The history and the fate of the building at 363 Route 3

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363 Route 3. (The Town Line file photo by Roland D. Hallee)

by Mary Grow

Chapter One: the Building’s Story

Historical information on the wooden building at 363 Route 3, in China, comes from a combination of town records, provided by China Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood and Codes Enforcement Officer Nicholas French, and local people’s memories.

These sources say that Richard and Rita Hussey had the building constructed in 1990, on the lot they bought in August 1989. Over the years, it went through physical changes and changes of use, as businesses came and went.

A tax record says it started as a one-story building with a basement and an unfinished attic. The second floor got finished, and once served as an apartment. Sometimes the building had a deck, sometimes a drive-up window.

Its first tenant was a Cannon Towel outlet. Beale’s Video rented it, either before or after it was home to Thomas Holyoke’s Top Ten Donuts and More, in 2003.

Around 2004 and/or 2005, Colleen Smith’s South China Coffee Shop was the tenant. In 2007, a second-floor apartment was added above the driving school then using the main floor.

In 2011, Norman Elvin, an Augusta businessman doing business as G & E Realty, bought the building. He converted it to a restaurant with take-out that he named Norm’s Chicken and Seafood, opened in 2012.

In September 2016, G & E Realty gave the building to Grace Academy, a non-profit organization founded by Michelle Bourque in 2009, as a home for her private school, Grace Academy. She and staff taught there until the school closed in June 2022.

On June 2, 2021, by a deed signed by Grace Academy’s vice-president, Lisa Durant, the non-profit sold the property to Joseph Bourque, Michelle Bourque’s husband, to repay loans he had made to Grace Academy.

On Aug. 22, 2024, Bourque sold to Calito Development Group, of Torrington, Connecticut. Calito, represented by Skowhegan engineer, Steven Govoni, applied to the China Planning board for a permit to build a single-story, 9,100-square-foot steel building on the lot, a project that would require removing or demolishing the existing building.

Planning board members reviewed the application according to China’s ordinance standards, found that all requirements were met and approved the permit at their Jan. 4, 2025, meeting.

Govoni did not name the store that would inhabit the new building. On-line records about Calito Development Group link it to Dollar General stores. The company got approval for a “generalized retail store”, in Fairfield, in December 2024, according to a Morning Sentinel article.

Codes officer French pointed out that the China Planning Board’s decision-making on Calito’s application included a public hearing that was publicized four times, instead of the usual two. It was first announced for Dec. 10, 2024, and after that meeting was canceled due to a snowstorm, twice more for the Jan. 4, 2025, meeting. No one commented on the application.

As usual, the board chairman announced a 30-day appeal period after the decision. No appeal was filed.

In April 2025, Calito had the Grace Academy building demolished.

Hapgood and French said they tried, without success, to find a new home for the building, limiting their search to lots not too far away due to moving costs.

Chapter Two: Norman Elvin’s story

Norman Elvin, founder and president of G & E Roofing, in Augusta, bought the building at 363 Route 3 in 2011.

He had taken a break from roofing (his sister ran the business, he said, and he kept in close touch) to run the China Dine-ah on Lakeview Drive, in China. This business was a sit-down restaurant; and, Elvin said, he also wanted to try a partly take-out model.

Why a restaurant at all? Because, he said, he’d read that new restaurants have the highest failure rate of any type of business. He thought a main reason was that restaurants are started by chefs, who may lack business experience and access to capital; a restaurant started by a businessman should succeed.

The new venture he named Norm’s Seafood and Chicken. He put in many hours there, while still running the China Dine-ah.

Elvin enjoyed the work; he appreciated his staff and made new friends among the customers. But after more than two years, he realized enough was enough: “I didn’t have any nights, weekends or holidays.”

He transferred ownership of the China Dine-ah in the spring of 2014, and was ready to get out of the restaurant business completely.

Elvin and Michelle Bourque, a South China resident who founded Grace Academy, a private Christian school, in 2009, had known each other casually for years. Bourque was looking for a permanent home for Grace Academy, and she and Elvin began talking about her acquiring his building.

