The Town Line Community Newspaper

12/26/2025

The Remembrance Tree

Remembering those we’ve lost…

12/25/2025

12/25/2025

Vassalboro American Legion prepares Christmas stockings for vets at Togus

On Tuesday, December 9, 2025, volunteers filled 320 Christmas stockings and Hanukkah dreidels with personal care products for Togus Veterans Outreach Programs. American Legion Post #126, in Vassalboro, thanks all those who made, donated, volunteered, and delivered the stockings and dreidels. With the public’s support they surpassed their goal of 250.

12/24/2025

Vassalboro trails committee reviews conditions of trails

by Mary Grow

At their Dec. 10 meeting, Vassalboro Trails Committee members reviewed the condition of the town’s public trails – generally satisfactory – and talked about expansions and improvements, in cooperation with other entities.

Chairman John Melrose had a short action list that included relocating some bridging materials from an improved trail to a still-swampy one, improving signage and blazing a detour around another wet area.

He expressed appreciation to the town’s public works department for gravel and other help. Also cooperating are the Kennebec Land Trust and the Kennebec Water District; and the Central Maine Power Company rebuilding of its north-south transmission line should improve snowmobile trails that share its land.

Melrose said he and school officials do not work together on the school trails as much as they should, primarily because school officials are safety-conscious about outsiders on their land. Committee member Holly Weidner suggested trails committee members try to increase students’ use of town resources.

Committee members agreed their 2026-27 budget request should be $1,100, the same as the current year. With continued public works help and volunteer labor, that amount should cover construction, interpretative materials and “whatever might come up,” even with inflation, Melrose said.

NOTE: Information on recreational trails in Vassalboro is on the town website, vassalboro.net. One way to find it is to click on the search box in the upper right of the main page and type in the word “trails.’

The Vassalboro Conservation Commission meeting scheduled for Dec. 10 was canceled due to weather. The next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in the town office meeting room.

12/23/2025

Vassalboro planners OK lone application

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Planning Board members unanimously approved the one application on their Dec. 9 agenda before turning their attention to updating the town’s junkyard ordinance.

The application was from David Frankenfield, to build a house on an almost-three-acre lot by Webber Pond. The house will be 168-feet from the water, he said.

Board members discussed trees on the lot and proposed erosion control measures before unanimously approving the application.

Codes Officer Eric Currie has started updating town ordinances, and presented recommendations for amending Vassalboro’s Automobile Graveyard and Junkyard Ordinance.

Screening requirements were a major topic of the hour-long discussion. Board members debated what types to allow; they leaned toward eliminating wooded buffers as inadequate, and considered adding a berm as an allowable type of screen. They debated whether the required height should be six feet or eight feet.

Currie plans to revise his suggested revisions. Amendments the board recommends would be reviewed by the select board and would need voters’ approval.

Currie said his next project is the town Building Permit Ordinance. He intends to have suggested revisions for discussion at the planning board’s Jan. 6, 2026, meeting, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the town office meeting room.

12/23/2025

Planners continue talks on ordinance updates

by Mary Grow

At a brief Dec. 9 meeting, China Planning Board members continued discussion of updating town ordinances, focusing on the Planning Board Ordinance and the Phosphorus Control Ordinance. Both are available on the town website, chinamaine.org.

The main issue with the Planning Board Ordinance, which was last amended in 2024 and now has board members appointed instead of elected, was specifying when a member’s term begins and ends. Board members unanimously recommended that a term begin when the member is appointed and end two years from that date.

They decided it should be up to select board members and/or the town clerk to keep track of when each member’s term ends.

Board Chairman Toni Wall intends to ask select board members to put the change to voters in June 2026.

The Phosphorus Control Ordinance, adopted in June 1993, is Chapter 4 of China’s Land Development Code. It contains tables that board members seek the source of; they are trying to find people who were involved in 1993 and might have information. Board member Dwaine Drummond suggested seeing if other towns have similar information, with a source.

Wall said she has been reviewing the Flood Plain Management Ordinance, which is Chapter 5 of the Land Development Code and was approved in March 2011. So far, she has found only a few changes to suggest, none substantive.

Codes Officer Nicholas French said a new state law has made the state, not towns, responsible for regulating kennels. China has a short Kennel Ordinance, adopted in June 1996 (Chapter 7 of the Land Development Code).

