It is my pleasure to share why I will vote for candidate Jan Collins (East Wilton, ME.) in the upcoming election for Maine State Senate District 17.
I have known Jan as a local friend and a fellow Wilton resident for many years. We have collaborated on a variety of community and broader activities as volunteers.
Jan’s history of giving to her community and devoting herself to broader fields of service is standard for her in several arenas. Such as her nature- and science-related work with bats with the Maine Master Naturalists.
She has also tirelessly given of her time and energy to prisoners in Maine State Prison in Maine. Jan is a paragon of compassion, mentoring, and service to others. In short, a talented, intelligent, well-informed and well-connected citizen.
Jan brings to her Senate campaign her signature tirelessness, her commitment to human society on several levels, her familiarity with the natural world, and her usual passion for learning as much as possible about any goal that she embraces.
As a person, Jan is calm, collected, and enthusiastic, even under a load of pressure.
When she sees a friend or acquaintance, her special enfolding smile lights her way as she approaches the person.
As a comrade-in action, my most special and memorable experience with Jan was her, and her husband Irv Faunce’s, year as host parents to a bright, scholarly girl who traveled from Pakistan to live in Jan and Irv’s home on their blueberry farm. My husband and I were officially Local Coordinators for a federal exchange program for high school students from countries with which the United States has had challenging interactions. Thus, during that school year, I spent a lot of time with Jan and her household.
That East-West partnership became part of the fabric of Jan and Irv’s life for a year.
When the year ended, and the student returned to Pakistan, Jan and Irv have found ways and means to continue the relationship with the now college-student as well as her entire family in Pakistan… a bright ongoing connection between two very different cultures.
I tell these details about Jan in her drive to act as a potential legislator and advocate for causes. But more than anything, Jan Collins has exactly the best qualifications to act as an aware and wise intervenor with constituents and with legislative peers.
Paula Widmer
Farmington