Elvin liked the idea, and, more important to him, he thought his deceased parents, Leslie and Betty Elvin, would have liked it, too.

Leslie Elvin was a mailman, with an RFD route that started early in the morning, six days a week, and brought him home to watch his children’s after-school sports. Betty Elvin, her son says, was a stay-at-home mom.

The household didn’t have much money, but Elvin remembers “tons of love and a really good work ethic.” They modeled generosity; Leslie Elvin volunteered at what was then the Augusta Mental Health Institute, walking with patients, and both assisted at the Augusta food bank.

And they modeled hard work. Elvin remembers his father, every fall, using his two weeks’ vacation from the post office to pick apples in a Monmouth orchard to earn the extra money for the property taxes.

Young Norman delivered newspapers, shoveled snow and mowed lawns.

His parents “taught me to work, love and share,” he summarized. He has done those things, earning a reputation as a philanthropist.

So he donated his building to the non-profit organization named Grace Academy as a home for the school of the same name. His parents’ names were on the school’s sign.

For the first couple years, Elvin said, he was among the school’s financial supporters. Even then, he wondered how profitable it was or would be.

Fast forward to April 2025, when Elvin learned the property had been sold and the building was being demolished.

Elvin was distressed, hurt and increasingly angry, to the point where he was losing sleep. Other community members were also upset, and perplexed; he tried to correct some of the misinformation on social media.

He explained three reasons for his initial reaction.

Had he known years ago that Grace Academy was going to have to close, he could and would have stepped in with more support, before the financial situation became unmanageable.

He considered the loss of the school and the building a disservice to “the future children that would have benefited from that building,” and to the community as a whole.

He believed the Bourques should have seen to it that once debts were paid, money from the sale came back to him, so he could invest in a new project to honor Leslie and Betty Elvin.

During April and into May, Elvin and the Bourques continued to talk at intervals. By early May, Elvin was more resigned. He recognized that the Bourques, too, were hurting, and said he felt more confident that any remaining money would be put to a good use.

Chapter Three: Michelle Bourque’s story

Michelle Bourque has always been pro-education. She has fond memories of some of her teachers; has a teaching certificate and a degree in school counseling; and has been and currently is a public-school teacher.

She married into a home-schooling family, she said, and home-schooled her own four children. In 2009, her older son, Matt, was in seventh grade when he said to her one day, “I’m lonely.”

Bourque has always been a problem-solver, too. She remembers in fifth grade organizing school events to benefit a teacher who had cancer.

Realizing that many home-schooled children miss the company of their peers, she took on the problem. She had a start: in 2008, the Palermo library hosted meetings of home-schooling families, and the families stayed in touch.

In the summer of 2009, Bourque created a non-profit organization named Grace Academy and assembled a board of directors, home-schooling parents, to create a cooperative home-schoolers’ program.

Crown Regional Christian School was then closing. This private school had been operating in what South China residents still call the old Farrington’s building, southeast of the four corners in South China Village. Palermo resident Dennis Keller owned the building.

Keller accepted Bourque’s request to move her school into the building – and, she said, he warned her “education is a money pit.” The Grace Academy “cottage school” hosted six families, with about two dozen children, four days a week. The fifth day, they welcomed another half-dozen families, with about the same number of children, who did not want all-week classes together.

Bourque was chairman of the Grace Academy board, executive director and fifth-and sixth-grade teacher. Her long-time friend Lisa Durant was board vice-president, academic director and third- and fourth-grade teacher.

Keller sold the building after two years, displacing the school. Grace Academy began moving from one space to another, usually in area churches and libraries. Sometimes the space was free, sometimes there was a fee; sometimes the deal included the Bourques doing the cleaning.

By 2014, the group had 26 families and more than 100 students, meeting in the Church of the Nazarene, on Route 3.

Then came the opportunity to move to Elvin’s building. Bourque led directors and volunteers in converting the building from restaurant to schoolhouse, bringing in desks and chairs, creating classroom space and providing an organized, 6,000-volume library and other resources for home-schoolers.

Grace Academy operated through Covid. In 2020, the board tried to expand by adding a pre-school, hoping to gain enough younger students paying market rate to help with finances. Lack of personnel doomed the experiment.