The next planning board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in the town office meeting room. A meeting that had been scheduled for Dec. 23 will not be held.

12/22/2025

Vassalboro school board members hear about building renovations, and more; Superintendent to step down

by Mary Grow

At their Dec. 9 meeting, Vassalboro School Board members heard a presentation from Vassalboro Community School’s two counselors and an update on building renovations from Tom Seekins, president of Portland-based Energy Management Consultants (EMC).

Counselors Gina Davis and Jamie Routhier (also speaking for social worker Megan Simmons, who was unable to attend the meeting) explained what they do with and for VCS students, their parents and school staff, routinely and in emergencies.

Routine includes holding classes that help students develop self-control and other individual and social skills; both counselors meet regularly with entire classes and with smaller groups. They also counsel individual students as needed, interrupting their schedules to deal with emergencies.

“We have big behavioral needs,” and not just at VCS, Routhier said. She considers two counselors a necessity for VCS’s 420 students.

Both women are former classroom teachers, a background Davis considers useful.

They listed some of the related programs they work with. Davis praised Colby Mentors, which brings Colby College students to VCS for weekly one-on-one sessions with students in grades four through eight; often a four-year relationship is maintained.

Another program, called Sources of Strength, is a student-led leadership program for students in grades five through eight. It is sponsored by the Maine division of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI Maine).

The Mid-Maine Technical Center, in Waterville, allows VCS eighth-graders to observe each of its programs. Because VCS graduates may choose their high school, in January and February each year Routhier arranges for eighth-graders to visit the area high schools most students attend and invites other high schools to make presentations at VCS.

The VCS Cares Closet collects items for families in need; Routhier thanked resident Amy Davidoff for organizing its contents. She said the school’s parent-teacher organization and the Vassalboro Food Pantry also contribute.

Seekins introduced EMC Project Manager Daniel LaBrie, who has taken over from the team who designed the VCS work. The two men said exterior doors have been replaced, and new lighting is being installed, with crews starting work at 8 p.m. and working through the night. The lighting replacement should be finished by the end of January, 2026.

Major work, including replacing the heating and ventilation systems to yield more comfort and great efficiency, is scheduled to begin after school lets out in June. Seekins plans to be mostly done by the second week in August, so crews will not be in the way of teachers getting ready for fall 2026 classes.

Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer thanked Seekins, LaBrie and their team for their work and for their “incredible responsiveness,” including answering weekend emails.

On another construction issue, Pfeiffer said the application for Vassalboro Planning Board approval to expand the school parking lot is on the agenda for the Jan. 6 planning board meeting. He praised codes officer Eric Currie for his help.

In other business, board members unanimously approved renewing the interlocal agreement with Winslow and Waterville school departments for another three years, continuing to share services and personnel.

They unanimously accepted Pfeiffer’s resignation as superintendent, effective June 30, 2026.

The next Vassalboro School Board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

12/22/2025

Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: China town reports – 1861-1906 (Part 2)

by Mary Grow

Care of Paupers

The China reports between 1861 and 1906 that John Glowa donated and that started this subseries include more than the selectmen’s financial summaries described last week. There is also financial and other information from and about the town poor farm and other town boards.

After the first article based on these reports ran in the Dec. 11 issue of The Town Line, Albion historian Phil Dow was inspired to donate his collection, which starts in 1855, fills in some of the gaps in the earlier donation and continues through much more of the 20th century. Many thanks, Phil!

Since more information is available, this subseries will be extended. Your writer hopes readers will be as intrigued by these historical records as she is.

* * * * * *

Financial transactions concerning indigents in China’s town reports included supporting the poor farm; supporting paupers off the farm; and paying or receiving payment from other towns as people moved.

After two decades of discussion, in 1845 China voters bought a farm on the east shore of China Lake where some paupers lived, with a resident couple superintending. It was known as the town farm, poor farm or almshouse. The China bicentennial history summarizes its use until March 1911, when voters gave selectmen discretion to close it and they chose to do so.

In the year 1854-1855 (now the earliest report your writer has), the selectmen divided the cost of caring for the poor into four sections, totaling $462.13. About half, $231.54, was for supporting paupers on the town farm, including the superintendent’s (unspecified) pay and $20 for two men for “medical attendance.” In addition, the selectmen spent $78.27 to buy the farm a cow ($20), a cart and wheels ($18), a plow ($8) and materials for a hog-house ($32.27).

