Welcome to the fall edition of Cobscook Currents! It might feel like it has been awhile since you received one of these—that is because we chose not to send one out at our usually scheduled time of late March due to the many uncertainties of the pandemic. We hope this fall edition will bring you up to speed about our recent work and developments. You can read past editions of Cobscook Currents, and of our e-newsletter, Cobscook Waves, on our website: www.cobscookinstitute.org.

In challenging times like these, we all rely on safe harbors—those calm places that provide the opportunity to reflect and reassess our navigation forward. As the Board Chair since this past summer, I have been facilitating our team process of bringing Cobscook Institute back into the safe harbor of collective, community-based work—to realign the organization for these times and around our core values of peace, honesty, respect, and empowerment— and invite the next generation into our work.

Cobscook Institute has served as a community safe harbor for more than two decades, and continues to serve as one now. In this edition of Cobscook Currents, you’ll read about how our virtual programming has been a safe harbor for many, near and far, and you’ll hear from high school students about how Cobscook Experiential Programs have impacted them. We share some exciting developments in the work of TREE: Transforming Rural Experience in Education, and about Cobscook Institute's role in a promising new worldwide initiative that will help us all chart a path towards local, regional, and global health. You will also read about two particular friends of Cobscook Institute who have supported us with their skills and commitment for the past several years.

Cobscook Institute’s grassroots, community-centered work, which is responsive to the realities of the times, is more important now than ever. The greatest gift that we can give to support this work into the future is to realize that we are all one family: people, the forests, the sea, the animals, and the tides—all life is in this together and we all must work as one thoughtful and cooperative being.