The “cottage school” was earning too little from “very low” tuition, donations and other sources to begin to cover expenses, which included building improvements, like adding basement and second-floor heat pumps to supplement the ground-floor one; building and grounds maintenance; teaching supplies, like books, paper and chalk, and services, like photocopying; food; and other essentials.

“Instead of being led by our vision, we were being led by bills,” Bourque said.

She personally did all she could, from organizing and teaching to cleaning, maintenance and repairs and grounds work. She sometimes stayed overnight on a snowy winter night to shovel the deck in the morning.

By early 2022, the building belonged to Joseph Bourque, and the Grace Academy directors were discussing closing the school. They did – and accepted a new mission.

In her June 18, 2022, final message, Bourque wrote, “THANK YOU to everyone who supported Grace Academy over the years in one way or another. We did a lot of good and are so grateful to have served our community in this way.”

Bourque sought other tenants for the building, unsuccessfully. When her husband got an unexpected letter from a realty company offering to buy the property, they felt they had no choice but to sell.

Like town officials Hapgood and French, Bourque tried and failed to find a new location for the building, asking other organizations and offering to cover moving costs.

Like Elvin, Bourque is sorry that the building in which she invested nine years of her life is gone. She felt “sick to my stomach” when she heard.

“It was a dream that I worked very, very hard for,” she said.

As of early May, Bourque expects to continue talking with Elvin. “Norm and I are at a good place now,” she said, but “we’re not done yet.”

Chapter Four: Grace Academy’s new mission

Since 2012, the Grace Academy board of directors has been supporting a new initiative for the non-profit organization called Sweet Dreams Bags. Michelle Bourque introduced it, inspired by two national programs.

The 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance act is a federal law that authorizes federal assistance for homeless children and youth.

The Pajama Program is a national non-profit, with at least one chapter in each state, that “promotes equitable access to healthy sleep so all children can thrive.” It trains “sleep educators” who work with parents in shelters to explain the value of a nighttime routine, a child’s need for sleep and appropriate conditions (silence, darkness).

Grace Academy’s Sweet Dreams Bag is a gift to a homeless child: a sturdy bag with a name tag for the child’s name, containing a pair of pajamas, an age-appropriate book, a security blanket and a “huggable” stuffed animal, and sometimes other useful items, like a hygiene pack.

The purpose is to help children in the unfamiliar environment of a homeless shelter get the good night’s sleep needed for physical and emotional well-being.

In 2012, as Bourque realized that Grace Academy’s school was floundering financially, she talked again with her Palermo friend, Dennis Keller. He encouraged her not to abandon the non-profit, and to go ahead with her Sweet Dreams Bags.

Recently, Bourque described the program to Rachel Kilbride and the Sew for a Cause group Kilbride organized years ago at St. Bridget Center, in North Vassalboro. By the time she was ready to leave, she said, the group had one bag ready; they’ve been supporters ever since.

Sweet Dreams Bags was based in the former Grace Academy school building. Now that the building is gone, Bourque has rented storage space.

She and the rest of the board hope to expand the program to other children facing adversity – those staying at a cancer center, or facing nights in a hospital, for example.

Sweet Dreams Bags, the Pajama Program and the McKinney-Vento Act all have websites for those seeking more information.

Large turnout for China’s public hearing on May 5

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An unusually large number of residents turned out for the China Sweet Treat Social and public hearing on May 5. (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

China select board members got updates on the community garden and Thurston Park, accepted Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood’s idea of contracting with a professional grant-writer and presented the annual Spirit of America award for volunteerism at their May 5 meeting.

Planning Board chairman Toni Wall received the award – to her surprise – in recognition of her years of work on the board, during which she has spent a great deal of extra time creating and updating town ordinances.

Hapgood proposed connecting with a professional grant writer in Liberty to see if he could help China find and apply for outside funds. His fee is $60 an hour, she said, and she proposed contracting for 10 hours of research.

Board member discussed how much direction he should have, seeking the happy medium between learning about grants they didn’t want and missing information on grants they hadn’t realized could be useful. They unanimously approved spending up to $600.

