About Us
Our Team
Achieving Maine was founded in 2024 by William Pentland, an energy and environmental attorney and former journalist, and his two sons, Ian and Charlie Pentland, in Kennebunk, Maine to promote civic engagement and leadership opportunities for high-school students in Maine.
Our history
On October 25, 2023, Robert Card, a 40-year-old army veteran from Bowdoin, murdered 18 individuals and injured 13 others in an active shooter killing spree in and around the town of Lewiston, Maine. On October 27, law enforcement authorities discovered Card dead in a tractor-trailer near a recycling center in Lisbon, where he had been recently employed, due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooting is the tenth deadliest in U.S. history and the deadliest in the history of Maine.
Achieving Maine was founded to build new bulwarks against the forces eroding community ties, civic responsibility, and informal networks of friends and families. Social Capital stands for community cohesion and compassionate support for members of the community suffering from the pathologies frequently associated with deaths of despair.
Our mission
Achieving Maine strives to restore, renew, rehabilitate, and expand the personal relationships, community networks, and other forms of social capital by engaging high-school students in collaborative, service-oriented volunteer initiatives tailored the needs of their local community.