“Once again the Pinewood Derby seemed to be the most exciting event in town on a February Saturday afternoon. Cubs, parents, brothers and sisters, as well as interested spectators, crowded the Community Building to watch the little wooden cars, built by the boys and their dads, zoom down the racetrack. When it was all over, the winners, from first to fifth, were Chris Moody, Jeremy McKittrick, Travis Bennett, Jeremy Chalmers and Brandon Allen. Best design went to Jeremy Chalmers, with Ben Hazen receiving an honorable mention. Long-standing Derby fans will realize that there are several repeat winners in this bunch. The boys who won first through fourth, with fifth place as alternate, will travel to Damariscotta in April to compete in the regional race. Special thanks for organizing and judging the Derby again this year to Dick Koski, Keryn Laite, Greg Boetsch, Warren Pendleton, and Sam King. And a big thank you to Cub Master Jackie Watts for all she does for the Cub Scouts throughout the year.” from The Camden Herald, Feb. 21, 1985

         The Community Building was in its heyday that winter afternoon in 1983, a time when dozens of parents and “interested spectators” filled it with their dripping boots, damp mittens, and enthusiasm (translated: cabin fever had such a powerful hold on townspeople they (we) actually looked forward to hours of watching little wooden cars roll down a track). The building itself was there for just such a purpose.

         Utilitarian to the core, with plywood walls, 16-foot ceiling, vinyl floor, windows and fluorescent bulbs behind heavy wire screening, the Community Building served as the town’s gymnasium and kid-gathering place for decades. According to Jackie Watts’ scrapbook history, Lincolnville Memories, Seraphine Spear began dreaming of such a building way back in the 1950s; “but her dream didn’t really start to develop until 1957 [when] Janet Richards and Mary Staples got caught up in that dream” starting with a bank account of $60.42. In the early 1960’s Pastor de Sousa of the United Christian Church (U.C.C.), held several meetings on the idea and aroused community interest. On January 15, 1961 a committee formed, under the sponsorship of the U.C.C. – Arno Knight, Gilbert Knight, Robert Kennedy, Ruth Pottle, Janet Richards, and Mary Staples –which determined a location for the new building, next door to the church (which was to be the legal title holder of the property). Number one in the by-laws that they formulated stated “it is the function of the committee to build and maintain the proposed Center and to see that it is used primarily for the best interest of the children of the community regardless of their church affiliations. It is the committee’s responsibility to determine what activities are in the best interest of the children and pursue those ends.”

         And the fundraising began. Over the next several years food sales, bottle drives, rummage sales, barbecues, church suppers, coffees, card parties, a ministrel show, hunters’ breakfasts, paper drives, auctions and Beano all contributed to the growing coffers. They raffled a Studebaker, held a Tom Thumb Wedding (!), and had a booth at the Seafoods Festival. During the summer of 1963 the foundation was built and closed in all with volunteers, a full basement built above grade in the back with windows overlooking the field beyond.

In 1968 a total of 70 volunteers framed the building; hired labor constructed the roof trusses and, on a cold and windy day in December, with a donated crane, 14 volunteers set the trusses and boarded in the roof for winter. By 1972 the upstairs was nearly completed, and with two anonymous gifts of $1000 a furnace was installed. Local businesses, organizations and individuals donated chairs, basketballs, ceiling and floor tiles, nearly everything that went into the building.

         Besides the annual Pinewood Derby the Community Building served as Lincolnville Central School’s gym. A men’s basketball team played there every Monday night for years, the Boy Scouts met regularly throughout the 80s and 90s, along with variety shows, dances, receptions, at least one wedding (not a Tom Thumb), and birthday parties complete with decorations, food and music.

         However, In the spring of 2002 residents were shocked to learn that their Lincolnville Central School was fatally infected with mold. In April it was closed to all occupancy; students finished the school year in a hodgepodge of locations in the area. At that June’s Town Meeting a group of men in white shirts and ties caused a stir; who were they? What were they up to? The men turned out to be representatives of MBNA, the credit card company that was transforming the Midcoast in so many ways. “We’ll build you a school at our Point Lookout campus,” they told stunned voters. “And we’ll have it ready by Labor Day.”

         And they did. The entire nine grades, K-8, moved into the brand new building in Northport on the day after Labor Day. Now, with the pressure off, the town could go about the huge job of building a new school in town. That’s a story for another time, but the effect of these events led to the demise of the Community Building as it had been conceived. Within about a year of the new school’s opening in 2005, with its Lynx Gymnasium and Walsh Common, large modern spaces with all possible bells and whistles, the old building seemed to have lost its purpose. The committee in charge at the time had become basically inactive, rental income nil, and the town was having to help with basic expenses. In 2008 they voted to disband and turn the building back to the U.C.C., which was required in the original agreement.

         To say that the congregation of the U.C.C. wasn’t exactly thrilled doesn’t quite say it. After all, they were already dealing with the upkeep on an 1820 structure, the Meeting House of the town’s early days. They’d just finished building a Parish Hall addition, including the church’s first bathroom and weren’t in the mood for more fundraising/building. But with the townspeople who had built the Community Building in mind, the congregation voted early on to preserving and using this “white elephant” as some saw it.

         Slowly, but surely, over these past seven years, the inside of the Community Building has been transformed from a battered basketball court to a pleasant, airy and light room. The ceiling has been lowered four feet, new lighting installed, new double-glazed windows, walls repaired, battened and painted pale yellow. Downstairs, though still just a basement for storage, new windows replace the leaky old ones.

         And, as of last week, construction has begun on the next phase of renovation: a handicapped-accessible bathroom as well as a kitchen, long a dream of the original committee, and the design of volunteer architect, Jack Silverio. At a recent meeting, Keith Maguire, the volunteer project manager, recalled how the Community Building had been a part of his life. From going door to door through town taking orders for the Community Birthday Calendar, to working with other dads — Don Fullington, Steve Young, Steve Laite, Gary Neville, and Mike Marden — to cage the windows and lights, keep the building up, coaching boys’ basketball teams and more. He and Mary Schulien, who heads up the church’s Community Building committee, remembered the Scout activities, volleyball, contra dances, aerobics, and the men’s basketball league.

         Private donations, along with three grants — from West Bay Rotary, U.C.C Conference, and the Maine Community Foundation — proceeds from the monthly Indoor Flea Market, and donations from the Soup Café have all gone towards the projected goal of $45,000; $37,500 has been raised so far for the kitchen/bathroom fund, leaving just $7,500 to go. Mary was thrilled to be part of the crew, helping carpenter Dave Little lift the new bathroom wall into place the other day.

Saturday night’s fire that took the lives of Gene and Virginia Dyer has had most everyone in town reeling. The Dyers, elders in a large Lincolnville family, are mourned by dozens of family members, as well as lifelong friends in our town. When something like this happens, though, everyone is affected — the firefighters who responded to the fire, the people awakened by the wailing sirens of the trucks racing to the Beach, those who read about it in a news story. As one person said in a L’ville Bulletin Board post, “we don’t hear sirens in the night very often.” I bet many said a silent prayer Saturday night for whoever was in trouble; I hope the family feels those prayers.