What Does a Fishing Debry Have to do wtih Meals on Wheels?
By guest writer Ryan Poirier, Regional Nutrition/Facility Coordinator
Spectrum Generations Muskie Community Center, Waterville
From left: Ryan Poirier and Dave Marshall, a member of the Ice Fishing Derby Committee, weighing in fish at the Gene and Lucille Ice Fishing Derby outside Spectrum Generations Muskie Center in Waterville.
Working for a nonprofit means always looking for new ways to raise funds to support the good work we do. Fourteen years ago our Center Director at that time, Debra Silva, had a great idea. “What about having a fishing derby?” That is how the Gene and Lucille Annual Fishing Derby came to be 14 years ago.
One Monday morning at a staff meeting, Debra pitched the idea of a fishing derby to the staff. I’m not really sure how much she knew about fishing and derby’s, but as luck would have it the cook, Ray Bedard, and I loved to fish. We really didn’t know that much about running a derby, but we jumped on board. How hard could it be?
Ray Bedard and I took on challenge of putting on a Fishing Derby to raise money for a program we loved, the Meals on Wheels Program. We both worked in the kitchen at the time making about 200 Meals on Wheels a day, so it wasn’t hard to like the idea of raising money to help feed more homebound seniors and the disabled. We created a committee to help us out with this and started calling on people from local bait shops and friends of the Muskie Center that shared our love of fishing and the outdoors
Our plan was to have a derby that would not only help Meals on Wheels, but also bring in a lot of new people that had never been to the Muskie Center before. The first big step was, what we were going to call it? Several names were put in the hat, but the Gene & Lucille Letourneau Ice Fishing Derby was the winner!
I have to tell you a little bit about why we picked that name. We all knew Gene Letourneau. He was a great fisherman and hunter and had written books on both topics and wrote articles for the news papers. His wife was a Meals on Wheels driver for Spectrum Generations Muskie Center for many years. The funny thing about that was, she never had a driver’s license! Lucille would get her friends to drive her around to drop off the meals - and when there was no one to drive her – she would hire a taxi to drive her around! That kind of dedication and support is what makes the program possible.
This February will be Spectrum Generations Muskie Center’s 14th Annual Gene and Lucille Fishing Derby. The Letourneau family continues to support the Ice Fishing Derby every year. Their sons, daughters, grand children, and great grand children and great, great grand children still come to help us pass out prizes at our annual Fishing Derby. At least 300 to 400 people pass though the Muskie Center on that day. Both kids and adult have a great time and leave with big smiles on their faces. It’s more than fishing and prizes, its also knowing that they have helped to raise money to put food on the tables of people that they don’t even know.
As you could guess, this event takes a lot of man power to pull together and we could always use more help. If you would like to join the fun of putting on this annual event, I can be reached at 873-4745 or at rpoirier@spectrumgenerations.org.
See you on the ice!