“Summer is an interesting time in Maine,” Rev. Jeffery Logan, executive director and a co-pastor at Grace-Street Ministry, told a small crowd gathered in Portland’s Old Port [last week].

“Because the rest of the year is such a meteorological maelstrom, the summer often feels like time out of time. A period during which we can forget pretty much everything except barbecues, beach days, and time off from whatever job it is we do.”

Logan, who goes by Pastor Jeff, and others were gathered for the Longest Day of Homelessness sit-out, an annual event organized by Homeless Voices for Justice, to remind the public of the “tragedy and injustice of homelessness,” even in the summer months. 

Pastor Jeff shared how donations, which often take the form of Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards, fall off in the summer months. “The unhoused don’t get a summer vacation,” he said.

“Yes, people living outside do not currently have to worry about freezing to death or about losing fingers and toes, and that is a blessing,” he said. “But when it’s 90 degrees one day and 60 degrees and raining the next, it’s still a challenge and physical danger to be outside.”

The sit-out, which was planned to coincide with one of the longest days of the year, was held on a toasty, humid afternoon, and was preceded by a series of record-hot days across Maine. 

Some of the speakers, who were formerly or currently unhoused, talked about friends who froze to death. Pastor Jeff and others described the challenge of protecting one’s belongings from the elements—or from a front loader commissioned by the city of Portland.

Many of those who passed by the event were likely tourists, or taking the day off. 

The reality of living in Vacationland, for many Mainers, is working while others are not. In fact, many in service and related industries make the bulk of their income during these months. And when they get a day off, even if it’s rare, they want to check out, unplug, hit the beach or the lake.

Listening to Pastor Jeff made me wonder what else are people on vacation — or seeking a vacation — from? 

More and more I hear that people are tired — of bad news, of economic woes, of politics — and want a break. And who can blame them? It’s been a long few years. 

In addition to the urgent needs of people who are unhoused, there are other encroaching threats: the changing climate, the loss of bodily autonomy, the erosion of democracy, etc. It’s an overwhelming list and I fear that many with the privilege to ignore the maelstrom and retreat to a climate-controlled cocoon may never come back out.

But, as Pastor Jeff noted, not everyone has the luxury of being able to unsubscribe from it all. Our work is not done, he said. Our work cannot take the summer off. 

Whether feeding people who don’t have homes, or providing for the elderly or sick, there are many care workers and service providers who continue to carry the weight of humanity, regardless of the day or season.

The silver lining is that, while we can’t disconnect from the challenges that surround us, being part of something bigger than oneself, helping someone in need, and building community can be deeply rejuvenating, too. 

Ending with a quote from Frederick Douglass, Pastor Jeff said, “I prayed for 20 years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

“So let’s keep on walking,” he added. “We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.”

Normally, Alex Cespedes’ classroom is filled with fourth and fifth graders learning science and social studies. But on Thursdays, after classes let out, students at McMahon Elementary School in Holyoke, Massachusetts, pour into the room for a different reason: to do battle.

“That’s actually a very good move,” Rodman Parvin, who co-facilitates the after-school club the kids are all excited about, explained to two students on an afternoon in early May. “Because now it’s check again. And it’s a double attack.”

This is the Cheetah Chess Club, which Cespedes and Parvin started earlier this year. Despite the spring weather coaxing students outdoors, 16 kids showed up that day to push pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, queens and kings around the board. For some players, like Nicole Davis, chess is new. She and fellow fifth grader Tae’la Feliciano are moving pieces across the board, not worried too much about the rules. Others have been playing longer, like fifth grader JJ Rodriguez. He can confidently explain why he plays the Dutch Defense with the black pieces.

“The rook, bishop and knight are all lined up on the inside,” he said. “Because they are the stronger pieces.”

‘Like a virus right now’

In recent years, there has been an upswell in worldwide interest in chess. For example, the website Chess.com’s servers repeatedly crashed last year under the weight of millions of new players gravitating to the game. It’s a trend that started in 2020 with COVID lockdowns and the hit Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit,” and has continued as chess influencers get big on social media.

