Six women. Six stories. One Maine.

Coming February 2026, the Maine Women’s Project introduces The Love Letter Series, an intimate storytelling journey featuring six women sharing what Maine means to them.

These women are not only telling stories. They are shaping communities, leading quietly and boldly, and making a real difference across our state. Through lived experience and reflection, each story honors the strength, resilience, and responsibility that come with loving this place and caring for its future.

By sharing these voices within Maine and beyond it, this series brings visibility to the women who help define our state and invites a broader audience to understand Maine through the people who steward it every day.

This is a celebration of place, purpose, and impact.

Here is my love letter to Maine:

Dear Maine,

Thank you for letting me grow up in this state. A state where I always felt safe. A state where my life ebbed and flowed with the tides, where summer meant hunting for lucky rocks at the beach, where lobsters were a Sunday tradition, where I knew every neighbor by name and could count on anyone at any time. Thank you for giving me a childhood that was simple and rich and full of the kind of community that stays with you long after you leave home. Thank you for helping me become the woman I am. For teaching me early that community is the most important thing.

You showed me what it means to belong. You showed me what it means to show up for people, and what it means to have people show up for you. You taught me that strength does not always announce itself. Sometimes it is quiet, steady and humble, like the coastline that shaped me. Sometimes it is a neighbor dropping everything to help. Sometimes it is a mother or a sister or a friend doing the best they can with what they have. Growing up with you taught me that these are the people who hold a place together.

And as an adult, you continued to shape me in ways I never expected. You gave me a place to begin a career in real estate, a career I never planned on but somehow found my way into. You taught me that helping someone find a home is never about doors and windows. It is about finding the place where their story can unfold. You let me welcome newcomers to the state I love, and you gave me the privilege of witnessing the moment they felt like they belonged here too. You reminded me again and again that this work requires care, heart and humility. Nothing less.

You also gave me the people who would help me build the Maine Women’s Project. Only here could something like that take root. Only here would people support each other with such openness, generosity and sincerity. The project grew because this state has a way of connecting people, of creating space for stories to be shared, and of reminding us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

You taught me how to give back through the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute, and through the young people who will lead this state with courage and clarity. You taught me that giving back is not just something we do, but something we learn from the examples around us. You showed me that a strong community is built through contribution and care, one relationship at a time.

I am who I am because of you. Because of your quiet coastlines, your old houses with stories in their walls, your long winters that force us inward, your summers that remind us why we endure them, and your people who show up in ways that stay with you. The values that guide my work and my life were shaped by growing up here.

And I will spend the rest of my life trying to honor what you gave me. By helping people find their place here. By telling the stories that reflect your beauty, your grit and your heart. By staying rooted in the lessons you taught me and carrying them forward in everything I do.

With love,

Heather