Beacons of Light:
Community Rallies to Help Family That Constantly Rallies for Them
BAR HARBOR—For years, an island couple have spent thousands of volunteer hours feeding and taking care of others. Now, the community has a chance to Mahandeva Singh and Puranjot Kaur, too.
“Through Open Table MDI, Puranjot and Mahandeva have provided free food to our community for many years. It's time to rally and help them through this tough time. This money will help them with travel, food—really anything to help them breathe a bit. It is hard for them to ask for support, but through our help, we can give them some much-needed relief,” said Zach Soares, who is organizing the fundraiser for the family on GoFundMe.
Soares said he started the GoFundMe, knowing there was a need for some financial support and knowing that the family would never ask for help, though they have spent their lives helping others.
When Puranjot Kaur and Mahandeva Singh began Open Table, they did so with a vision that combines community, service, welcoming, and food.
On its website, it reads, “the mission of Open Table MDI is to inspire strong, loving, and inclusive communities by bringing people together to share in nourishing food. Our organization helps to alleviate hunger by feeding individuals and families on Mount Desert Island and beyond.”
The focus is on food, but it’s also on love. This weekend, the island community rallied to bring love back to the couple and to try to support them as they deal with complications from Singh’s cancer surgery.
Singh moved to Bar Harbor from Virginia in the early 1990s. Kaur came to the island in the late 1990s. He’s a yoga therapist, graphic designer, father and friend who worked for years at the Burning Tree in Otter Creek. Soares worked there with him.
“Sitting down and eating a meal with people seems to be a barrier breaker—it equals the playing field,” Singh told Downeast Magazine. “You’re just a person with other people and a meal, and something, I think, magical happens within that space.”
OPEN TABLE MDI
Open Table MDI has offered weekly community suppers and an opportunity for that magical space in Bar Harbor for free since February 2018. The nonprofit was incubated by Healthy Acadia and first hosted in the basement of the Bar Harbor Congregational Church. In just 18 months, it had served more than 10,000 meals to seasonal workers, community members, and visitors. Within three years, they’d served more than 35,000 meals and fed around 400 people every single week.
That’s not counting the 150 served by the MDI Food Access Project, which is a collaboration between Open Table, COA, Beech Hill Farm, Health Acadia’s Gleaning Initiative, Island Connections, and the Bar Harbor Food Pantry. A food service delivering meals began during the pandemic.
They grew as the need grew. The kindness blossomed. The crew of volunteers grew and became more closely connected with each meal served and in 2022, the nonprofit moved to 116 Cottage Street in Bar Harbor.
“It’s universal that people want to be together. And there’s something magical that happens when you’re sharing a meal, where differences that you might have with that person…seem to melt away when you’re having some food and listening to music,” Singh said to the Mount Desert Islander’s Victoria DeCoster in January 2023. “The things that might conspire to separate us, all of that seems to dissipate. There’s just community and you realize that you’re welcome and that you fit in no matter what.”
THE SPRING EVENTS AND THIS PAST WEEK
Last spring, Singh was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In June, he began treatment. In mid-July, he had an esophagectomy (MIE) in Boston, Soares said.
A minimally invasive esophagectomy, according to UPMC, “involves small incisions through which surgeons insert a tiny camera and can remove cancerous parts of the esophagus and stomach.” Esophagectomies can involve taking out part of all of the esophagus.
Soares wrote in the GoFundMe, “As he (Singh) said before the surgery, ‘Don’t ask me how they figured out how to do this, but apparently, it’s a thing.’”
On August 14, Wednesday, Singh was allowed to drive home with Kaur.
“They began to settle into their new normal. While they expected some tough times ahead, they weren’t expecting what came next,” Soares wrote.
The next night, Singh’s fever spiked and his lungs weren’t functioning correctly. The family consulted with Boston medical professionals and headed to the Mount Desert Island Hospital ER on Friday morning. The hospitals coordinated care. Tests were run.
