LINCOLNVILLE — Four of five Lincolnville selectmen, plus Town Administrator David Kinney, hiked through the woods (in cars) June 6 to surprise two longtime Lincolnville citizens, who are honored this year in the 2014 town report. Cindy Dunham was home, and Jim pulled into the driveway just after 5 p.m., returning from out-of-state and towing a boat.

He walked into the house, looked at the assembly of selectmen, and raised an eyebrow.

“It’s book club night,” said one.

“What’s for supper,” said another.

Really, it was a congratulations and delivery of the town report to the two honorees.

The dedication reads: Jim and Cindy Dunham retired in 2008 as directors of Camp Tanglewood, where they had worked since its inception as 4-H in 1982. And though they had been previously involved with numerous town committees, including the Conservation Commission and the Comprehensive Plan Committee, they soon began looking for new ways they could put their skills to work contributing to their town.”

Their involvement in the Lincolnville Transition Initiative led to their founding in 2011 of the Lincolnville Community Alliance, a group dedicated to finding ways to bring people together to learn new skills, and to maximize sustainable resources already present in town.

During the winter of 2011-2012, the Lincolnville Historical Society bought the former Center School building for a $1 from the Lincolnville Boat Club, then arranged to lease the land, formerly known as Dean & Eugley’s, from the town. This land had been vacant for 10 years with a Maine Department of Environmental Protection covenant on that had discouraged development.

The town and DEP would subsequently help facilitate the project, making sure it met all requirements of minimal soil disturbance.

The summer of 2012, under Jim’s enthusiastic leadership, a group of men, retired and semi-retired — sometimes described as “of late middle age” — came together to figure out how to move the 875-square-foot building.  They worked for a couple of months shoring up the remaining two walls-and-a-roof, jacking it up off its foundation and then lowering it onto short lengths of pipe.  A wooden track was built out to the road, and on the morning of October 27, 2012 with the road closed to traffic, they quickly completed the track across Maine Street.  Some 200 townspeople showed up to pick up the rope attached to the building and, in about an hour, pulled the Center Schoolhouse across the road.

     Now, just over a year later, Jim and Cindy Dunham have more than put their skills to work for the Town of Lincolnville.  The Lincolnville Community Library and Open Air Museum has become a reality.  In addition to the original crew of movers, some 25 volunteers, men and women have turned out three mornings a week, every week all this summer and fall, to rebuild the old building and to construct an Open Air Museum for the LIncolnville HIstorical Society.  As Jim oversaw the restoration of the building, and a crew of women built the sheds of the Open Air Museum, Cindy organized, with a development committee, various fund-raising throughout the spring and summer, kept track of the budget, and oversaw grant-writing.  As the keeper of the calendar, Cindy saw that the various committees –- library, landscaping, and development committees met regularly to make decisions about the work being done. 

     Not only did these two keep the complicated project  —  restoration, new construction of an annex, sheds, and landscaping  --  running smoothly, but both were hammering nails alongside the other volunteers throughout every work day.  The original budget goal of the project  –-  $208,000  --  was met by grants, individual cash donations, and in-kind donations.  These last, donations of skills such as wiring, plumbing, painting, carpentry, landscaping, and earth-moving not only helped with the bottom line, but helped make it truly a community project.  Cindy and Jim were largely responsible for getting this level of participation from local business people.  The sheds, for example, are built completely from Lincolnville lumber -  pine, oak, and spruce logs donated by landowners and sawed in town. 

     Just to get those logs turned into lumber involved visits with landowners, trucking the logs, then stacking, trucking and re-stacking the new boards.  Only Jim and Cindy Dunham could have pulled this off, all the while overseeing all the other elements of the project.

     Passionate environmentalists, Jim and Cindy put their values to work in every step of the project.  From the “community compost heap” to the double-wall insulation in the library to the photovoltaics on the roof, the project is meant to teach ways to re-use and re-purpose materials.  The landscaping, when completed, will feature native plants, rain barrels, as well as protection of nearby Norton Pond.

     So people were brought together  --  several of the volunteers had lived in town a number of years, but never really knew anyone here.  Some long-time community members had never found time before this project to get involved in town.  Good friendships were formed working together.  As for new skills, even the most experienced of the carpentry crew worked through some complicated problems involving a rickety, 164-year-old building that had just made a trip across the road.  The dozen or so women who built the two sheds of the open air museum learned to run power equipment, chisel lap joints, and a whole new vocabulary including “kerf,” “collar tie,” and “sheathing.”

     Best of all, the project that Jim and Cindy led to fruition gave new life to a parcel of land right at the entrance to Lincolnville Center and, in the process, demonstrated how to use and re-use local resources, the very definition of sustainability.

     We greatly appreciate Jim and Cindy’s efforts with the Library project along with their other involvement with Town government and therefore dedicate this Town Report to them.