Mia Lasic-Ellis

Singlehandedly designing a house from scratch is not the first thing most people would take on to start their retirement. But Bunny Andrews is not most people. As we sit down among the crowd leisurely finishing their lunches at Wild Oats, Bunny’s seemingly endless energy is on full display. Realizing we’d forgotten to grab drinks, she leaps out of her chair and beats me to the water dispenser. Laughing, she admits that she has deliberately let her therapy licenses lapse, saying, “If I kept them all current, I knew I’d go back to work. I just knew it. I know myself too well.”

After raising her three children, Bunny’s passion for public education led her to become a substitute teacher. Shortly after, she returned to school to obtain a master’s degree in nursing, diving headfirst into a nursery program serving neurodivergent children. She fondly recalls the precious moments she spent with the mothers in the cloakroom during drop off, holding unofficial “therapy” sessions while her coworker played with the children.

This experience inspired her to work in guidance counseling, eventually ending up at Brunswick Junior High School in 2000. She was shocked to discover the reality of Brunswick’s disparate demographics, working with kids “who didn’t have enough to lose,” many of whom lived in trailer parks just miles from the more affluent neighborhoods with which the town is commonly associated. Noticing my surprise, Bunny reassures me, “If not for my job, I would’ve never known about them.”

A mentor to many, Bunny still carries the weight of their troubles, even decades after last seeing them. When talking about one student in particular, Bunny’s smile falters. “I’d like to have taken her home with me,” she says quietly. She was sent to Bunny for wearing revealing clothes so frequently that Bunny kept a supply of sweatshirts in her office. To Bunny, the alternative was unthinkable: sending this student off to trek miles along busy roads back to her trailer, where a fallen tree had left a hole in the roof. “She’d wake up in a pile of water and ice and snow,” Bunny recalls, her voice heavy with emotion. But her eyes shine as she reflects on the young girl’s potential. “She was so bright, and I wish … [she] deserved more,” she said.

For each person Bunny talks about—her family, friends, students and the many community members she’s helped—she repeats the same phrase: “I love them to pieces.” This is no exaggeration. Bunny lives her life with love, from buying Christmas presents to fill her students’ empty stockings to sitting down with her Bowdoin host student’s roommate for this interview. Supporting others seems as natural to her as breathing, a sentiment she conveys matter-of-factly: “Somebody had to. And I was there.”

Listening to Bunny speak, I find myself reevaluating my perception of retirement. Laughing, she quips, “I’m so busy now, I don’t even know how I had the time to work!” Sure enough, Bunny is one of the “Angels” supporting the Maine State Music Theater program as it crunches four productions into Pickard Theater each summer. Her camera roll is full of memories from service trips around the world, reflecting how her way of caring transcends place to connect with communities in Ecuador and Brazil. She credits the Bowdoin cross country team running past her window into the Brunswick Commons as a reminder to make time for movement, whether through hiking, yoga classes or personal training sessions.

It is when speaking about College Guild, an organization through which she reads coursework submitted by incarcerated students and provides feedback, that Bunny absolutely glows. She recalls a visit to an old college friend who questioned why she’d want to help inmates. Bunny was baffled by her friend’s resistance. “If I can’t give up six to seven hours once a month to help these people,” she says, shaking her head, “that’s the least I can do.”

At this point, a look of steely determination crosses her face. “Now did I convince her that maybe she should do it too? No, I don’t think so.” But if she visits her friend again this winter, “we’re going to talk about it again. And I think … I think I can make an impact.”