And that global “chess boom” has sent shockwaves through western Massachusetts, too, including at McMahon Elementary.

“It’s kind of like a virus right now,” Cespedes said, who sees students playing everywhere in school now. “If there’s any still or free time, they’re like, ‘Can I have the chess set? I will protect it with my life. I just want to play chess with my friends.’ And beat all the teachers. That’s what they really want to do.”

Chess clubs in local libraries and other schools have grown in size, too. Sophie Argetsinger is the parent of a second grader at Northampton’s Lander-Grinspoon Academy. She grew up in the vibrant chess scene in Rochester, New York. So when Lander-Grinspoon approached her last year about running a chess club at the school, she was excited.

“The first time I held it there was like 20 kids who signed up, which is crazy because there’s only about 60 kids at the school in total,” she said.

Those numbers have shrunk a bit. But Argetsinger has organized two tournaments at the school in the past year and more students than she expected — from around the region — turned up to play.

“That might have a lot to do with the online presence,” she said of the game’s growing popularity locally. “There’s a lot of chess creators now that are making chess kind of cool and something everyone can engage with.”

‘They thought it was a nerdy thing’

Ed Kostreba has been organizing chess tournaments in the region for around a quarter century. He directs the Western Massachusetts Chess Association, which last year had 308 people play in its tournaments. That’s more than any year since 1996, the year the world’s media focused its attention on Russian grandmaster Gary Kasparov as he beat the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue — a quaint notion nowadays, when computers are much stronger players than humans.

Kostreba said, back then, the association used to hold around six tournaments a year. That number has now doubled. He is hoping for even more growth in the coming years. However, he and others say there are challenges to keeping chess thriving locally.

“It’s tough because you have to get venues that are reasonable,” Kostreba said. “I’m working on a tournament where we collect entry fees, and paying back 80% as prizes. So that’s tough to do, and at some places the rents have gone way up and we can’t do it.”

On a recent afternoon, Kostreba was playing chess at the Friends of the Homeless shelter in Springfield, where he volunteers weekly

Sitting across the board from Kostreba was Jay Williams, who has been playing chess for 25 years. He originally learned the game in the correctional system and says he has seen more people playing in recent years — and a more diverse group of players, too.

“A lot of people are definitely interested in chess,” Williams said between moves. “I would say when I was young in junior high school, people wasn’t really all that. They thought it was a nerdy thing. But now I would say it’s a cool thing now.”

Fierce competition

The chess boom has also hit home — for me. After decades away from the game, I found myself returning to it during the pandemic. And somebody else in my family took notice: my 6-year-old daughter, Sasha. She kept seeing me playing on my phone and computer and soon insisted I teach her.

If I had guessed, I would have said she fell in love with chess because of the game’s beauty. The stunning tactics and complicated dance between pieces. But when I asked her, it was much more simple.

“Winning against Daddy,” she said with a big laugh. “The guy who always losed against me.”

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by New England Public Media. 

As she delivered her testimony, she was direct, poised, and articulate. At this point, she’s had years of practice advocating for herself and teenagers like her. It’s a role she never asked for but feels a duty to fill.

Iris became an advocate when she was just 10 years old, with written testimony that didn’t identify her by name, her mother, Amy Manzelli, told the Globe. Eventually, her parents allowed Iris to identify herself publicly.

“I was just, like, ready to do something,” Iris said from a perch on the couch during an interview at the family’s home.

Iris came out as transgender to her family when she was 7, although her mom said Iris had been giving indications she was a girl from the time she was able to string a sentence together. As a young child, Manzelli said, Iris would ask Santa to turn her into a girl for Christmas.

After Iris came out, she was finally able to live day-to-day as a girl. She wears girls clothes, uses the girls bathroom at school, and joined the girls tennis team at school, although she didn’t make the softball team.

