The Soul of Bar Harbor Might Be Right On Park Street
Lenny DeMuro and Others Celebrate a Birthday
BAR HARBOR—Former executive director Lenny DeMuro calls the MDI YMCA, the soul of the Bar Harbor community. And that soul turned 125 this year.
It was time to celebrate that, MDI YMCA Executive Director Ann Tikkanen decided. So, they did.
The MDI YMCA held its celebration at the Bar Harbor Club on Thursday night, a celebration that included a paddle raise and silent auction to help raise funds for a program meant to teach young children to swim for free. It was also a celebration of longevity, connection, and community.
“That history of the YMCA’s success is also the shared story of this community’s success,” said Earl Brechlin former editor of the Mount Desert Islander, author, and current town councilor and Bar Harbor Historical Society board member.
History is about facts, but it’s also about the poetry and the people beneath the facts; it’s about how those facts shape lives and therefore shape communities. The YMCA has been a huge part of that for Bar Harbor.
A conscious community is not just a place where people share interests in a geographic space or building like the MDI YMCA. It’s something that changes over the years. It isn’t static. But it’s also a place where people come together with an intention and a purpose. That purpose and intention? It’s what the MDI YMCA has tried to cultivate for 125 years.
The soul of the community isn’t about the horizontal connections between a diverse group of people—and it is a politically diverse group of humans who volunteer, work, and use the Y—it’s about the depths, those deeper connections that happen with purpose.
“We’ve played musical directors since the new Y opened. The first time I felt really positive for the future was when I met Ann Tikkanen two years ago,” DeMuro said at the celebration, speaking before a couple hundred people.
According to the YMCA of the USA, “The YMCA is the leading nonprofit committed to strengthening individuals and communities across the country. At the Y, we’re here to help you find your “why”—your greater sense of purpose—by connecting you with opportunities to improve your health, support young people, make new friends and contribute to a stronger, more cohesive community for all.”
That’s a lot of words to explain something that might not be explainable, something that might only be livable: the point of the YMCA and the connections it brings.
“I always wanted to make my central point that the YMCA—our YMCA—was the soul of Bar Harbor,” DeMuro said.
DeMuro would know.
Early mornings and late evenings, for years and years Lenny DeMuro’s life revolved around the YMCA swimming schedule. If the lights were on at the Y very early or very late, people knew DeMuro was there, waiting for his swimmers or saying goodbye for the night.
“Lenny made the swim team a family,” his son Tony DeMuro told the Ellsworth American’s Craig Crosby back in 2005. “Though members of the family may not have always gotten along with each other, they always got along with him.”
Lenny DeMuro was named to the Swimming Hall of Fame back in 2005. He’d already been in the local swimming hall of fame, which exists in the hearts and minds of MDI swimmers for more than three decades. DeMuro coached for almost 30 years, teaching thousands of kids how to be an athlete and a good human being in the pool and out of it between 1974 and 2001.
DeMuro went to Bowdoin College. Bowdoin required graduates to learn to swim. He did. But when it came to learning how to coach, that came from books and clinics and asking other coaches lots of questions. One of those books was The Science of Swimming, given by Lucy MacQuinn, a swim parent.
He combined the human measures of coaching and the analytical study of strokes, of science. That’s a bit of the way the MDI YMCA works, too. Staff and volunteers combine empathy and problem solving with data and systems.
J.J. Smith, one of Lenny’s swimmers said in 2010, “For me, the life lessons, there were so many. The important things I took away from Lenny was how to be a better person, how to interact with others, and how to behave.”
Work hard, have fun, be kind, do your best were mantras as much as “MDI! MDI! SHARK! SHARK SHARK!” was.
“We were always good sports, but we had swagger,” Tony DeMuro told Jeff Walls, writing for the Mount Desert Islander in 2010. “We knew that we were having more fun than other teams. When we walked into a place, people would check us out because we were hanging out with Dad and he was like that. He was the one making us sing ‘Born to be Wild’ the whole way down to the meet. We would get off the bus singing, swinging our bags around, goofing around, go in, kick their butts, say thank you, and leave. Other teams were like, “Who are these people?’”
Those people were Lenny’s people.
