After two and a half years leading the Community Center, Director Jane Good will step down effective June 1.  

She will leave behind an impressive record of accomplishments any chief executive officer would be proud to call their own.

“From the very beginning, Jane was our leader; she stepped up to the plate and carried the ball in every sense of the word,” said Margaret Perritt, founding member of the Center’s governance committee.

Good’s job description sums up her service as “The primary agent in building and sustaining the Center’s mission and vision while giving shape to its services to the community.”

The Center’s welcoming environment has drawn area residents and has more than doubled attendance from Boothbay, Southport, Boothbay Harbor and Edgecomb from 3,651 to 7,898 visits each year.

The number is expected to grow again this year with 719 visits recorded in March alone.  From an initial $500 purchase of office furnishings, the Center’s operating budget is now $31,000 with contributions from the region’s towns, organizations, individuals and fundraising events.

The Center has also increased its footprint under Good’s leadership, growing 55 percent, from 2,240 square feet to 3,477 square feet in the Meadow Mall. This, she attributes to “a helpful property owner,” Thomas Ellis and Stacey Jenkins of Ellis Commercial Management. She said they have been “a blessing” in helping the Center accommodate more programs.

Good is at her desk at the Center at least two days each week, and spends an enormous amount of time outside the Center soliciting donations, speaking publicly and participating in efforts to keep it going.

“It’s wonderful how the community has supported this and we’ve grown fast and become larger. I realized that it has become too large to manage in 16 hours each week and our activities now also include evenings and weekends. Running two businesses has become overwhelming,”  Good said about concluding her active management of the Center. Good owns Hair It Is on Southport.

In fall 2017, she brought the request for “a sustainable leadership strategy” to the Center’s executive board.

”I was worried that if something happened to me, we needed to have a plan,” she explained. Based on that discussion, three board committees and five operational groups were formed and some of Good’s responsibilities were reassigned to board members. Good and the board agreed to revisit the plan in April, "to see how it was working,” Good explained.

“I realized that I would still like to be involved in strategic planning for the Center, but the day-to-day operation is grueling work and I’ve done it all as a volunteer. I did a lot of soul searching and realized that I needed to step down to spend more time with my family,” she said.

As a result of her deliberation, she informed the board in March of her decision to step down.

She hopes to see the Center have its own building someday.

Her departure as director means she will also leave behind the daily company of the many friends and volunteers who have served by her side since the original idea was born.

This includes 68 volunteers who contribute hours every week, including those who donate their time to teach classes at the Center. 

Asked about the highlights of her time as director, Good said there are many.

Opening day for the Center is one, as is the acquisition of the Center’s van which was made possible by contributions from community leaders, including local businessman Paul Coulombe and his wife, Giselaine and members of the Congregational Church, the Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor, Captain Bruce White and the late Trudy Seybold.

The van enrichment program has been made possible by a generous grant from the Mildred McEvoy Foundation.

Good praises the work of the Center’s volunteers. “You can lead the band onto the field but there’s no music without the musicians,” she said in crediting them with the organization’s success. “We have become a community within a community.”

Asked what will happen next, Community Center Board of Directors President Shawn Lewin said the executive committee of the board has set up a team that will work over the next months to determine how to go forward, keeping everything we have provided in place for the community.

“We love Jane and realize that the hardest thing is to try to fill her shoes. She’s been amazing and she’s an inspiration and we will be good stewards of the Center and will keep it a happy and vibrant place.”