By Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo
At Highland Belt & Fine Leather in Brewer, owner Adam Sutton and his employees are keeping the factory humming as other small manufacturers in northern Maine have closed shop.
Related content: How making belts in Maine helped one company survive
By Bruce Dent
Fewer residents of Maine identify themselves as religious than those of almost any other state—only New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts are less religious—according to a 2016 study conducted by the Pew Research Center. Only 34 percent of the adult population in Maine consider religion to be an important part of their life.
This lack of religiosity has proven challenging for religious institutions throughout the state, with many churches facing declining membership. But Crosspoint Church, a large Baptist church in Bangor, has managed to buck the trend by modernizing and focusing on youth and families.
In the early 2010s, Westboro Baptist Church, a radical Baptist church from Kansas came into the national spotlight for its protests of the legalization of marriage equality. Since the early 1990s, its members have been picketing events for the LGBT community, military funerals and abortion clinics.
“We just kept getting more and more people saying, ‘Are you the same group as this group?’ And we just decided it was time to just have a more seeker-friendly name where the more people can relate to who we are,” said Pencil Boone, the Pastor of Youth Ministries. The church, long known as Bangor Baptist Church, changed its name to Crosspoint Church. Though the name changed, it remains an evangelical Baptist church that focuses primarily on biblical teaching.
In addition to changing its name, the church began to focus on new families. Today most of the services at the church are produced in a contemporary style with music performed by the Crosspoint Christian rock band and choir. Although the churchgoers appear stoic, at the Easter service many were clapping and swaying to the music. Every Sunday, three services attract a total average of about 1,000.
Crosspoint has added other family amenities, such as a Tim Horton’s and a nursery on campus. Before and after services the Tim Horton’s is open, and people can purchase coffee, donuts or the Crosspoint Church worship team’s CD. These family amenities have offered a way for the community to mitigate some of the issues of the 2nd Congressional District, such as the opioid crisis and unemployment.
In 2009 Crosspoint founded Thrive Student Ministries, a youth ministry program run by Boone. Before working at Crosspoint, Boone was a missionary broadcaster working on the Isle of Bonaire, in the southern Caribbean; Swaziland and Melbourne, Australia.
The youth ministry offers a venue for high school and college students to worship and learn about their religion. Over the past years, the program transitioned part of its focus from the students to service. When the student ministry was started, it was initially “all about the kids,” explained Boone. Now the mission is about “the people that live outside these walls that are in great need,” Boone said.
This transition has led to the creation of student mission trips. For the past seven years, youth in the church have left their local community to serve those in need. These trips began with missions to foreign countries, but the legal liability was more than the church wanted to take on. “So we decided why not get the same type of exposure in a major city. So we have been to Philadelphia three times, inner-city Boston three times and this year we’re going to Detroit,” Boone said.
These trips are designed to offer the students the ability to serve those in need. For some students, this ministry offers them a first opportunity to leave the state and explore another part of the country.
At a time when church-going Maine has dwindled, Crosspoint appears to have figured out how to offer its members an important base of support.
“Less than 4 percent of the [Maine] population goes to church on any given Sunday. And so we’re a real anomaly,” said Boone. Ken Walsh, the CEO of the Alfond Center in Waterville, a joint Boys & Girls Club and YMCA that serves children throughout the 2nd Congressional district, noted that “on the economic scale is that they have less people going to their churches and therefore they’ve lost resources and there are different issues they have to deal with.”
Walsh said he believed that churches and religion are important for both the development of children and the health of a community. “There is a core of respect and right and wrong…to understand that to hurt somebody else is not the right thing to do,” he said. “Or to pray or meditate to something if things are challenging. Kids don’t have that. The bottom line is having something to fall back on, I think a lot of kids don’t have something to fall back on.”
Members of Crosspoint’s youth ministry said the church has offered an important base of support.
By Polina Fishof
Shoe factories and paper mills used to be the biggest employers in Maine. But in recent years, unable to compete with low-cost competitors, mills closed and factory production moved overseas.
Adam Sutton, a struggling manufacturer in Brewer, a suburb of Bangor, was determined to find a way to survive.
Sutton had started out manufacturing shoes and handbags, but found them too labor intensive and costly to produce. Fifteen years ago, he founded the Highland Belt Company. Although belts are much less labor intensive than shoes and handbags, Sutton’s business still struggled.
About five years ago, Sutton reinvented himself again, this time as a contract manufacturer for major retailers like LL Bean and Brooks Brothers. Instead of laying out capital to purchase raw materials, Sutton’s clients supply the leather and fabrics he uses to make a wide array of belts–from high-end men’s leather belts to casual fabric belts.
His customers, said Sutton, benefit from quick turnaround times and the ability to place small custom orders. Highland’s upfront costs are much less, and big companies pay their manufacturers punctually.
“We did good last year,” said Sutton, and the company has “done better every year” since he started contract manufacturing. In 2017, Sutton made a profit of $146,000, about 18 percent of his total revenue of $810,000.
Sutton produces between 130,000 to 150,000 leather items per year. His biggest sellers are ribbon belts; he made 55,000 in 2017.
Remaining U.S. belt companies often produce their goods overseas. Highland is one of the few belt companies that continues to manufacture in Maine.
Ironically, domestic manufacturing is now Highland Belt’s competitive advantage, according to Sutton, who said he was able to deliver a finished product three to four times faster than foreign factories can. Sutton also is able to complete much smaller orders, whereas overseas factories need “high volumes” to sell at low prices.