Another $118.50 was paid to the towns of Rockland, Richmond and Pittston as reimbursement for their support of paupers who were legally China residents.

The costs incurred under “support of poor in town off farm” included supplies for named recipients, two coffins and the cost of digging a grave (apparently $1.25, because one coffin cost $4 and the coffin plus grave-digging cost $5.25).

In their report, the three selectmen wrote that the number of poor on the farm (not given) and the cost were about the same as in past years, “notwithstanding the high price of provisions.” They commended Superintendent Parmeter and his wife for their management.

In 1860, supporting paupers cost taxpayers $729.36. The average population on the poor farm was “about” 16, “most of them old and decrepid [sic] and not able to render any service on the farm.”

The selectmen valued the farm’s “stock, hay and provisions,” as of March 1, 1861, at $736.57. Fifteen tons of hay were worth $216; six cows were valued at $140 and two oxen at $80. The least valuable item they noted was 25 pounds of candles, worth $3.

In 1862-1863, farm costs totaled $796.46, including three funerals and two coffins (selectman Thomas B. Lincoln charged $11 for the coffins). The farm inventory as of Feb. 28, 1863, was worth $740.88, including 17 tons of hay valued at only $170. Candles were not mentioned.

The next year, paupers on the farm cost $306.93, out of $882.26 pauper expenses. That year, 17 tons of hay were worth $289, and the selectmen valued the total inventory (again without counting candles) at $1,031.12. They added that “there is a large amount of provisions on hand,” which they hoped would “lessen the expenses for the family on the farm” for the 1864-1865 year.

In 1864-1865, the farm expenses were up slightly, at $317.85, while the total for caring for the poor was down significantly, at $728.75. In March 1864 China voters had elected three new selectmen, who are not named in the list of town officials receiving reimbursements, wrote no summary and did not sign their financial report; so there is no explanation of anything.

The China bicentennial history names these selectmen as Ambrose H. Abbot (or Abbott), Nathan Redlon and John Libbey (see box). In the report copy your writer has are the three men’s faded signatures, in ink. They did get paid for serving: “First Selectman, Assessor and Highway Surveyor, $100.00″; Second Selectman, for same, $78.50”: “Third Selectman, for same, $55.”

None of the three had previously been a selectman. Abbott and Libbey did not serve again after the one year; Redlon stayed on the board for two more years.

The reports your writer has through the rest of the 19th century show expenses for the poor staying under $1,000 most years, and varying numbers of paupers living on the farm. The selectmen write favorable comments on the management of the farm by a series of superintendents.

In the 1869-1870 report, farm superintendent Henry C. Hamilton’s annual salary was listed as $250. In 1874-1875, J. F. Plummer got $325; in 1879-1880, L. A. Jackson $300.

In 1880-1881, the Jacksons retired and were replaced by Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Freeman. They earned only $200 – and praise in the selectmen’s report.

“We think Mr. Freeman has cared well for the farm, and that the poor have been kindly treated by him. We wish to give special recommendation to Mrs. Freeman. Although occupying one of the most difficult and arduous positions, she has filled it to our entire satisfaction, her management has been firm, her treatment kind and she has left nothing undone which could secure comfort and peace among her unfortunate charges.”

By the early 1870s, expenses off the farm began including payments to the “insane hospital” in Augusta. They continued to be listed in future reports, often running over $200 annually.

The selectmen’s report of March 14, 1879, recommended the town “dispose of” the poor farm and buy another, more suitable one. The next year, two of the same board members and one new one wrote that it was their policy to “bring all paupers belonging to the town to the town farm,” so there was a need for “larger and better accommodations.”

In that year’s report, the average number of paupers on the farm was 18. Six people supported off the farm were named. China paid the cities of Augusta and Bangor and the towns of Athens, Clinton, Lexington and Palermo for others (including moving costs paid to Lexington [$23.99] and Athens [for a family, $8.01]; each town is about 50 miles from China).

