To My Community,
I am grateful to call Brunswick, Maine my home. During my 35 years of living and raising a family here, I have grown to care deeply about the wellbeing of our community; the people, the safety net organizations, the hospital, and businesses. I am passionate about ensuring your right to affordable, quality, publicly funded healthcare and will work hard to pass legislations guaranteeing this.
I care that we all benefit from an excellent education, a clean, healthy environment, nutritious food on the table, and a safe place to call home. We must work for a community that is free from systemic discrimination, economic hardship, and regressive taxation. If we are all to prosper and contribute, as members of this community, these things are critically important. I care and that is why I am running to be your next District 49 State Representative.
I am a lifelong Democrat committed to the values & beliefs embraced by the Maine Democratic Party Platform. I champion the party’s support of clean elections and have been certified to run as a Maine Clean Elections Act candidate.
I have worked hard for many years and grown in depth and breadth as a skilled leader, team member, and collaborator. My experience as an Outward Bound instructor leading wilderness expeditions, as a Registered Substance Abuse Counselor, as the initiator, developer, and director of ShareCenter, a program that provides low-cost resource materials to teachers, are all examples. I was elected to serve on the Brunswick Town Council where I was a leader in starting our town-wide recycling program, planned for and supported the building of a new High School, and participate in the search and hiring of a new Town Manager.
My education includes a BA in Social Work and graduation from the Hanley Institute’s Health Leadership Development program. Most recently I have used this training as a patient advocate, leader, and mediator. I was appointed by the Governor to serve as the Consumer Representative on the Maine Health Data Organization Board of Directors. During my 6 years on the Board I was a leader in developing policies for health cost transparency and public engagement, while championing development of the CompareMaine health care cost & quality website, and the MHDO Consumer advisory Group. I currently serve on the Right Care Alliance (RCA) governing body, a healthcare delivery and financing transformation organization, where I started and lead the RCA Patient Council.
I will close by acknowledging how life has changed dramatically for all, and quite harshly for many, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand the urgent, critical need for our community, state, and country to come together, and while respecting our cultural and ideological differences, focus our actions on saving lives, recovering from the pandemic, and rebuilding our economy.
I will continue to be a leader who focuses on finding common ground, and staying strong as a community that faces challenges together. I thank the voters of District 49 for putting me on the ballot as the Democratic candidate for District 49 State Representative and ask for your vote in the November 3rd General Election. In return you can count on me to use my leadership experience, collaboration, and teamwork skill, to represent you, to hear you out, respect your ideas, so that together, as a community of diverse people, we recover and thrive.
I appreciate your interest in my candidacy. I welcome the opportunity to to talk with you,
to hear what you care about and answer your questions..
Please give me a call at 207-725-8486
Email me at poppy4staterep@gmail.com
Visit my webpage: https://poppy4staterep.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Poppy4StateRep/
Thank you again,
Poppy
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