DENVER – As part of their week at the Democratic National Convention, some members of the Maine delegation chose to spend a morning doing community service.

Gwenthalyn Phillips of Bangor, former chairwoman of the Maine Democratic Party, was one of those who traveled by bus Wednesday to work with homeless and low-income women transitioning into the work force. Other Maine delegates and volunteers planted trees in Curtis Park.

Philips said this is the sixth convention she has attended. “When I look back over past conventions, the service projects are the things I remember.”

This is the first time that the service work has been organized by the convention, she said. In past years, Maine Democrats organized their own projects in the host cities they were visiting.

“We have gained more as delegates by going and working than the people we worked with,” Phillips said. “We always come back saying that was a wonderful experience, you remember it years later.”

Phillips said she has been “ecstatic” with the way this convention has been going. She is a superdelegate who supports Barack Obama.

She said she found the tribute to Sen. Edward Kennedy on Monday night particularly moving. When she was 12 years old, Phillips said, Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy, “made me wake up to politics” and want to get involved.

Now, all of the young people at the convention and those who voted for Obama are feeling “what I went through so many years ago,” she said.

Linda Killian is a professor of journalism and the director of Boston University’s Washington Center. She is working on a book on the Democratic Party and is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.