Community center has new home Larger space lets Blue Hill facility expand programs

BLUE HILL – Friendship Cottage is open for business.

In a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sunday, the Blue Hill Area Community Center officially opened the former South Street residence that will be its new home.

The leased facility will allow the center to move its existing junior high program out of temporary quarters in the Congregational church and to expand the programs it offers, according to Susan Yaruda Young, president of the center’s board of directors.

“We’re asking people from the communities to let us know what their dreams are for the center,” Young said. “And we want to work with those communities to make those dreams come true.”

Planning for a community center began about two years ago and developed into a twice weekly after-school program for junior high youngsters. According to Young, there is a core group of about 12 youths who attend the program regularly. Using a grant from the Maine Community Foundation, the center recently hired an activities director to expand the offerings in that program, and also has developed a relationship with the Marine Environmental Research Institute, which regularly provides environmental programs for the children.

“We need more volunteers so we can use this space better,” Young said. “This is a supervised after-school program. With more volunteers we can have kids in various spaces.”

Although the initial effort has been geared toward children, Young said the idea of the community center was to serve all segments of the community.

“The home atmosphere here can be healthy and comfortable and healing for youth, children and the senior population,” she said. “We want to make this as much of a home as possible.”

The extra space already has allowed the center to expand its programming to include older members of the population. Beginning today, Debbie Collins, working through the Ellsworth Adult Education Program, will offer basic education courses such as GED classes, high school diploma completion and English as a second language.

“Whatever somebody needs, we can fit the bill,” Collins said.

Although only two students are enrolled in the adult education, Collins said she expects there will be more soon.

“We expect it’s going to grow like crazy,” she said. “Our director has been very supportive and we hope to be able to increase from two days to four days a week.”

The added space also has allowed the center to develop a program for senior citizens in the area. The board is slated to formally approve a seniors program that is expected to begin in the last week of April. It also will meet initially two days a week.

“We’re hoping to be open to the seniors in the community, the at-home seniors who are no longer working and don’t have the chance to go out the way they might once have,” said Dolly Pusey, the coordinator for the program. “The first thing we’re going to do is socialize. We’ll have a chance to meet our neighbors and to meet new neighbors.”

The sessions will provide a time for those attending to play together. There will be board games and card games, possibly Bingo, and, Pusey said, they might also head out to the garage for a game of pingpong. She added that she hopes to bring resource people who can provide information about crafts and possibly direct a simple exercise program. Depending on the interest, she said, they also may organize occasional field trips.

In addition to the main house and garage, the property includes about 2 acres on which the center hopes to create a handicapped-accessible nature trail. Young said a neighboring landowner also has given permission for the trail to continue onto her land.

“We want the kids to be involved in labeling the trees and getting to know the names of the plants,” she said. “We hope this can be an educational activity for them.”

They’ll have some help from the employees at the Tradewinds Market. According to Young, the owners of the supermarket, Chuck Lawrence and Mike Noonan, announced on Sunday that the employees would mark Earth Day later this month with cleanup efforts on the property.

In addition to programming, the new space allows the center to have its own much-needed office space.