“He was never satisfied,” Tony told the Ellsworth American for its May 2005 article. “He was always trying to learn more.”
Lenny DeMuro coached MDI High School from 1981 to 1986 and from 1996 to 1998. He coached at the MDI YMCA program, a program he built, from 1974 to 2001. His teams won the U.S. Swimming Championship for Maine (1988,1989, 1991). In 1996 and 1998, he was named coach of the year.
New Englands? His teams won four of the championships. Individual swimmers took more than 30 New England championships, qualified for YMCA Nationals more than 100 times. One swimmer went to the Olympic trails. Underneath the weight of about one foot of snow, the old roof collapsed over the pool in March 1993. DeMuro shepherded them all through it, singing.
“The current YMCA is 25 years old,” Brechlin said, adding that it rose out of tragedy when the roof collapsed at its last location on Mount Desert Street.
At the time, 35-year-old Kathryn Elk told Kathy Harbour of the Bangor Daily News that she didn’t know what she’d do without the pool for any length of time.
“I turned to swimming for my health as it was something that I could count on,” Elk said. “There are so many people who have relied on that pool.”
Elk had diabetes and credited her YMCA swims with keeping her healthier. The pool, fitness programs, even the ability to congregate and talk to other people all create bonds and health for community members, then and now.
"It seemed so daunting. It seemed so out of reach,” Brechlin said of the rebuild decision and the $3.6 million fundraising goal.
But it wasn’t. The YMCA broke ground in March 1996. The YMCA was built. The YMCA remained. The soul of the community continued.
Jeff Walls quoted Lenny DeMuro as saying, “I was never very good at anything. But I had great empathy.”
That empathy led him.
That empathy leads the YMCA still.
Tikkanen is known for talking to everyone, arms open, fast-walking across the parking lot, her voice chorusing out, “How are you? How are you?”
At the greeting table as people entered the club, Bar Harbor YMCA staff members greeted everyone like old friends, smiling wide as they helped people with table assignments and name tags.
That same empathy and kindness spread from table to table at the event as board members, volunteers, swim team parents, business people, day camp dads, and town dignitaries shared tables and greetings and stories.
In at least one case, a known local Republican shouted to a known Democrat, her arms wide open, “I love you!”
They were loved back.
“How are you?” those attending said, echoing Tikkanen. “How are you really?”
DeMuro was doing quite fine himself, bringing the crowd to laughter as he related his stories where he initially was actually kicked out of the Y as a kid growing up in Bar Harbor, over and over again. But then, someone realized he really wanted to be there but just couldn’t afford to be there. They gave him a scholarship.
“It was one of the happiest days of my life,” he said during an event hosted by the Mount Desert Island Historical Society in June 2010.
Another scholarship (this time to play football) brought him to Bowdoin. And it was there, thanks to the swim coach and Charlie Butt, that Lenny learned to swim. When his daughter Debbie wanted to join the swim team at the MDI YMCA, he volunteered to help. He eventually became the executive director.
“Because I was the only one who knew how to turn the lights out,” Lenny said, laughing.
Then, the swim coach left and Lenny couldn’t find someone else, so he became the coach. To keep the team afloat, he named them the Sharks, made awesome t-shirts and would bribe people with them. That was back in 1974 and the shirts (and Lenny) were so great, there were over 80 kids on the team.
In 2020, J.J. Smith said of DeMuro, “There was no escaping Lenny’s voice. There was something magnetic about it. Whenever you heard that voice, you knew something exciting was going to happen.”
That voice, that promise, it hooked him. It hooked a lot of people. To swim with Lenny, to hang out with him, to see his empathy in action, was always an experience.
The soul of Bar Harbor was the YMCA, and it was Lenny DeMuro. Now, it’s also Anne Tikkanen and her staff and volunteers. Now, it’s also the kids who go to the YMCA, who play and learn and compete and grow and learn how empathy in action actually works.
One scholarship at a time.
One meeting at a time.
One hug at a time.
One “how are you doing” at a time.
“I’ll never forget being one of Lenny’s kids,” Daniel Goldthwait told the Bangor Daily’s Abigail Curtis in 2005. “I can only hope that the values he instilled in me will be passed on to my kids.”