Thurston Park committee chairman Jeanette Smith again raised the issue of access to the park. Currently, people drive in from the north, over the unpaved Yorktown Road coming south from Albion. The road is so bad that people keep asking for access from the south end; landowner resistance is a problem there.

Hapgood said she has been discussing the road with Albion officials. Smith is seeking cost estimates for paving the China section of the north approach. Select board member Edwin Bailey suggested the grant-writer might be helpful.

James Hsiang presented an update on the community garden, sponsored by the China for a Lifetime Committee and located on the town-owned lot south of the town office complex. The wooden raised beds have been built, the soil to fill them is due soon and two volunteers will spread it in the beds, he said.

Lakeview Lumber, in China, donated lumber for a 6-by-8-foot garden shed. Hsiang asked for, and select board members unanimously granted, permission to build the shed on the town’s land.

About half the almost three dozen beds are still for sale, Hsiang said. If not all are sold by the deadline he is about to set, he plans to use some to raise vegetables for the China Food Pantry.

Hsiang plans a variety of summer events, not all garden-related, to bring visitors to the community garden.

The select board meeting was followed by a short recess, during which the ever-increasing group enjoyed cookies and cupcakes. By the time the public hearing on the June 10 warrant articles started, more than two dozen residents had filled the meeting room, a turn-out Hapgood and select board members greeted with pleasure.

This hearing was on the already-approved warrant on which voters will act at the polls on Tuesday, June 10. Some of the questions raised at the hour-and-a-half hearing dealt with timing: why not a hearing before the warrant is final, while changes can be made?

The answer, from officials and other audience members, was that the warrant had been discussed for months at publicized meetings of the select board and the budget committee: residents’ comments would have been welcome.

Several people again proposed going back to the pre-covid open town meeting, so that voters could ask questions before they voted and perhaps amend some of the articles.

Select board chairman Wayne Chadwick, and others, replied that too few people attended the open meetings, 100 or so compared to 1,000 or so who voted by written ballot.

“One hundred informed people versus one thousand uninformed people,” former select board member Joann Austin protested.

South China Fire Chief Richard Morse asked what happens if voters reject an article, for example voting not to appropriate funds for town administration. Art. 13 asks voters to approve (as in prior years) a statement that if an article does not pass, the amount appropriated in the current fiscal year “shall be deemed adopted” for the new FY beginning July 1.

In other words, Hapgood and Chadwick said, defeating an article authorizing an expenditure does not reject the purpose, just the funding. Should such a thing happen, select board members would have to try to get by on the previous budget; or dip into surplus; or call a special town meeting to re-present a request for money.

The manager clarified a related issue: the terms “undesignated fund balance,” “unassigned balance” and “surplus” all mean the same thing, the money China has available as emergency back-up. As of June 2024, China’s surplus was about $1.8 million, she said.

Hapgood and board members explained meanings of and reasons for specific warrant articles about which questions were asked. The recording of the hearing is on the website, chinamaine.org, under Live Streaming, May events.

China’s CEO named Municipal Employee of the Year by Mid-Maine Chamber

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China Codes Enforcement Officer, Nicholas French

China’s Codes Enforcement Officer, Nick French, was recently awarded Municipal Employee of the Year by the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce.

Toni Wall presented with Spirit of America award

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China Town Manager Becky Hapgood, right, presents the award to Wall. (contributed photo)

Planning Board chairman Toni Wall, left, was presented the annual Spirit of America award for volunteerism at the May 5 meeting of the China Board of Selectmen. She received the award – to her surprise – in recognition of her years of work on the board, during which she has spent a great deal of extra time creating and updating town ordinances.

PHOTO: China team participates in the Feed Me 5K Walk

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Food pantry volunteers who participated, left to right, Nancy Pfeiffer, Rachel Maxwell, James Maxwell and Aurie Maxwell. (photo by Peter Maxwell)

Braving the rain and wind, a team from the China Community Food Pantry joined participants from across central Maine on Saturday, April 26, for the Feed Me 5K Walk – an annual event aimed at raising awareness and support for local hunger relief efforts. The event, held in Augusta, brought together community members to walk in solidarity with those facing food insecurity. The funds raised help stock the shelves of area food pantries and support programs that provide meals to families in need.

