The Sunflower Project is the brainchild of community artist and grower Naomi Hannam. She is the founder of Creative Roots, which runs bespoke craft workshops in ink making, weaving, natural dying, foraging and drawing in nature. However, when all her workshops and teaching sessions were cancelled during the first lockdown, Naomi found work on an organic farm and began dreaming of the day when she could gather some of the sunflowers grown there and share them. Last summer she sold and gave away hundreds of bunches of flowers, enjoying seeing the joy they brought to the people she met. Not content to leave it there though, she has now developed a project with the ambition to connect communities to one another and spread the joy of growing sunflowers.
Pandemic leads to run on diaper bank as families struggle with finances
A Portland based non-profit provides free diapers to parents who can t afford them, and the need has skyrocketed.
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Packages of diapers are stacked at the Michael Klahr Jewish Family Services Diaper Bank on Dec. 23. The diaper bank is the only one in southern Maine and has seen a dramatic rise in need since the start of the pandemic.
Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
In the six years since the opening of southern Maine’s only diaper bank, the need has never been so high.
How to get help from a diaper bank