“A CT scan showed a possible leak in the new connection they’ve made inside his body after his esophagus was removed,” Soares wrote. “They tested for this possibility while they were in Boston, but that initial CT scan came back clear. His surgeon immediately wanted to get him back down to Boston for an exploratory scope and to plan the next steps.”
It’s a blow for Singh and the family.
“Of course, he’s handled every setback with profound grace and calm. His doctors and nurses at MDI kept commenting that they couldn’t believe his demeanor after everything he’d been through,” Soares said.
That demeanor is part of what makes Singh so special to the community and so effective in creating that kindness and openness and light.
“Mahandeva and Puranjot are neighbors, friends, and inspirations. I've walked around pool decks—and swum across lakes—with Puranjot, and her passion for swimming is surpassed only by the love, joy, and pride she finds in coaching her swimmers. Mahandeva's gentle spirit crackles with life, and his deep compassion finds expression— obviously—in his vision that everyone has enough to eat, and that everyone has a place at the table of welcome and belonging. It is an honor to live, walk, and swim alongside them, and Cristy and I join our voices to the chorus of everyone wishing Mahan Deva a speedy recovery, and wishing both of them warmth, peace, hope, and love along the way. We walk with them in prayer,” said Rob Benson. Cristy Benson is married to Rob and a teacher at MDI High School.
Singh spent 21 hours in the emergency room Friday into Saturday. An ambulance took him to the Bar Harbor Airport at 9:00 a..m on August 17. He flew to Boston via LifeFlight’s medical airplane.
“We are so lucky to have these skilled clinicians who offer these lifesaving services to our rural community,” Soares wrote. “Puranjot is staying in Bar Harbor, for now, to try to get their house in order, get a kid packed for college, and just generally try to make sense of life. It is possible that after the scope, his surgeon will want to observe him for a bit.”
It was Singh’s birthday on Sunday. Soares said he was in good spirits. Doctors are trying to determine what is happening with his fever and waiting for him to heal, Soares said.
“He has always been an incredibly kind person,” Soares said. “They feed so many people and have for years. Open Table is his baby and when he got sick, he worried about the future of Open Table as much as his own health.”
HEALING AND LOVE
Kaur wrote to the community on Sunday.
“Every donation, every share, and every kind word has made a profound impact. It’s not just the financial help that we appreciate, but also the strength and encouragement you've given us. Knowing that so many people love and are rooting for Mahandeva’s swift recovery has been a powerful source of comfort and hope,” she wrote.
”As we move forward, we continue to be inspired by your generosity and compassion. Words cannot fully express how much this means to us, but please know that we are deeply touched and forever grateful,” she continued.
The GoFundMe page is here. Created two days ago, it has raised over $13,000.
There are 333 GoFundMe pages currently linked to Bar Harbor, just one small community on Mount Desert Island. They all ask for help in different ways. Some are for families dealing with loss, dealing with cancer, for families whose homes have burned, for school math teams, memorials, a teacher’s concussion relief, football championship rings, volunteer projects, and cruise ship battles.
Some are fully funded. Some are not, but all are moments where people ask for help—for themselves, for others, for their causes, for their grief, and for their dreams—and help is given. It is a litany of need, but also a testament to vulnerability and to kindness.
“Iz and I are fans of the musician Noah Kahan, who grew up in a small town in Vermont called Strafford and takes much inspiration from growing up in New England. In one of his songs, ‘A View Between Villages,’ there is a small interview at the end of the song with two older community members. One of them, Melvin Coburn, who has run the general store in South Strafford for 50 years says this about the town: ‘Well, I guess it’s a small community of people that really look out for each other. And that’s the same way with anybody that needs anything. . .this, this community is there to help.’”
”Every time I listen to that song,” she wrote, “I immediately think of Mount Desert Island and all of those from near and far that we are blessed to think of as our community. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being a beacon of light during this time. We are truly blessed to have such amazing people in our lives.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
All Bar Harbor GoFundMes. All when searching for Mount Desert Island.
Mahandeva and Puranjot’s family’s GoFundMe
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