To aid island during pandemic, students forgo senior trip

Students from a Maine island high school have seen the world on senior class trips -- the Eiffel Tower, Iceland’s volcanos, Norway’s fjords, the canals of Italy, the tropical beaches of Panama.

This year, members of Islesboro Central School’s Class of 2021 — all 13 of them — were eyeing a trip to Greece, or maybe South Korea. But they wound up going nowhere.

Instead, they donated $5,000 to help out neighbors struggling in the wake of the pandemic.

It was painful, no doubt. But in the end, it wasn’t a difficult decision.

“It felt sort of obvious that it needed to go back to the island community,” said Olivia Britton, 17, of Belfast, one of this month’s graduates.

Before the pandemic put the kibosh on further fundraising -- including their annual auction -- the seniors raised nearly $8,000 by working concession stands, holding harvest and winter festivals, and hosting community suppers.

Much of that money would end up going to the Island Community Fund to help people suffering from COVID-19-related job losses to put food on the table or cover unexpected expenses.

The pandemic hasn’t been easy for young people anywhere in the United States, and the tight-knit island community has felt the effects keenly.

Five of the Islesboro Central School seniors take the ferry from the mainland, while the rest live on the island, which has about 700 year-round residents. So the students were not only isolated by the pandemic but they were also split apart, unable to gather for months, with a three-mile gulf between the island and the mainland.

The Class of 2021 had long been accustomed to doing things together. For Halloween, the class would coordinate group costumes and pile into a school-owned van, driven by an English teacher, to go trick or treating together on the island.

It was...