook Development Corp. and a Gateway Ambassador, presented a proposed new brochure they could include in the welcome materials.
An important piece of the initial contact with new people is the survey designed to identify demographics and interests to give ambassadors a way to reach out with information specifically related to the individual.
It’s Rhoda’s goal to have host ambassadors who share similar interests with a new resident making one-on-one personal contacts, she said.
The town’s ambassador program really took root this spring during the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, when more than 20,000 people visited the small community. Ambassadors staffed the very busy downtown welcome center, helped with traffic control and parking and mingled at star parks and on shuttle buses to greet and assist visitors from around the world.
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