The residents of Deer Harbor successfully mounted a campaign to purchase the local post office building, which had served the community since 1893. The United States Postal Service had been closing a number of “rural” post offices and had notified the Deer Harbor building owners that they would not renewing the lease when it expired in Feb. 2010.

The residents, including individuals from Waldron and Crane Islands, formed the Committee to Save the Deer Harbor Post Office early last fall.

A letter-writing campaign to USPS and local and state elected officials, was followed by the decision to raise the money to purchase the building and commit the USPS to a new lease.

A purchase price of $250,000 was agreed upon and USPS promised to sign a new lease.

On June 1, without one penny of commitment or pre-planning, a team of approximately 20 volunteers began fundraising.

By the Fourth of July, over $130,000 in cash had been received, and the balance of $120,000 was obtained by loans from three different Deer Harbor residents. The running of the new Deer Harbor Post Office venture and ownership of the building was turned over to the Deer Harbor Community Club, a local non-profit organization, at the closing on July 9.

“It’s been a long haul since last October when we learned that the owners of the post office building had agreed to extend the lease to the USPS for one year, but had no intention of extending beyond that,” Howard Barbour, the committee chair said. “We tried alternate buildings but were told that none of our options were suitable and that the USPS had no money to ‘postalize’ them. Our last option was for the Deer Harbor Community Club to buy the existing post office building and become the landlord.”

Community members from all three island communities offered their business, investment, financial, and legal expertise to the project.