This year, cancer and death hit just a bit too close for us timing wise to do a good piece on the YWCA’s Carol Dyer Luminaria, but we didn’t want to let it go by without marking it. It’s important. Remembering and advocating and loving are always important. We hope you’ll forgive us this reprint and tweak of a previous story. Next year, we’ll do better. Apologies - Carrie
BAR HARBOR—On a Saturday night in August as the sun’s light faded and the moon rose, volunteers organized by the YWCA Mount Desert Island walked through the paths on the Village Green, backs bent, lighters in hand, illuminating one white paper bag after another. On each bag was a name. Each bag represented a person who had cancer.
On a park bench closer to the Reel Pizza side, a woman sobbed into a man’s shoulder, her long brown hair obscuring her face, but not her words, not her sorrow.
“There are just so many,” she cried.
“I know,” he soothed. “I know.”
Throughout the event, WDEA’s Chris Popper said the names on the bags, one after another, dozens and dozens and dozens of names, of people, of community members, of loved ones.
The event began, according to Ann Worrick, “As a way to honor our dear friend Carol Dyer after she lost her battle with brain cancer in June of 2001. Inspired by a local Relay for Life event, particularly the luminaria ceremony held during the walk, we got to work planning our first event. It started out as a small gathering to provide us with an outlet to both celebrate and grieve. And we have become inspired and humbled by how much it has grown over the years.”
It has kept on going.
Back in 2016, the Bar Harbor YBs (a group of local women) said that the Carol Dyer Memorial “Light the Way to a Cure” was coming to an end after 15 years, but it’s 2025 now and the candles are going to be lit again.
Each year, every year, more people have cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2023, there will be 10,490 new cancer diagnoses in Maine.
Worrick said in 2023, “We hope that the legacy of this event is to inspire you all to reach out and do positive work in your community on any scale. We know we will.”
The annual event on the Village Green is meant to honor those who are surviving cancer and those who have not. It’s about celebration for those who are here and honor for those who are not.
One man lighting candle after candle offered another man sitting on a bench a chance to light the luminary of his loved one himself. “Would you like to?”
The man’s lips pressed in for a second before he gave a quick nod. “Yes, yes, I would. Thank you. What do I do?”
You light the flame. You think. You are present.
Carol Dyer was a children’s librarian at the Jesup Memorial Library. She had a brain tumor and died in 2001. Each year on Bar Harbor’s Village Green, luminaries glow along the walkways. On each bag is a name. The names are of a litany of friends and loved ones. No, that’s wrong.
The bags are a litany of those who are loved and who have been impacted by cancer.
Since the event began, well over $75,000 has been raised for the American Cancer Society. Each year bags can be purchased before or during the event.
On that Saturday in 2023, April Cough McGuire sang from the gazebo. Chris Popper was the master of ceremonies. Year after year, people like Cough McGuire and Popper volunteer to sing, to call out names, to lead us all in remembering and action. That’s because that’s what a community is, what it does, how it stays together: by honoring, by action, and by remembering.
This year’s beneficiary is Sarah's House of Maine.
According to the YWCA MDI, “Our very first luminaria evening was a memorial to Carol Dyer, a children's librarian and friend of YWCA MDI. Now hundreds of luminaria light the Bar Harbor Village Green each August to remember Carol and all our friends and family lost to cancer, and to honor those living with it.”
LINKS TO ORDER AND LEARN MORE
To find out more about the YWCA MDI, click here.
All photos Carrie Jones/BHS
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CORRECTION! Many thanks to Kathy Robbins who alerted me that I’d written that April French sang rather than April Cough McGuire. That error is absolutely my fault and I apologize. I think I hyper fixated on Alice’s luminary in one of the images and her family and my brain glitched somehow. Many apologies to both families. This was corrected at 6:20 a.m., August 11, 2025.
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Hello Carrie and Shawn,
Thank you so much for all the wonderful coverage you do of local events. I was hoping that you could add to your “what’s going on this week” column the MDI Episcopal Historical Museum located at St. Saviour’s. It is open to the public every Tuesday from 10am to 2pm throughout the summer. I would also love it if either of you visited some Tuesday. I am sure you would find it very interesting.
Thank you,
Diane Zito (yes, Carrie, Bedford, NH)