Island Falls pulls together to bolster boys home

By Michele King
Special to the Pioneer Times
    ISLAND FALLS — I couldn’t help but smile. I walked around the house and there they were; six young men pulling the old boiler out of our cellar. They were greasy, smiling and I swear their voices were a few octaves deeper as they laughed and pulled together. Prior to today, some of them had never met each other, but before long, they were united around the same purpose. They probably didn’t realize that their hard work had saved us thousands of dollars. It reinforced the belief that my husband Bob and I share that young men want to spend time with adults, want to have a purpose, and need to feel valued and loved.
Contributed photo
PULLING TOGETHER — A small army of friends and neighbors worked hard over the weekend to clean up and fix up the former Milliken Medical Center property in Island Falls in cooperation with Bob and Michele King, who are planning to create a boys home at the site. Taking part in a tug of war with an old furnace are, from left, Eric Rockwell, Ryland King, Joe Frazier, Jesse Rogerson, Gabe Schenk and Micah Rogerson.
    Everyone tells us the boys in our culture are broken, sometimes too broken to invest our time and resources into them. But I challenge those people, who broke them? We did. Adults, who are absent either physically or so preoccupied with our own world, we forget how much our children need them. We need to fix what we have broken so that our children can grow up into successful adults.
    The idea for our Brave Hearts boys home came from our own search for purpose. We knew from the bible each of us was created for a purpose and without fulfilling it, the need will go unmet. So we invested our retirement into Brave Hearts so that we could provide a caring home where young men find faith in God and purpose in life. To accomplish this, we expect to use men from the community to mentor and educate young men to reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously and expect the greater reward. They will learn the skills needed to become a successful husband, father, employee and/or member of the community.
    Before we can accomplish this, we need to renovate a 40-room facility in Island Falls. What was previously the Emma V. Milliken Memorial Hospital and Milliken Medical Center, will eventually become home to 20 young men. More than 60 people between the ages of 4 and 60 came out over weekend to help in the renovation.
    Bob and I wanted to allow people to become as invested in this ministry as we are so we allowed individuals or organizations to sponsor rooms just like when the hospital opened in 1937. Back then, rooms were sponsored by the B&A Railroad, St. Agnes Church, and the Pine Needle Club. Now we have the Paul Bunyan room sponsored by three families of Dyer Brook Community Church, the King Arthur Room sponsored by employees at National Starch Food Innovation, and most recently, a room sponsored by the family of Galen Porter. Galen, a WWII veteran, passed away this summer and his family wanted to create a room with freedom as its focal point to honor his memory.
    The rooms were to represent character traits we want to instill in the people who will stay with us at Brave Hearts; hard work, integrity, loyalty, fidelity, community and obedience to the laws of God and man. I look back at the picture of those young men pulling on that rope, and I see that it is not only possible, but inevitable when a community comes together towards a common purpose.
    Our sincere appreciation goes to everyone who provided great food and helped at Brave Hearts this weekend, including the men at the Northern Katahdin Valley Transfer Facility who helped unload time and time again.
    Brave Hearts is a corporation in the process of becoming a 501C3. A Board of Directors is active in the planning of this organization. For more information, contact the Kings at 757-7023 or e-mail to Michele.king@lpcorp.com.