China select board talks about updating town office heating system

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by Mary Grow

China select board members spent more than half an hour of their two-hour April 22 meeting discussing alternatives for updating the town office heating (and cooling) system.

Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood said the original brick section of the building still has its 1998 furnaces and ductwork. Later piecemeal additions first extended the 1998 system and recently added solar panels on the east end.

In 2023, Hapgood said, China got an Efficiency Maine grant for heat pumps. In 2024, a $48,456 second grant led to a request for bids and an agreement with Houle’s Plumbing and Heating, in Waterville. The grant expires April 30.

Town officials have been considering options with Jeff Pellerin, from Houle’s, who attended the April 22 meeting. Board members ruled out upgrading the original system, at an estimated cost of $36,000 to $40,000 with no improved temperature control in the back offices.

Pellerin explained, with technical details, a new VFR (Variable Flow Refrigerant) system, based on heat pumps, to serve the entire building. The cost to the town, he and Hapgood said, would be $54,044.

Board members considered the adequacy of heat pumps on very cold days and whether the new system would use too much electricity, increasing the power bill and perhaps requiring an upgrade.

Houle’s VFR system was approved on a 3-2 vote, with Edwin Bailey, Jeanne Marquis and Thomas Rumpf in favor and Blane Casey and board chairman Wayne Chadwick opposed.

For 2025 road paving, board members unanimously accepted the lowest of nine bids, $85.50 a ton for paving mix from Damariscotta-based Hagar Enterprises. They discussed with Hapgood and Public Works Director Shawn Reed options for parts of Neck and Maple Ridge roads. A section of the latter is in such bad shape they talked of rebuilding it.

Board members made two unanimous decisions:

— To accept Hagar’s bid, with the condition that none of the work is to be subcontracted, and to authorize Hapgood, Reed and China’s road committee to decide about Neck and Maple Ridge roads.
— To postpone planned improvements to the China Baptist Church parking lot, used by boaters and swimmers at the head of the lake, pending recommendations from church representatives and road committee members.

The town building committee, chaired by Sheldon Goodine, planned and designed the storage vault that will soon be added to the town office building. Board members debated whether a building committee is still needed.

They doubt the town needs either a building maintenance committee or a long-range planning building/facilities committee. Departments keep track of their own maintenance issues and have five-year plans, and any major change seems to be in the distant future.

For future discussion, Rumpf volunteered to draft a mission statement for a long-range facilities committee. Meanwhile, the building committee continues to exist.

By a 4-0-1 vote, with Rumpf abstaining, board members renewed the annual permission for the China Four Seasons Club to use sections of Pleasant View Ridge and Bog roads as part of their four-wheeler trail network from June 1 to Columbus Day (observed Monday, Oct. 13). Rumpf, who is club president, and vice-president Darrell Wentworth said there were no complaints last year.

Board members accepted recommendations from the town’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) Committee to allocate TIF funds to seven groups:

— China Broadband Committee, $10,000 for consultant fees to Mission Broadband plus $370,000 previously approved for an expansion of broadband service, provided a grant is obtained.
— China Community Forest, $4,093 for trail signs, to supplement the blazes and improved maps the forest committee has provided so visitors won’t get lost.
— China Four Seasons Club, $50,000 for continued trail work.
— China Ice Days, $6,000 for fireworks in February 2026.
— China Lake Association, $50,000 to continue work to protect and improve water quality in China Lake and Webber and Three Mile ponds. Included is the Courtesy Boat Inspection (CBI) program, which the application for TIF funds says the association is taking over from the China Region Lakes Alliance.
— Thurston Park, $37,000 for improvements to trails and parking areas.
— The Town Line newspaper, $3,000, to help the newspaper continue to publish its weekly issues.

The Town of China had three requests for TIF funds. At Hapgood’s suggestion, they were postponed to the May 5 board meeting so the April 22 one could end soon after 8 p.m.

