Free Long COVID Support Group — Online, ME | Goodwill NNE
Goodwill Northern New England hosts a free monthly virtual support group for people living with Long COVID. The group serves Mainers navigating a condition that is still poorly understood by many employers, insurers, and even clinicians — and where the resulting disbelief can be as exhausting as the symptoms themselves.
What to Expect
The group meets on the second Tuesday of each month from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., entirely online. The virtual format is a deliberate accommodation: post-exertional malaise, brain fog, and dysautonomia make travel to an in-person meeting genuinely inaccessible for many people with Long COVID. Sessions are conversational — members share where they are with symptoms, what has and hasn’t helped, and how they are handling work, benefits, and family expectations. Because Goodwill Northern New England’s broader mission includes employment support and community services, the group sits within an organization already oriented toward practical help with work and daily living.
Who This Group Is For
Adults in Maine experiencing ongoing symptoms after a COVID-19 infection — fatigue, cognitive difficulty, breathlessness, autonomic symptoms, pain, or any of the wide range of presentations this condition takes. A formal Long COVID diagnosis is not required to attend, which matters because many people are still fighting to get one. Both people early in the illness and people several years in participate.
Why Peer Support Works
Long COVID sits at the intersection of two hard things: a genuinely disabling illness and widespread doubt about whether it is real. People with the condition frequently describe losing jobs, friendships, and clinician relationships not because of symptoms but because of not being believed. A group where the illness is simply taken as given eliminates that fight for an hour a month. Members also exchange information that is difficult to find anywhere else — pacing strategies, which Maine providers are informed about the condition, how disability and accommodation processes actually work, and what to expect over a longer arc. This group is also listed among the statewide support resources maintained by the Brain Injury Association of America’s Maine chapter, reflecting the neurological overlap many members experience.
How to Join
The group is free to attend. Contact Innes Demers at longcovidsupport@goodwillnne.org or (207) 761-8402 for the meeting link and details. More about Goodwill Northern New England’s community programs is available at goodwillnne.org.