This legislative session, Iris has been to the State House to testify against multiple bills, including one that would bar transgender girls like her from playing on girls sports teams in grades 5-12 (House Bill 1205), could block her from locker rooms or bathrooms (House Bill 396), and would require parental notification for her and her classmates to learn about gender or gender expression (House Bill 1312). Another bill, House Bill 619, would prevent minors from receiving genital gender reassignment surgery, and it would prevent doctors from providing referrals for the procedure, which they say is exceedingly rare.

Proponents of banning transgender girls from sports say it’s unfair for them to play on the same team because they have a biological advantage. They point to the increased strength men have after going through male puberty, which they believe will allow people assigned male at birth to overtake women in sports.

All four bills are headed to Governor Chris Sununu’s desk. Sununu has indicated he supports barring transgender girls from girls sports teams, although he hasn’t directly said if he will sign the bill. If he does, Manzelli said, her family will pursue a legal challenge.

“I’m just petrified,” Manzelli said. “I’ve heard rumors that some of them are going to be vetoed, but unless all of them are vetoed, it doesn’t really matter. … None of them are OK.” Waiting to learn what will happen, Iris said, feels like “just suffering.”

In March, Sununu said it is dangerous for transgender girls to play on girls sports teams. “I fundamentally don’t believe that biological boys should be competing in girls sports,” he said.

He has stood firm on that position in recent interviews, even after hearing stories from transgender athletes in New Hampshire.

“This bill is not about the individual,” Sununu said during a June 27 interview with WMUR.

“It’s about the system as a whole. It’s about fairness, about safety,” he said. “You’ve seen all across the country, other stories of, you know, state champions, biological boys becoming state champions. That affects scholarships. That affects the fairness of competition.”

In April, New Hampshire’s child advocate Cassandra Sanchez spoke against dozens of bills that she said would harm LGBTQ+ youth, including the effort to bar transgender girls from girls sports teams.

“We’re all about equity and fairness, and all children should have an opportunity,” she said. She doesn’t see transgender athletes “trying to get ahead or hurt others by engaging in sports. They’re trying to have a normalized childhood.”

She said many children find a sense of belonging by playing team sports. Sara Tirrell, whose daughter Parker is transgender and plays soccer, agreed.

“The goal is to be part of the team,” Tirrell said.

“Parker’s team in particular won zero games last year. She was not the kid that was bowling anybody over because that’s not who she is,” she said.

Parker stood in the crowd at the Legislative Office Building during the press conference in late April next to her dad, Zach. Tears ran down her face as she listened to her mom publicly explain how she tried to comfort her daughter after a classmate called her expletives and slurs and said she should kill herself.

“As her mother, I remain committed to fostering an environment where she can live authentically and unapologetically,” Tirrell said. That has meant two years of making the hourlong drive to Concord from her home in Plymouth to testify against bills that would impact her family.

In an interview, Tirrell said she first came to the State House in 2023 to testify against a bill that would have added gender-affirming health care to the definition of child abuse.

This year, with her family’s support, Parker decided to testify for the first time, speaking against the effort to bar transgender girls from girls sports teams.

Parker has played soccer since she was 4, and she said it’s become a big part of her identity. She has played every position: defense, midfield, and striker. Soccer is how she met many of her friends. She said it would be “devastating” if the bill becomes law. Joining the boys’ soccer team, she said, is not an option, and neither is using the men’s bathroom or locker room.

Advocating for herself and others has been difficult for the 15-year-old.

“I feel like I shouldn’t have to do it because it seems like a lot for me specifically to have to do as a freshman in high school still trying to figure things out school-wise,” she said. “I don’t want to be, but it’s something important that I have to do.”

“It’s been a lot for me,” Parker said, “just having to deal with all these people trying to dictate how my life is supposed to go.”

Parker is hoping to play soccer again with her team in the fall. But, for now, her future is an open question — one that both she and Iris are waiting for the governor to resolve.

Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.