Emma McDowell, of Bristol, stands outside the building that houses Round Pond Coffee and The Common House wine bar. McDowell, who has traveled internationally as a teacher and advocate for agricultural and environmental justice, now works for a nonprofit supporting migrant workers in Maine, runs her own business selling fair-trade goods, creates her own art, and bartends at The Common House. (Molly Rains photo)
Emma McDowell is in her element on weekend evenings at The Common House wine bar in Round Pond. According to McDowell, it takes two things to make a good bartender: “Having the gift of gab is important – and a strong pour, probably,” she said in July.
It’s clear to the patrons of The Common House that McDowell has both of those things. She also has a penchant for bringing people together that makes her excellent for the role of bartender, and which comes in handy in McDowell’s many other pursuits, from working with artisans to sell fair-trade goods to elevating and supporting migrant workers in Maine through her full-time job with Milbridge nonprofit Mano en Mano.
McDowell, of Bristol, has worked at The Common House since October 2023.
“I was the first bartender they hired,” she said on a sunny July afternoon, looking over the waters of Round Pond harbor. McDowell said she liked the “in-the-round kind of vibe” at the bar, which she said encourages people to converse freely.
“It’s such an important spot for people to have that sense of community, and a place to go out in a casual way,” McDowell said.
McDowell was raised on an apple orchard in Cornwall, Vt., a small town just outside Middlebury. A connection with the earth and a natural closeness to agriculture, food, and nature shaped her childhood, she said.
“Growing up in Vermont, everyone is very environmental,” she said. “Culturally, it’s just kind of the norm. Growing up on a farm, I felt a close connection to nature.”
After a gap year in which she worked as an au pair, McDowell studied environmental studies, Spanish, Hispanic studies, and anthropology at Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, N.Y.
McDowell’s decisions to au pair and to attend college out of state were her first steps away from home. Then, she took a leap, studying abroad twice: first traveling to Seville, Spain, then taking an internship in Costa Rica to study sea turtles.
Immediately, McDowell loved traveling. After graduating from college, she accepted a job with teen study abroad company Global Leadership Adventures, leading groups of students in Costa Rica for the summer. When fall came, McDowell traveled to Guatemala to work as an English teacher.
Two more seasons with Global Leadership Adventures separated by a Fulbright grant funding a teaching stint in Thailand, saw McDowell continue to travel around the world.
“I was one of the first teachers in the Fulbright program in the south of Thailand,” McDowell said, noting that most placements at the time were in the northern region of the country. “That was an experience, because I didn’t have a lot of knowledge or training from folks before me … so it was a lot of learning, but I really loved it.”
McDowell said traveling helps her keep a broad perspective and challenge her worldview.
“I think it’s really important to constantly be challenging ourselves,” she said. “We can all too easily get stuck in our ways and stuck in what we think is ‘normal,’ or that everyone thinks one way, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I think travel is a really good mirror to yourself and the way that you see the world … and it’s just beautiful. I mean, the world is so infinite with beauty and amazing people, and traveling makes it feel real.”
After completing her Fulbright grant, McDowell returned to the United States, landing in Damariscotta where she began working as a server at Best Thai.
McDowell said her connection to the Midcoast area was through her grandmother, a local artist named Faith Ogden, who McDowell grew up visiting in the summertime. The Midcoast, McDowell said, will always hold a special place in her heart.
Before she had been back in Maine for too long, however, McDowell was abroad again, first working with Global Leadership Adventures in Peru and then finding work as the director of educational programming at De la Gente, a nonprofit supporting coffee farmers in Guatemala.
“I kind of fell into environmental and food justice,” she said.
After feeling isolated in Guatemala during the COVID-19 pandemic, McDowell returned to Maine. However, she has retained connections in Guatemala through a business she founded in partnership with indigenous Mayan artisans, many of whom are women.
“It’s called Casa Paloma, and I design textiles and accessory products that are sustainably made and ethically sourced,” McDowell said. “I work directly with artisans throughout the country to make the products, and then we agree on an above-market price for the products and I sell them on my website and popup.”
In addition to being a business owner and bartender, McDowell also works as the director of development and communications at Mano en Mano, based in Milbridge.
Mano en Mano, which translates to “hand in hand,” supports seasonal migrant farm workers who travel to Maine to assist in the harvesting of many of the state’s crops. The importance of migrant workers to Maine agriculture is often underappreciated, McDowell said.
A recent article in the Smithsonian magazine highlighted Mano en Mano’s work with agricultural workers and their families, many of whom belong to the indigenous Wabanaki nations, who travel to remote areas Downeast to harvest wild blueberries. In addition to working with blueberry harvesters, Mano en Mano also supports migrant workers who travel from near and far to harvest crops from elvers to pine for holiday wreaths, McDowell said.
“Most of the iconic foods of Maine, products like blueberries, or even pine products like Christmas trees, are all harvested with work from migrant workers,” she said. “We support with interpretation, transportation, welcoming people to the community, making sure folks have all their essentials, food, and clothing to do the work and to be here.”
Mano en Mano also runs a school for children who are traveling with their parents, ensuring they have childcare and a place to go and learn – in a range of languages — while their parents work.
At Mano en Mano, McDowell assists with development, from fundraising to grant writing and building support for the organization’s mission. When she isn’t there or at one of her other jobs, McDowell is also an artist, who enjoys working in various media. Lately, she said, she has enjoyed film photography.
Maine, McDowell said, encapsulates a lot of what she looks for in community: natural beauty and a proximity to the earth, and to agriculture, that brings people together with one another and with the planet.
“In Maine, we’re really privileged, because we’re so close to the sea, so we have this amazing resource,” she said. “Many of us know lobstermen and folks that work on the water, and that connection makes the food chain really close.”
Whether she is supporting agricultural workers, collaborating with Mayan artisans, making her own artwork, or serving glasses of wine at Common House, a close association with food, nature, and togetherness inspires McDowell in her day-to-day.
“The importance of food is in its connection to the environment, and to humans,” she said. “It’s this little link that we don’t think about. That’s part of the reason why I like the wine bar: We all come together.”
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