We celebrated Chewonki Homecoming Day last Saturday, the first time we’ve been able to hold such an event since 2019, and it was wonderful to see so many alumni & friends, old and new, return to the Neck for a beautiful fall day.
It was also the perfect day to celebrate our friend and colleague, Greg Shute, Director of Northern and Coastal Properties, who will be retiring soon after forty-one years of amazing service to Chewonki. I would like to share a few reflections of our time working together.
I first met Greg 10 years ago. He helped me, essentially a stranger to him at that time, navigate a difficult work situation – showing up to offer his experience, strength, and hope. I was and still am profoundly grateful for his time and his generosity. He showed me the importance of meeting uncertainty and concern with a calm, non-anxious presence. Where he could have expressed sharp criticism or walked away, instead he sat and talked me through each next step helping me get through a challenging circumstance, to solution and repair. When I resigned from that position Greg called me and asked if I would come to Chewonki for a conversation. The rest is history. In the ten years since then, Greg has been a source of great support and wisdom for me and I have come to depend deeply on his counsel and experience.
Many people wondered what the heck Greg was doing bringing me to Chewonki. I didn’t have a background in natural science, I possessed no recognizable outdoor living skills, and I knew of no way to identify a bird with any accuracy except for the obvious ones – a blue jay, perhaps, or certainly a crow. Judging this book from its cover, it could be reasonable for someone to think I didn’t belong here: me, a city girl with heels and makeup, stumbling around on uneven ground, eager but uncertain.
What some people didn’t realize, but that Greg did, was that I was exactly the kind of person Chewonki was intended for – someone who grew up without the lessons and benefits of a Chewonki experience, who had little opportunity to engage with nature or at the very least no encouragement to do so. But the thing about Greg is that he knows Chewonki isn’t about him. It isn’t necessarily for the people who are already here. It is, however, for the people yet to come and he teaches through example that Chewonki is an invitation, a door of welcome swinging open. His efforts to meet me where I was enabled me to step out on a road full of new awe and wonder.
Greg taught me that I didn’t need a degree to discover nature. Mustering even a sliver of curiosity and a smidge of humility would do the trick. Greg invited me to be in this place – as he has done for so many many others – and in doing so to discover, as Mary Oliver would say, my “place in the family of things.”
There are a few folk at Chewonki (and some of them were here at Homecoming) who have served as my conscience – Greg being one of them. Over the years, when I’ve had to choose between what was right and what was easy, Greg would remind me that my job was to do what was right even when no one was looking – and especially then. He is a valued colleague and has become a trusted friend. When I think about Greg retiring, which is still painfully inconceivable to me, I imagine him walking down the road with me shouting after him, “Don’t go!” But then I remember that to everything there is a season.
Knowing Greg has made me better – a better friend, a better leader, a better colleague, a better person. I know the same rings true for many of us. His shoes cannot be filled at Chewonki – so no one should try and do so. But we can make the intention to honor his legacy: his care for the natural world, his respect for indigenous communities, his passion to learn the names of the birds and their songs, and trees, and animals, and his compassion and kindness – by trying to do the same.
Over these past ten years I learned that everything Chewonki provides is intended for us to give away. With that principle as my guide, Greg, I promise to try and give away all that you have given me, in the hopes that by doing so I will continue the circle of care that you have so unselfishly shared and shown me. I will never forget you – none of us will – and I wish you every good thing in your days ahead.
Nancy Kennedy
President
Chewonki Foundation
Director of Northern and Coastal Properties Greg Shute was presented with a hand-carved polar bear statue created by Ken Wise at our 2024 Homecoming Day. Watch his acceptance speech and reflections on 41 years of engaging with the Chewonkli community:
