LINCOLNVILLE — The Select Board has authorized Town Administrator David Kinney to sign a grant agreement with Community Heart & Soul for $10,000. Developed and field-tested over a decade in partnership with over 100 small cities and towns across America, Community Heart & Soul is a proven process for engaging a community in shaping its future, according to Lincolnville, in a news release.

The Community Heart & Soul process will engage Lincolnville residents in discussions about what they love about their town and their hopes for the town’s future, and then highlight the common themes that emerge. It will use a wide variety of creative outreach strategies to involve the entire community – lifelong residents and newcomers, year-round and seasonal, young and old, conservatives and liberals, leaders in different areas of the town’s life and people whose voices are often missing or overlooked in community dialogue.

Lincolnville Heart & Soul will span two years, during which a committee of residents will lead the process. The results will inform the town’s Comprehensive Plan Review Committee as it completes the 2024 Comprehensive Plan update and provide a menu of specific projects that the town’s government, community organizations and businesses can consider pursuing over the years ahead.

The seed grant, and funding provided by the town itself, offers the group the ability to work with a Community Heart & Soul consultant, who will help guide the engagement process.

Susan Silverio, chair of Lincolnville’s Comprehensive Plan Review Committee, will act as project coordinator for the process. Cindy Dunham, founding camp director of UMaine 4H Camp and Learning Center at Tanglewood in Lincolnville, will chair the project’s steering group.

Silverio is enthusiastic about the possibilities, stating, “We are so thrilled to have received this grant. It allows us to get this process up and running quickly so we can collect as many citizen voices as possible in advance of the Comprehensive Plan update. Our goal is to give the entire community a chance to weigh in on this effort.”

Dunham added that “What I love about this process is that it’s so positive – the focus is on identifying the areas of agreement among residents about what they hope Lincolnville can be like in the future, and then developing ideas for moving toward that future.”

For more information or to inquire about being involved in the effort, contact Susan Silverio at: Lincolnville.heart.and.soul@gmail.com.