Maine Community Health Center Week

WHEREAS, for nearly 60 years, Maine’s community health centers have provided high-quality, affordable, comprehensive primary and preventive health care in our rural and underserved communities; and

WHEREAS, as Maine's largest primary care network, community health centers are the health care home for over 210,000 Maine people; and

WHEREAS, Maine's community health centers are leaders in fighting the chronic disease epidemic by expanding access to primary care, which keeps people healthy and out of expensive settings like hospital emergency rooms; and

WHEREAS, Maine's community health centers develop new approaches to integrating a wide range of services beyond primary care, including nutrition, oral health, vision, behavioral health, and pharmacy services, to provide comprehensive care that allows each patient to thrive; and

WHEREAS, Maine's community health centers are governed by patient-majority boards, ensuring patients are engaged in their health care decisions; and

WHEREAS, Maine's community health centers are locally owned and operated small businesses that serve as critical economic engines, helping to power local communities; and

WHEREAS, Maine's community health centers are on the front lines of emerging health care crises, providing access to care for 10 percent of Maine's veterans, addressing the opioid epidemic, and responding to public health threats; and

WHEREAS, Community Health Center Week offers the opportunity to celebrate Maine's community health center organizations with more than 100 service delivery sites in all 16 Maine counties, and we honor their dedicated staff, board members, patients, and all those responsible for their continued success and growth since the first community health centers opened their doors over 60 years ago;

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Janet T. Mills, Governor of the State of Maine, do hereby proclaim the week of August 2-8, 2026, as

and I encourage all residents to participate in this week by visiting their local health center and celebrating the vital partnership between Maine's community health centers and the communities they serve.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed GIVEN under my hand at Augusta this sixth day of July Two Thousand Twenty-Six