Wilma "Willie" Bradford is quite a lady, and it doesn’t take long after meeting her to figure out what’s she passionate about. "Children – they’re our future – we need to make sure they have the resources they need for a good and healthy start in life," Mrs. Bradford shares.

She has lived in Bangor for more than 65 years, raising four children and seeing a lot changes for the better. "I have seen a big difference in how the community treats people with mental illness." Mrs. Bradford is one of the founding members of Acadia Hospital, "We held our breath when we started, we didn’t have a lot of money; we did with what we had."

As a mediator in family courts she saw a real need for children with
divorcing families to have a support system that just was not available at the time. That is one of the main reasons she got behind and supported the building of a psychiatric hospital in our area. To this day Mrs. Bradford is proud of her work and her support of the hospital and enjoys seeing some of the programs she started like 3 Bands continue, "Youth helping youth, it doesn’t get much better than that."