FARMINGTON — The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day service hosted by Farmington Area Ecumenical Ministry (FAEM) will be held Monday at noon via Zoom. There will be no in-person service.
The Zoom link is here. The service will be livestreamed from the homes or perhaps the churches of those participating, organizer Anne Smith wrote in a recent email. The host minister is the Rev. Marraine Kettell of Old South Church in Farmington, she noted.
For years, FAEM has celebrated King’s life with a service of hymns, prayer and a guest speaker. This year the speaker will be Alyne Cistone. She moved her family to Maine over a decade ago following graduation from University of Nairobi and Case Western Reserve School of Law. She resides on Mount Desert Island.
As founder and CEO of Global Tides LLC, Cistone understands the nuances of living in multiple worlds. She works with clients to consider how to attract and retain people from other cultures so everyone can excel. She draws on two decades of experience working in law, government, and the nonprofit sector in arenas as diverse as the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, The Jackson Laboratory and as a management consultant for Eaton Peabody.
Cistone serves on the Board of Trustees at College of the Atlantic where she co-chairs the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce. She is an advisor for the Maine Community Foundation and the MDI Hospital Women’s Health Center and is also a mentor for the Maine New Leadership and the Mandela-Washington Fellowship programs. She volunteers for numerous organizations across Maine.
“(Cistone) was chosen because she can speak directly about issues relating to Martin Luther King’s teachings concerning equality, particularly racial equality and inclusion, coming from Kenya and living in a state which is not very racially diverse,” Smith wrote. “Her experience of integration and its challenges and her current work in helping immigrants to integrate and thrive in this society appeared to be very apt for this service.”
The special offering during the service this year will be for Open Table MDI, a nonprofit on Mount Desert Island addressing food insecurity, Smith wrote, noting people may mail checks made payable to “Open Table MDI,” P.O. Box 451, Bar Harbor, ME 04609.
The MLK service was put together by the FAEM worship committee — Anne Smith of Fairbanks Union Church in Farmington, the Rev. Kettell, the Rev. David Smith of Wilton Congregational Church, interim pastor Louise McCleery of Henderson Memorial Baptist Church in Farmington, and the Rev. Sungmin Jeon of Trinity United Methodist Church in Farmington. Other participants include Old South’s InnerRhythm drumming circle, soloists Nan Berry and Patty Schoen, and organist Patricia Hayden, Smith wrote.
For questions regarding the service, please contact Anne Smith at mclinticsmith@gmail.com.
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