A Bailey Island woman who serves the community through initiatives for older adults and leadership in her church received the Brunswick Rotary Club’s Walter H. “Doc” Phillips Memorial Award during a ceremony at the Harpswell Town Office on Nov. 16.
“When you ask Harpswell residents about Gayle Hays and her involvement in the community, what you hear is that Gayle herself is community in Harpswell,” said Claudia Frost, a fellow Bailey Islander and two-time past president of the Brunswick Rotary Club. “She not only seems to know everyone, but is involved in almost everything that happens on the islands. She shapes each organization that she is part of to make them more vital and important.”
The award criteria specify that it should go to “a community member who has demonstrated dedicated involvement in a field of Doc’s interest,” such as conservation, education, science, water quality or volunteerism.