In the 1881-1882 year, the cost of caring for the poor rose to almost $1,600, one of several accounts overexpended that year — unavoidably, selectmen D. (Dana) C. Hanson, F. (Freeman) H. Crowell and S. (Samuel) C. Starrett wrote. Two major expenditures were to Augusta for the Moor family ($154.03) and for G. W. or J. W. Lord ($165.87; Lord’s first initial is different on two different pages), for “long and severe” sicknesses.

Two years later, the 1883-1884 report calculated the cost at a little over $730. Three of 10 resident paupers had died, leaving seven as the fiscal year closed March 5, 1884. The selectmen commented that the farm had “contributed largely towards the support of the poor,” and the superintendent had been thrifty but had provided all necessities.

In the 1886-1887 report, $251.97 for expenses for the insane, plus other expenses on and off the farm, minus payments from Fairfield and Vassalboro for support of the York family, brought the year’s total to $712.10. One of the seven people on the farm died during the year.

In 1894-1895, farm superintendent John N. Hall was paid $225 for his services, plus $160 for a horse (your writer assumes a horse the town bought for him, but perhaps it was a horse the town bought from him). The selectmen wrote (March 9, 1895) that he and his wife had “performed their duties in a very satisfactory manner.” A coffin cost $6.50 that year; the bill for caring for two insane people was $212.02.

In 1897, Hall’s annual salary was up to $250. As of March 6, 1897, there were six “inmates.” But, the selectmen added, during the year almost 100 tramps had been given supper, a night’s lodging and breakfast, “adding materially to the expense and labor of the farm.”

By March 7, 1901, only five people lived on China’s poor farm. Pauper expenses, on and off the farm, for 1900-1901, totaled about $1,540, an amount that included repairing the barn.

(The selectmen named Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Haskell as the poor farm’s live-in superintendent and wife that year. The men paid for labor on the barn were Everett J. Haskell, $5; H. B. Haskell, $5; and J. H. Haskell, $4.)

The report for the year ending Feb. 20, 1906, showed four paupers living on the farm, up from three at the end of the prior year (which started with six; three died during the year). Superintendent Wilbur H. Taylor and his wife were paid $225. The farm’s stock and produce were valued at $681.65, including 20 tons of hay worth $140, a $100 horse, $1.25 worth of baskets and a chain and an iron bar valued at $1 each.

* * * * * *

Those bashful 1864-1865 selectmen

Ambrose H. Abbott or Abbot (1813 – March 9, 1882) was a respected resident of South China. A footnote in the China bicentennial history says his name is spelled Abbott in town records, but when he was town clerk and record-keeper, “he spelled his name Abbot.”

Abbott served as selectman only the one year, but held other local, state and federal offices. From Jan. 22, 1842, to June 21, 1853, he was South China’s postmaster. He was China town clerk from 1851 through 1864, and town treasurer for four years (1866, 1868 through 1870). Wikipedia says he was a member of the Maine Governor’s Council in 1870 and 1873 and a state senator in the spring of 1874.

The history says he served for 30 years as South China’s second librarian, starting in 1836 (the library was founded in 1830). The library was on the second floor of Abbott’s grocery store in April 1872, when most of the village burned down; it reopened in 1873, housed in Abbott’s and other people’s homes until a new building was provided in 1900.

* * * * * *

Nathan Redlon’s on-line information is confusing. Find a Grave says Redlon was born in 1812 (FamilySearch says Jan. 3, 1813), died Aug. 10, 1892 (FamilySearch agrees and adds “in Vassalboro”) and is buried in China’s Dudley Cemetery.

Also in that cemetery is Mary Redlon, whose gravestone says she was born in 1778 and died Aug. 5, 1866, aged 88. Find a Grave says this Mary was Nathan Redlon’s wife, and gave birth to his son George in 1863 (when she was 85). Your writer was highly skeptical, and was relieved to learn from FamilySearch that Nathan Redlon’s mother was named Mary (Hall) Redlon, born Dec. 12, 1777, in Waldoboro.

Mary Hall married John Redlon (1772 – 1854) on Nov. 14, 1791, in Newcastle. FamilySearch lists six sons and five daughters born between 1795 and 1815; Nathan was the next youngest. Mary (Hall) Redlon lived in China in 1860, FamilySearch says.

Find a Grave gives Nathan Redlon one daughter, Frances, and one son, George. Daughter Frances A. was born in 1841; the photo of her gravestone in Dudley Cemetery says her parents were Nathan and Elizabeth Redlon, and she died April 10, 1870, aged 29.

