Volunteering at ‘Maine Needs’ brings connection to community

PORTLAND, Maine — Seventy-four-year-old Lee Cooper’s favorite thing to do is shop — at least, while he’s volunteering at Portland-based Maine Needs. After he arrives for his shift, he picks up an order slip from the front desk and grabs a bag off a nearby shelf.

“We’ll go fill this up,” Cooper says as he unfolds the bag. “I usually start with shoes because they go on the bottom and they’re heavy.”

Cooper is picking out shoes and other items for a 62-year-old man who has found housing after two years of homelessness. Maine Needs collects donations of clothes, bedding, toiletries, even cleaning supplies and fills specific requests that social workers and other community providers make for clients.

“Think of it like a food bank with no food,” he says. “I mean, we do everything else but food.”

Maine Needs started as a Facebook group out of a garage in 2019. Now, it’s a nonprofit in a 16,000-square-foot facility fueled by more than 3,500 volunteers. It serves the entire state, though most requests come from providers in southern Maine.

In one room, seemingly endless racks of clothing lead to a wall stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes of boots donated by L.L. Bean. Cooper picks out a pair.

“Oh, those look like those’ll qualify for winter boots,” he says as he inspects them. “Just make sure the size is, yeah — 8 1/2. So, that’s what he requested. We’re able to do that.”

As he works his way down the list, the bag fills up with underwear, socks, pants and shirts.

“And then he also wants some cleaning things, so we’ll have to go in the other room for that,” says Cooper after he drops toothpaste and a couple toothbrushes in the bag.

Cooper doesn’t meet the people he’s shopping for, but he still feels a connection. He recalls an especially memorable order for a woman who was moving into a sober house after being incarcerated.

“I know what it’s like in early sobriety,” he says. “I’ve been sober for 33 years. And I did the best packing job I could for her. Tried to pick the prettiest, the newest. And then I gave her a minute-for-mom kit, which is a kit we do for moms as a rule, which has fancy soap and sometimes a hairbrush or other things that people wouldn’t normally ask for. And then I gave her a deck of cards and I wrote her a note that just said, ‘Good luck in your sobriety.’ I hope she’s doing well. That’s all I can say, because I’ll never know.”

Throughout his adult life, Cooper has carved out time to volunteer. He has supported several conservation groups as well as Habitat for Humanity. At Maine Needs, he started out donating money. But last November, Cooper says he wanted to do something more tangible. He now volunteers at least twice a week and often brings in donations he has collected.

Items tend to move quickly. A dish drainer and duffel bag he brought in this morning are gone by lunchtime.

Cooper says the broader community is also quick to respond when certain items are in demand.

“What happens a lot is we put a request out on Instagram or Facebook: ‘We’re out of fans. Could people please donate?’ And the next thing we know, UPS is delivering 20 fans from three or four different people who bought them and had them shipped to us,” he says.

Jo Albanese, who oversees volunteers at Maine Needs, says so far this year they’ve filled more than 9,500 orders, some of which are for multiple families. Albanese says they couldn’t do it without volunteers like Cooper. He jumps in to help wherever needed.

“He’s done everything from filling orders to painting walls multiple times, you know, like, very easy going soul and just lovely to be, be around,” she says.

But Cooper says he didn’t always see himself that way.

“I was not always a kind person,” he says. “I mean, I thought I was kind, but I was self-serving.”

While volunteering at Maine Needs, he sees how so many people need so much. And that, he says, keeps him grounded.

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