Starting in March, Highland’s production begins to pick up, just in time for the early April opening of East Coast golf clubs, a big market for Highland, which produces customized belt orders for a wholesaler that supplies clubs all over the region. “The sooner we fill their inventory, the more likely it is that they will reorder,” explained Sutton.
Most golf clubs reorder two to three times per season, almost always items that include the club’s logo.
Today Highland has 15 employees on its payroll and adds another four or five during high season. Four employees are making $10 an hour, the minimum wage, while a few experienced stitchers make $12 to $15 per hour. Sutton said he would like to offer his workers health insurance but cannot afford it.
The company works out of a former shoe factory where Roberta, one of Highland’s more experienced stitchers who would only give her first name, used to work. A grandmother, Roberta said she had retired but decided to go back to work to keep busy after her husband passed away a few years ago. Virtually all the workers at Highland are about Roberta’s age. Finding young people who are willing to learn how to stitch belts is hard, said Sutton.
Video: Inside the factory
Article and photo by Polina Fishof
While most of her friends attend college hoping to one day enter the corporate world, 25-year-old Christina Edwards spends her days as a nanny, working 50 hours a week caring for two small children.
Edwards, who lives in Etna, west of Bangor, said she never went to college because she did not feel comfortable with the idea of incurring student loans and then facing the uncertainty of finding work.
While she is considering whether to continue her education, she is more focused on pursuing an entrepreneurial avenue by opening a nanny agency in Bangor.
The idea of a new business came to Edwards when she started getting more requests to babysit than she could handle.
In addition to her main job caring for one family’s 2½-year-old boy and 9-month-old girl, she also picks up 20 to 30 hours a week babysitting for other families in the evenings.
“I’m going to have to start referring my friends,” Edwards said during an interview at Bangor’s Crosspoint Church, where she is a member of a youth group.
Looking at her peers who are pursuing college degrees, Edwards said she realized that opening her own business might be the only way for her to earn more money without a college degree.
A passion for providing child care runs in Edwards’ family. Her mother, who is originally from Norway, went to Europe to participate in an au pair program. Her sister works as a nanny for a family in New York City.
“She (her sister) makes way more than me,” Edwards said. Her sister makes $50 an hour, while Edwards’ hourly rate is $15 at the most.
While Edwards makes much less than her sister, she makes 50 percent more than an average non-college educated worker in Maine, where the minimum wage is currently $10 per hour.
When Edwards divorced last year, she had to move back in with her mother. The idea of starting her own business and being able to connect other nannies in the area gives her hope for the future.
Bangor has no nanny agencies, and her only competition would be in-home daycare services that charge about $100 per week and care for multiple children at once.
Even though the cost of in-home day care is much lower than a private nanny rate, the quality of the care is significantly different, Edwards said, pointing out there is simply not enough time to give each child the attention she or he needs. In addition, most day-care homes do not care for infants, she added.
Edwards also envisions creating a supporting community for nannies. The support groups available to nannies in the area are currently only online, facilitated by social media networks.
By creating her own agency, Edwards is hoping to not only bring families and nannies together but to provide child-care training and support for young nannies to advance their skills.
In interviews in early April, voters across the 2nd Congressional District voiced their opinions on the House seat race and the issues that are important to them:
Marsha Donahue, artist and owner of Millinocket’s North Light Gallery
Donahue switched her political affiliation from Independent to Democrat after aiding Democratic candidate Lucas St. Clair in getting Katahdin Woods and Waters recognized as a national monument in 2016. She recently held a campaign rally for him in her gallery.
“I just feel like [St. Clair] has got the right stuff … And this 2nd District, as you are beginning to see I’m sure, needs tremendous help, and they really need a champion and I think he’ll be a champion.”
Bruce Basinger, 55, of Alfred, manager of Highland Belts & Fine Leather in Brewer
For Basinger, keeping his stable job at Highland Belts is worth the 2 1/2-hour commute he makes once a week from his home in southern Maine.
“The company puts me up in an apartment in Bangor. I have been traveling up to here for 18 years… You do what you gotta do to survive.”
John Davis, Millinocket town manager and former worker at Great Northern Paper Co.’s Millinocket mill, which closed in 2008
Davis, a staunch Republican, says his support for Donald Trump has not wavered since the 2016 election.
“I think Trump’s a little rough. He’s not very well refined, but he told you exactly what he was going to do and he’s doing it. Just look at the stock market, look at the economy. What was it? Two point growth last year. We haven’t seen that for a long time.”
Ann Luther, of Bangor, member of The League of Women Voters of Maine
Luther, who has long been active in local politics in Maine, says she sees signs of growing political engagement among Maine’s youth. According to Maine election laws, 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by Election Day in November can vote in the June primary.
“We’re seeing a big upsurge in youth voting. Now all of a sudden, whoa, everyone wants to do voter registration in high schools. It’s partly a Trump effect. We’ve never had this many requests.”
Cory Osbourne, 29, Bangor, bartender
Osbourne says he grew up in Millinocket, a former mill town where unemployment is rampant, and moved to Bangor to find work.
“I come from a very big Catholic family. My family has always been very liberal, liberal Democrats. It’s kind of just instilled in us from a young age. And everyone is still kind of at the same platform.”
Jared Charrier, 20, of Hermon, college student and member of the Thrive Student Ministry at Crosspoint Church in Bangor
Charrier says neither he nor his friends follow politics.
“Maybe in high school, in history class you learn a lot about politics and that comes up in conversation as you are learning about it, but it never really happens a lot. You don’t just hear a kid say, ‘Oh, vote Democratic,’ you don’t hear that.”