FamilySearch says Redlon married Elizabeth Brown about 1836, and they had at least three sons and two daughters. However, the site gives no information about Elizabeth or their children, skipping instead to what appears to be Redlon’s second family by his second wife, Mary Eleanor Martin.

She was born Nov. 25, 1831, in Thomaston; married Nathan Redlon on Sept. 7, 1851, in Union; lived in China for about 20 years; and died in Bath on Aug. 26, 1921.

FamilySearch names Nathan and Mary’s seven sons and four daughters, born between 1852 (a son who died within a year) and 1882 (when Nathan was 70). George M. is listed as the third son and sixth child of this marriage: born Oct. 31 (or Nov. 1), 1863, in China, died Dec. 2, 1882, aged 19. He, too, is buried in Dudley Cemetery.

* * * * * *

Your writer failed to find any information about China’s third selectman in 1864, John Libbey.

Main sources:

China town reports
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984)

Websites, miscellaneous.

12/21/2025

SCORES & OUTDOORS: Christmas and the reindeer

by Roland D. Hallee

Christmas is quickly sneaking up on us, and as everyone knows, it is the day that Santa Claus comes down the chimney bearing gifts. And, we also know, Santa arrives at your house in a sleigh powered by eight flying “reindeer.” So, what are reindeer?

The reindeer, Rangifer tarandus, also known as caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous in those areas.

The name “caribou” comes, through French, from Mi’kmaq qalipu, meaning “snow shoveler,” referring to its habit of pawing through the snow for food.

Originally, the reindeer was found in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Mong­olia and northern China north of the 50th latitude. In North America, it was found in Canada, Alaska and the northern contiguous USA from Washington state to Maine. During the late Pleistocene era, reindeer were found as far south as Nevada and Tennessee.

Today, wild reindeer have disappeared from many areas within this large historical range, especially from the southern parts, where it vanished almost everywhere. Large populations are still found in Norway, Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada.

Caribou and reindeer numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across this range, with the decline linked to climate change and industrial disturbance of habitat for sedentary, non-migratory herds.

The reindeer travels the furthest of any terrestrial mammal, walking up to 3,100 miles a year, although in Europe, the animal does not migrate as far. Normally traveling from 12-34 miles a day, the caribou can run at speeds of 37-50 mph.

The reindeer hooves adapt to the season: in the summer, when the tundra is soft and wet, the footpads become sponge-like and provide extra traction. In the winter, the pads shrink and tighten, exposing the rim of the hoof, which cuts into the ice and crusted snow to keep it from slipping.

The reindeer coat has two layers of fur, a dense woolly undercoat and longer-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hairs.

There are a variety of predators that prey heavily on reindeer. Golden eagles prey on calves and are the most prolific hunter on calving grounds. Woverines, brown bears, polar bears and gray wolves also prey on newborn calves or sickly animals. The gray wolf is the most effective natural predator of adult reindeer.

Reindeer hunting by humans has a very long history. Humans started hunting reindeer in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, and humans are today the main predator in many areas. Norway and Greenland have unbroken traditions of hunting wild reindeer from the ice age until the present day.

Reindeer meat is popular in the Scandinavian countries where reindeer meatballs are sold canned, and sautéed reindeer a best known dish in Lapland. In Alaska and Finland, reindeer sausage is sold in supermarkets and grocery stores. Reindeer meat is very tender and lean. Caribou have been a major source of subsistence for Canadian Inuit.

The first written description of reindeer is found in Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico (chapter 6.26), from the first century BC: “There is an ox shaped like a stag. In the middle of its forehead a single horn grows between its ears, taller and straighter than the animal horns with which we are familiar. At the top of this horns spreads out like the palm of a hand or the branches of a tree. The females are of the same form as the males, and their horns are the same shape and size.”

Getting back to Christmas, Santa’s reindeer were first named in the anonymously-written 1823 poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” (“Twas the Night Before Christmas,” later credited to Clement Clarke Moore), and were called Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem. Dunder was later changed to Donder, and still again to Donner (German for “thunder.”). Blixem was later changed to Bliksem, then Blitzen (German for “lightning”). Some consider Rudolph as part of the group as well, though he was not part of the original work. Rudolph was added by Robert L. May in 1939 as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

So, if you leave cookies and milk for Santa on Christmas eve, don’t forget some lichens, and leaves of willows and birches, for the reindeer.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Name the four NFL quarterbacks to have been the winning quarterback in at least three Super Bowls.