At the celebration, former legislator, former town councilor, nurse and writer Jill Goldthwait received an award and spent much of her time praising the Y and how it impacted Danny.
“I love this community,” she said and called coming to the Y the best decision of her life.
“Our son was particularly a Y rat,” she said. “I don’t know what we would have done without the Y.”
When school got out, Danny was right there at the Y, swimming laps.
“Honestly, we co-parented with Lenny DeMuro,” she said, eliciting laughter from the couple hundred people gathered.
“He was dedicated 100 percent,” Nora Holloway said of DeMuro in 2005. “We swam all the time. We were close. We were family. We were a team. We were the MDI Sharks, and we were awesome.”
The new MDI YMCA pool was named after DeMuro in 2005.
“All the people who have been coached by Lenny have learned the value of competition, of athletics, of teamwork, of sportsmanship,” then state Sen. Dennis Damon said at the pool’s dedication.
Coaches like Lenny aren’t just about wins in the pool. They’re about wins in life. Their records can only be partially counted with championships and personal records. The real record is in the daily acts and decisions and strengths of the people they’ve coached and left behind. Institutions are that way, too.
HISTORY OF THE Y
“The headlines really aren’t that different,” Brechlin said of the time of the Y’s creation in 1900 and now.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, Brechlin said as he gave a recounting of Bar Harbor in the early 1900s when the YMCA was first incorporated.
The Spanish American War had just ended, but fortifications throughout Frenchman Bay had begun due to the worries of the island’s wealthier residents that the enemy would come and sink their yachts.
“They firmly believed the Spanish would strike here first,” Brechlin said. Those fortifications were abandoned.
“They continue to be no deterrent to invasion by sea,” Brechlin said.
The Bar Harbor Record of 1889 read that “all the shores…had been taken by non residents.” There were just two lots left, it read, both advertised in that edition of the paper.
“It was an amalgam of seasonal residents and year-round residents that made these things happen,” Brechlin said of the Y’s original incorporation and construction and of other town institutions such as the Jesup Memorial library
“This town, this island community, has always had a steadfast commitment to excellence,” Brechlin said and it includes the leaders named educator of the year, restauranteer of the year, Pulitzer prize winners, internationally best selling authors, artists, and so many more.
The YMCA honored Board Treasurer Dean Read and Goldthwait for their service to the community.
David Woodside and Art Blank spoke of the recipients. Woodside praised Goldthwait’s work on medical missions, how she persuades others to join her, how she’s devoted countless hours, weeks, potentially even months volunteering for town and state government positions. Art Blank talked about Dean Read’s constant volunteerism across multiple town institutions and singled out his work at the Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club.
“On July 4, if you go out to the ball field, the guy cleaning all the grills from the breakfast—that’s Dean,” he said.
When receiving his award, Read spoke of how volunteers hold together a community.
“All the volunteers that make happen—if I am one of those and all together we can make the community better? I’m happy to do it,” Read said.
State Senator Nicole Grohoski (D-Ellsworth) was joined by two other legislators and called the birthday a historic and momentous occasion and she thanked the people who keep the YMCA running.
“The real thank you is to everyone who made the Y what it is over the 125 years,” she said.
The Bar Harbor Historical Society provided exhibits about the history of the YMCA. The paddle raise collected money to support the endowment of the McLeod Fund, which helps keep MDI swimming free for its Swim MDI at Age Five program.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
“Our 125th anniversary milestone represents another inflection point in our history where, with the support of our community, we can remain an innovative and modern resource for the next generation. Our goal this anniversary year is to raise $125,000, donations that will benefit our shared Y life,” reads its Spring 2024 newsletter.
PHOTOS
All photos Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
The MDI YMCA’s website.
A 1992 fundraising video.
The story of the resolution is below.
CORRECTION! Autocorrect (and my own error) changed fortifications to fornication twice in the original version of this story. Horrifying? Yes. Funny? Kind of. We are so sorry and many thanks to Rebecca for letting us know. Also, this is why we need a copyeditor. :)
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Excellent article and most welcome reminder of the power of community as expressed through the countless contributions of dedicated members of that community. Hats off to Lenny DeMuro for the more than many contributions he has made to the Y over the years!
Great piece on Lenny. He deserves to be the Soul of Bar Harbor.