Quarry Hill Celebrates 20th Anniversary
CAMDEN, June 16, 2022 – Quarry Hill has announced plans for a celebration of its 20th anniversary and is asking the public to contribute stories about how the community has cared for them and their families.
Designed around the theme “Rooted in Caring,” the year-long observance will draw attention to the role that Quarry Hill has played as the Penobscot Bay region’s leading extended-care community for older adults.
“At our 20-year mark, we think it’s important to pause and reflect on our origin story,” commented Quarry Hill executive director Loriman Looke. “As time goes by, organizations like ours grow and evolve. Newcomers arrive who weren’t around in the early years, and in our collective memory it becomes easier and easier to forget the work it took to build support for the project at its inception, help it grow, and keep it true to its mission.”
Quarry Hill began as the brainchild of a group of local citizens with a bold vision: the creation of a community devoted exclusively to the well-being of older adults. Work on the project began in earnest in 2000, after trustees of an affiliation of healthcare organizations then known as Northeast Health (later known as Pen Bay Healthcare and now as Coastal Healthcare Alliance) gave the idea the official green light. The Camden Health Center— which had served as both hospital and nursing home for local communities since 1960—was replaced with 45 cottage homes and a main building, the Anderson Inn—all testaments, said Looke, to the commitment and hard work of hundreds of community supporters and more than 300 builders, finishers, managers, contractors and architects.
Today, Quarry Hill is home to some 200 seniors and provides independent living, traditional and dementia-specific assisted living, and nursing care that are considered among the best in Maine.
To help celebrate the anniversary, individuals who’ve had direct experiences with Quarry Hill as residents or nursing-care patients, or who have friends or family members who have, are invited to send in brief (one- or two-paragraph) written testimonials. The plan is to incorporate as many of these recollections as possible in programming and publications over the next 12 months. Testimonials may be submitted no later than July 31, 2022, by mailing them to Quarry Hill Marketing Office, 30 Community Drive, Camden, ME 04843; by emailing them to qhinfo@mainehealth.org; or by messaging Quarry Hill on Facebook. Quarry Hill reserves the right to decide which submissions to use and to edit for concision and clarity; names will be withheld upon request.