12/21/2025

1-in-3 Mainers believe eggnog is ‘light beer’ strength

Poll of 2,002 respondents

Every December, Americans trade their usual drinks for something a little more “seasonal” – steaming mulled wines, cozy Irish coffees, spiked hot chocolates and candy-cane martinis that feel far more innocent than they are. But a new survey by Bisnar Chase, polling 2,002 adults (21+), reveals just how badly people underestimate the strength of these festive favorites.

Respondents were asked whether they consider a range of Christmas cocktails – including eggnog, mulled wine and hot toddies – to be as strong as low-alcohol beer. The results were surprisingly clear: on average, over 1-in-3 (38%) Mainers believe these holiday drinks are no stronger than low-alcohol beer – this compares to a national average of 38%.

In Maine, 39 percent of adults think eggnog packs no more punch than a light beer, while another 41 percent say the same about mulled wine. And in the Pine Tree State, 34 percent also mistakenly believe that hot toddies count as low-alcohol cocktails.

The wider data shows how deep the confusion runs:

Twenty percent believe holiday cocktails don’t count toward the drink-drive limit.

Fifty-seven percent admit they have unknowingly drunk more at a holiday party because the drinks were “festive” or “didn’t taste strong.”

Forty-six percent expect warm drinks (such as spiked hot chocolate, lattes or mulled wine) to be weaker than cold cocktails.

And when faced with a menu item called Santa’s Milkshake, almost half (48 percent) would assume it’s alcohol-free.

The misunderstandings don’t end there. When asked which Christmas cocktails they believed they could legally drive after having one:

– 23 percent chose spiked hot chocolate.
– 10 percent chose a sugar cookie martini.
– 7 percent chose a snowball cocktail.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 77 percent of Mainers think restaurants and bars should label the alcohol strength of these drinks – a sign that people know they are operating with guesswork.

The findings point to a cheerful but risky blind spot. And behind all the cinnamon, whipped cream and seasonal novelty lies a serious issue: misjudging holiday cocktails can quietly push people over the legal limit, exposing them to criminal charges, licence suspensions and long-term consequences that last far beyond the holiday season.

“People don’t set out to break the law at Christmas – they simply underestimate what’s in the glass”, says nationally recognized attorney Brian Chase. “Cocktails look fun and harmless, but their alcohol content doesn’t magically drop because it’s the holidays. Our concern is that this misunderstanding can put otherwise responsible people at serious legal risk. A single misjudged drink can lead to a OUI, license suspension and consequences that follow you long after the decorations come down.”

12/19/2025

Local effort helps people “from away”

by Holly Weidner

While working for the sixth season at Vassalboro’s Lemieux Orchards, Miquel’s home in the highlands of Jamaica, was crushed by flying trees and all of his family of six’s possessions were blown away by Hurricane Melissa. His family, now homeless along with the other 400 inhabitants of the high, central hills in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, started trying to figure out a new life with no electricity, roads blocked with landslides and crops of banana trees , corn and potatoes wiped away.

But the village is already working together to rebuild. With donations from 15 Vassalboro residents, Miquel was able to put together a shelter for his family when he returned home at Thanksgiving. He is now working to help his neighbors cutting the scattered tree debris to make usable lumber and sticks for shelters and chicken coops. But all they have for tools are machetes to hack up the trees.

Coming to the rescue were the Kilbrides, owners of St. Bridget’s Community Center, of Vassalboro, and the Sewing for a Cause group who teamed up with Sea Strings from Belfast (see the November 20 issue of The Town Line article for details). They had organized a concert to celebrate the volunteers in the sewing group and decided to gather donations during the concert toward helping Miquel buy a chainsaw or other equipment to more quickly cut up and repurpose the debris.

Over $500 was raised in a few hours, the funds were sent securely and hope is blooming in the St. Elizabeth Parish of Jamaica!

Thanks to Central Mainers for remembering how those who help feed us are a part of our community even though they are from “away” .

PHOTO: Rachel, left, and James Kilbride. (contributed photo)