The May 5 China select board meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than usual, in the town office meeting room. It will be followed by a 6:30 p.m. social time and public hearing on the warrant for the June 10 annual town business meeting.

Walking toward the world we want to inhabit

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Walkers arriving at Friends Camp, in China. (photo by Eric W. Austin)

A Journey of Peace and Friendship connects communities across Maine

by Eric W. Austin

It was a gray, drizzly afternoon at Friends Camp, in China, but the warmth inside the gathering hall pushed back the gloom. A fire crackled in the hearth as benches were pulled into a loose semicircle around it, and a table in the back with potluck dishes filled the room with the pungent aroma of home-cooked food. About 40 people gathered – some had walked miles that day, others had come simply to welcome them, to share a meal, and to stand together for something bigger than themselves.

This was day six of A Journey of Peace and Friendship, a weeklong walk organized by the Land Peace Foundation, weaving its way from the heart of the Penobscot Nation, at Indian Island, to the State House, in Augusta. When the walkers arrived at Friends Camp, tired but smiling, those inside stepped out to greet them, offering cheers and congratulations. Then everyone came back inside, plates were filled, and stories began to flow – stories of the road behind, the vision ahead, and the hope that simple acts of kindness and connection might help mend a divided world.

A Journey of Peace and Friendship is not a protest march. It isn’t a rally against a policy or a person. Instead, it’s something gentler – and in its way, far more radical. It’s a deliberate choice to walk together, across towns and counties, as a living expression of hope: hope for a more compassionate, more neighborly world.

Sherri Mitchell

Organized by the Land Peace Foundation, a nonprofit based in Monroe that focuses on preserving Indigenous lifeways and strengthening Wabanaki kinship and ally networks, the journey invites participants to embody the values they believe in: kindness, mutual care, respect, and connection.

The walk began on April 22, Earth Day, at the Penobscot Nation Boat Landing at Indian Island, and concludes at the Maine State House, in Augusta, on April 29. Each day starts and ends with prayer or reflection, and along the way participants share meals, stories, and song – walking, as the organizers describe it, “toward the world that we most want to inhabit.”

As the Foundation’s mission states, success is measured not by victory over an opponent, but by the quality of the relationships we build – with each other, with the land, and with the generations yet to come. The Journey of Peace and Friendship puts that mission into motion, step by step.

For many of the participants, the walk was not only about making a statement – it was about living their values out loud.

“I was invited to be part of the planning group,” said Andy, one of the organizers from Edgecomb. “There were about 15 of us who met at the Land Peace Foundation. And while there are so many reasons to speak out about the concerns we’re all seeing, one of the things that really resonated with me is Sherri Mitchell’s approach, which is that we should spend 80 percent of our time lifting up the vision of the world we want, and only 20 percent saying what we’re against. That’s what this walk is about.”

That focus on vision, rather than opposition, came through again and again in conversations with the walkers. Sarah, one of the participants, spoke about the need to move beyond fear and division: “It felt like we needed to embody a commitment across cultures, across faiths, rooted in the spirituality of Wabanaki people – to welcome and affirm the sacred in all of us. We need to know our neighbors. We need to do the work not to other people, but with them.”

For Sherri Mitchell, director of the Land Peace Foundation, the idea for the walk came out of conversations within the organization as they wrestled with how to respond to the anger and fear they saw growing around them.

“There were a lot of people feeling really afraid, and a lot of people feeling angry and frustrated,” Mitchell said. “We made a decision that we didn’t want to live oppositionally. We weren’t going to change who we are just to be in opposition to something else. We wanted to create something that was a visual representation of the values we hold – so that people could look out and see that there are those willing to stand up for kindness, for connection, for compassion.”

Along the way, that message has resonated with people from all walks of life – whether they joined for a few steps, waved from their porches, or simply asked what the walk was about.

By the time the walkers reached Friends Camp, in China, on Sunday afternoon, they had already covered many miles in the wind and rain. The day before had been especially rough – steady rain from morning to night – but spirits remained unshaken.

