GARDINER — Heidi Mansir, a decades-long community leader in Gardiner and executive director of Uplift, Inc., has been honored with the Charlene Kinnelly Advocacy Award by Maine Association for Community Service Providers. MACSP is an association of nearly 100 providers across the state of Maine with a combined workforce of an estimated 10,000 Maine people, according to a news release from PretiStrategies.
The Charlene Kinnelly Advocacy Award was created posthumously by the MACSP board of directors in honor of Kinnelly, who was one of the Intellectual and Developmental Disability community’s strongest advocates and most fearless leaders.

Mansir has been a force in community services and I/DD advocacy for more than 30 years, showing up at the State House in Augusta, for peer-to-peer sessions, in numerous MACSP committees, and for the Gardiner community. She has shaped Maine’s provider community through many years of service on the MACSP Board, including two terms as president and two terms as treasurer. Heidi has also served as president of ANCOR, the leading voice in Washington, D.C. for community service providers nationwide, where she helped lead the national I/DD community through the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the news release, Mansir works tirelessly in her efforts at the state and federal level and her advocacy of issues and policies important to I/DD communities, including stabilizing workforce, sustainable payment models, and community inclusion.