Eddie Nachamie: Helping People Every Day
Article by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
For Eddie Nachamie, community service is about more than tallying up mandatory hours or meeting the requirements of a school project. It’s a way of life that started in high school and continues to guide his decisions as he nears the completion of his bachelor’s degree in ecology and environmental science at the University of Maine.
Nachamie was a high school junior in Massachusetts taking AP Environmental Science when COVID-19 upended life as he knew it. It was a tough time to be a teenager. He was facing not only a global pandemic but anxieties related to environmental problems, climate change, and environmental injustices that figured into his classroom discussions.
To cope, Nachamie leaned into his role as the manager of his school’s community garden — transplanting tomatoes, pulling weeds, and donating vegetables to a local food pantry. He said, “I was learning about these issues in class, and then I got to go to the garden and find ways to help people. That became really important to me.”
Childhood family vacations to Maine left a mark, and when it came time to choose a university, UMaine felt like a natural fit. Nachamie was accepted but deferred for a year to sort out his finances and have some adventures. Service to others or “helping people every day,” he said, had become part of his identity, so he signed up for a 10-month position with AmeriCorps NCCC, a service program for young adults that strengthens communities and develops leaders through direct, team-based community service.
His assignments included Afghan refugee resettlement in Miami, flood disaster response in Montana, farm work in Arkansas, and sustainable agriculture advocacy and community gardening in Wyoming.
“The AmeriCorps experience really cemented my passion for the environment and for working with other people and doing work that is community-oriented and relevant to the needs of a local community,” Nachamie said.
When Nachamie arrived at UMaine following his gap year, he enrolled in the Honors College, which offered a weeklong trip to Hurricane Island focused on community building and engagement. This group of twenty students then participated in service learning projects for the remainder of the semester. “The experience connected me to a lot of things happening on campus and in the community,” said Nachamie.
One of the connections he made was with Susanne Lee, a Mitchell Center faculty fellow and leader of Food Rescue Maine, who hired him as an intern. The role took him to four elementary schools where he helped implement strategies to reduce wasted food. Soon he was immersed in cafeteria culture — setting up sorting stations, presenting to groups of students during assemblies, and documenting reductions in food waste.
Nachamie also connected with the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center early in his college career and became one of four residents at the end of his freshman year. Residents of the Terrell House build community by inviting people to participate in activities like gardening, composting, preserving food, and mending clothes. Like the FRM internship, the Terrell House experiences reinforced that sustainability is built through community engagement.
The Mitchell Center also became an anchor in Nachamie’s UMaine experience. A class with Rachel Schattman, associate professor of sustainable agriculture and Mitchell Center faculty fellow, inspired a two-year project tracking Maine’s regulatory response to the PFAS crisis. Throughout this project and other coursework, Nachamie often sent emails to different faculty fellows and was struck by their accessibility and willingness to share their research.
“The Mitchell Center connects students who are passionate about sustainability and interested in building relationships with people who are actually doing applied sustainability work. There’s no other place at UMaine that it happens like it happens there,” Nachamie said.
The project revealed that drinking water in many Maine schools is contaminated with PFAS, likely due to floor cleaning products, and inspired Nachamie’s Honors College thesis. Again, Nachamie found himself in Maine schools, meeting with administrators about their perspectives and trying to understand what types of support and services would benefit their schools.
These projects in service to the people and environment of Maine helped earn Nachamie the 2025 Udall Scholarship. One of just 55 recipients nationwide and the first UMaine recipient in over 15 years, the scholarship recognizes his commitment to the environment and public service.
Nachamie’s drive to help people and their communities has only grown stronger as he nears the end of his UMaine experience. He plans to spend summers out west doing field work. In 2026, he’ll serve in a fire effects/fuels monitoring and wildland firefighting position with the National Park Service based out of Zion National Park. Afterwards, he hopes to return east when state legislatures are in session to work on environmental advocacy.
Looking further ahead, Nachamie will likely apply to law school with the intent of becoming an environmental lawyer. He sees law as essential for creating a more equitable and just transition in the face of climate change and other sustainability challenges.
He said, “Brilliant scientists and engineers are working on the technical and technological components of societal problems, but there’s a critical need to catch up in terms of our governance and how we enact policies and the specific language of laws in our country.”
Whatever Natchamie’s future may hold, one thing is clear: Helping people and the environment isn’t something he does on the side. It’s central to who he is and how he wants to show up for his community.