Maggie Edmondson

Maggie Edmondson, a former pastor at the Winthrop Center Meeting of Friends, helped guide the gathering. She invited those present to share prayers and reflections, and one by one, people rose to speak – offering words of gratitude, hope, and encouragement for the road ahead.

One of the rituals that framed the gathering was the offering of tobacco to the fire, led by Sherri Mitchell. In Wabanaki tradition, tobacco is considered a sacred plant, used as an offering and a source of spiritual energy. “It’s a way of making connection with the Earth,” Mitchell explained, grounding the ceremony not just in words, but in action – a gesture of respect to the land and the living world around us.

The moment reflected the broader spirit of the walk itself: community gathered not around anger or opposition, but around shared values and care for one another.

The gathering at Friends Camp was one of many such moments along the journey – a space to rest, reflect, and reaffirm the walk’s quiet but determined purpose: to be good neighbors, to practice kindness, and to carry those commitments forward, even when the weather is against you.

The Journey of Peace and Friendship will end where it began – with community. On April 29, walkers will arrive at the Maine State House, in Augusta, for a closing ceremony filled with music, prayer, and reflection, joined by representatives from a range of faith and cultural traditions. But those who’ve taken part in the journey say that the real meaning of the walk isn’t in the destination – it’s in the connections made along the way.

Sherri Mitchell described moments when strangers came out of their homes to wave, to ask questions, or even to join the walk for a short stretch. “There were times when there was an opportunity for hostility to emerge,” she said. “But when people asked, ‘What is this all about?’ and we answered, ‘We’re just walking for peace and friendship,’ they often responded, ‘Well, I guess we need more of that.’”

Those small exchanges, Mitchell said, are where hope begins.

The walkers know they aren’t going to solve the world’s problems in a single week. But what they hope to do is something perhaps just as important: to remind their neighbors – and themselves – that there are still people willing to show up for each other. People willing to believe in the power of kindness, connection, and shared humanity.

“It’s a horrible week for it, weather-wise,” Mitchell joked. “But that’s kind of like life. The real test is whether you can stand up for what you believe in, even when the weather is against you. Will your values remain intact in the storm?”

At Friends Camp, as people gathered by the fire to share food, prayers, and reflections, the answer to that question felt clear. Despite the miles and the rain, despite the divisions that so often dominate headlines, these walkers had chosen another way: to keep moving forward, together.

CHINA: Does your town have a seed library

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by Jude Hsiang

Does your town have a Seed Library? Seed Libraries are found all over the world, enabling gardeners to save money and try new types of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

Alex Burbank is the new librarian at the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library, 35 Main Street, China Village. Although only open a few hours a week – Tues. and Thurs., 2 – 6 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., – there is a lot going on. Recently, Alex and Assistant Librarian Miranda Perkins discovered forgotten materials for a Seed Library. They set up a nice new display and invited folks to bring extra garden seeds to share and swap.

The University of Maine Extension office in Augusta had gotten a large donation of seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds, in New Gloucester, for distribution. Maine Master Gardener Volunteer Marie Michaud, of China, received seeds from the Extension for the new China Community Garden, some of which were for plants like squashes, which would be too large for the 4-foot x 8-foot raised garden beds. Those seeds and others were brought to the library. Other people are donating seeds as well. Alex contacted Fedco Seeds, in Clinton, and received another generous donation.

Fedco and Pinetree specialize in providing seeds for plants known to thrive in our Maine climate. You will find a nice selection of typical seeds and some new and unusual varieties to try. There is also information about how long seeds will remain viable when kept in a cool, dark place. Many seeds will last for at least five years.

The library’s display includes information about seed saving and sharing, even small envelopes for those who need only a small portion of a standard seed packet. One of my favorite gardening stories is that of two friends, city folks who moved to suburban houses with a vegetable garden. They loved cooking fresh vegetables, so they bought lots of seeds including zucchini. They planted the entire packet!

Libraries like this one in China Village are the perfect location for a seed library as anyone can use this free service and find useful gardening information. When you visit this, or another local library, check out their other services and activities for all ages. The China Village library has rotating artist’s displays, digital resources, and activities for adults and children. My favorites are Interlibrary loan and the knitting group.

