Meaghan Woodsome

Marketing & Communications
for Nonprofits & Business

 The Johnson & Korda Innovation Award

The Hope Awards, Shalom House, Inc. 

November 5, 2015

Good evening everyone. My name is Meaghan Woodsome and I have privileged to serve as the President of Amistad, Inc. I want to take just a moment to acknowledge tonight’s sponsors and donors and Shalom House, their board and executive director, the host committee and of course Jill Silander for holding this ceremony. It’s important as change agents that we take time out of the rush of our days to recognize extraordinary work. So I thank you for giving us this opportunity to do just that. And of course, I congratulate tonight’s honorees for all that they have achieved in their distinguished careers. Bill and Peter, thank you for your service.

Amistad is based in Portland. We are Maine’s largest peer support and recovery center, serving adults with severe and persistent mental illness and other life challenges.  We are a community where everyone is always welcome on a first name basis without regard to diagnosis and where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Amistad started out quite small more than 30 years ago as a community center created by families of loved ones with mental illness in order to give them a safe place to spend time and engage in meaningful activities.  Our peer center continues to be a welcoming, low barrier community offering a recovery- focused complement – or alternative – to more traditional mental health services.  Twenty years ago, we had the great fortune of hiring an executive director with a vision of expanding this respectful, peer-driven model out into the wider community. As a result, today Amistad runs a variety of Peer-based programs that extend beyond our doors. Our Peer Support specialists are in the Emergency Rooms at Maine Med and Mercy hospitals, at Riverview Psychiatric Center up in Augusta, and they work as coaches in the greater Portland community. Additionally, we have organized the Peer Support Specialist Network of Maine, a statewide network of Peer Support workers designed to promote and expand Peer Services by defining and formalizing the service model. 

Amistad is distinguished by its focus on building relationships with individuals that is based on mutuality and a willingness to be with members as a fellow human being – not a service provider and client. We interact, we laugh, we cry, and we goof off with members in healthy and meaningful ways. We do the little things — remember birthdays, celebrate accomplishments, take pictures, and memorialize members when they pass.

As a result, Amistad is one of the most authentic and heart-driven communities you’ll find. While it is our membership that makes this community so special, I credit its strength and longevity to the person who’s been at the helm for the last two decades – Peter Driscoll, our Executive Director.  

When I asked Peter what he’d like me to share about him this evening – perhaps where he went to school? Or his certifications?  he responded in typical Peter fashion, “I don’t care about that stuff.”

I’ll walk into Peter’s office for a meeting and say, “Alright Peter, we’ve got a lot to cover, how are we doing on...” And he’ll interrupt me to ask, “Meaghan, how was your weekend?” And I have to stop and catch my mind up to where Peter is. It’s a reminder to slow down and connect. This is something Peter does with mastery. It’s not taught at university and you can’t certify it.  

In working with Peter over the last year, and more importantly, in listening to people with whom he works, I’ve learned the following:

• Peter cares deeply, and in a very personal way, about people and especially about the people at Amistad. They are family to him in a way that transcends cliché.

• Peter is greatly loved and has been described as having “the warm, gentle, loving heart of a giant.”  

• Peter is authentic and is frequently found bussing tables at lunchtime, cleaning bathrooms on revitalization day, and welcoming members to his home for the annual cookout. He speaks his mind – one person described him as “very vocal,” quickly following up with, “this is refreshing.”  Peter will show up in court to speak on your behalf because he believes in you. And if you’re having a hard time, he knows your name and he’ll ask “Are you’re ok, what do you need?” As one member said, “He talks to you when you have a bad day and makes you feel loved.” 

I suspect Peter would be much more comfortable if I sang Amistad’s praises instead of his, and so I will, because what Amistad is today is very much a testament to Peter’s ability to bring people together to create something truly meaningful.

A community stakeholder recently said it best and I hope she won’t mind if I quote her in anonymity.  “What I love most about Amistad, a direct reflection of Peter, is that it is independent and has its own definition of hope that can't be duplicated. I can trust that when I tell someone about Amistad and they go there, what I told them remains true. That they will be welcomed, in a safe place, and encouraged to be their best self... That if they give of themselves, they will be accepted and appreciated. That is a gift - to them and also to me. It is very rare. Amistad is exactly what they believe and set out to be.”

The Johnson & Korda Innovation Award is a fitting honor for a man who has devoted his career to truly person-centered work. It is my great pleasure to introduce Peter Driscoll.