© Judith Chute Hsiang
Jude Hsiang is a retired Extension Master Gardener instructor and member of the China Community Garden Project.

Erskine presents Renaissance awards (2025)

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Senior of the Trimester recipients, from left to right, Echo Hawk, Joslyn Sandoval, Sadie Pierce, Paige Clark, and Lillian Rispoli. (contributed photo)

On Friday, April 4, 2025, Erskine Academy students and staff attended a Renaissance Assembly to honor their peers with Renaissance Awards.

Renaissance Recognition Awards were presented to the following students:

Aiden Reny, Layla Peaslee, Lilly Clark, Nathan Choate, Jayda Bickford, Achiva Seigars, Carter Brockway, Kailynn Houle, and Bodi Laflamme.

In addition to Recognition Awards, Senior of the Trimester Awards were also presented to five members of the senior class:

Echo Hawk, daughter of Mary and Jonah Hawk, of Vassalboro; Joslyn Sandoval, daughter of Rachelle and Aaron Marable, of Windsor, and Jose Sandoval, of Gardiner; Paige Clark, daughter of Joshua and Amanda Clark and Sarah and Ben Foster, of Chelsea; Sadie Pierce, daughter of Ryan Pierce and Natasha Littlefield, of China and Cortney Gould and Kevin Haskell, of Palermo; and Lillian Rispoli, daughter of Maureen and Bill Rispoli, of Palermo.

Seniors of the Trimester are recognized as individuals who have gone above and beyond in all aspects of their high school careers.

In appreciation of their dedication and service to Erskine Academy, Faculty of the Trimester awards were presented to Brian Dutil, Math Instructor; and Randy Pottle, Director of Maintenance.

Faculty of the Trimester recipients, from left to right, Brian Dutil and Randy Pottle. (contributed photo)

China transfer committee members present list of goals

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by Mary Grow

China’s Transfer Station Committee members put revisions to the 2021 vision statement for the facility in near-final form at their April 8 meeting.

The single-page document is a list of goals. Much of the discussion was about how to help China residents, and those in Palermo who use China’s facility, realize how much money recycling saves for local taxpayers.

One aspect of recycling is the swap shop: people are invited to drop off household items, clothing, shoes and other things that other people could use, and to bring home things that appeal to them.

Committee member Rachel Anderson, a swap shop volunteer, asked if items that went through the shop got counted as recyclables. Transfer Station Manager Thomas Maraggio and Public Works Director Shawn Reed said yes: the state has a formula that lets them calculate approximately how much weight is removed from the waste stream.

At the previous committee meeting, Anderson raised the problem of donated shoes getting separated from their mates. Committee member James Hsiang said he had donated metal clips to hold pairs together; but people who took shoes kept the clips, despite a sign asking them not to (which soon disappeared).

Hsiang plans to try again with less expensive clips and a more permanent sign.

A paragraph in the vision statement deals with generating power at the transfer station. A waste incinerator was mentioned at previous meetings, solar panels on April 8.

Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood said select board members are not presently interested in exploring power-generating options.

Committee members again discussed transfer station users who ignore rules. Bob Kurek, one of Palermo’s two representatives on the committee, is following up on one scofflaw. Hapgood plans to talk with another, a China resident who was rude to attendants.

Several committee members praised Maraggio for his new informational signs, and all staff members for keeping the facility clean and for their hard work and courtesy. Benjamin Weymouth commented that every visit to the facility is “a positive experience” for him.

Maraggio and Reed expressed regret at the resignation of part-time transfer station employee Timothy Hatch. Finding and training new staff is time-consuming and expensive, they agreed. On May 6, Hapgood and available committee members plan to visit the Hampden disposal and recycling facility, now managed by an entity named Municipal Wastehub (formerly Municipal Review Committee). Used by many Maine municipalities until it closed several years ago, since struggling to reopen, Hampden is now coming back to life.

Maraggio said it reopened as a transfer station for a limited number of towns on April 7. Reed said recycling is scheduled for next fall and later a more ambitious waste-to-energy plan.

The next China Transfer Station Committee meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 13.