Firewood assistance programs growing in Maine

Rotary Membership members Scott Hynek, from left, Steve Wight and Brenda Blond cut up wooden throughout a “chopping and splitting” session to bolster the membership’s wooden financial institution for the upcoming winter. Submitted photograph

You’ve heard of meals banks, however what about wooden banks?

Just like meals banks, which give free meals objects to households in want, wooden banks supply firewood to households with out the monetary means and bodily capability to supply their very own wooden.

Over the past decade, volunteers for the Rotary Membership of Bethel have cut up and transported firewood for native residents in want. It’s certainly one of a rising variety of organizations within the state offering heating help to Mainers with wood-burning stoves.

In search of to encourage communities to create extra wooden banks and join current applications throughout the state and nation, the College of Maine lately obtained a $62,500 grant from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Jessica Leahy, a professor of forestry, will lead the tasks on the college and work with collaborators from the College of Massachusetts Amherst and The Alliance for Inexperienced Warmth, a Maryland-based nonprofit group.

Rotary Membership members Scott Hynek, from left, Steve Wight and Richard Kenney cut up firewood at a latest “chopping and splitting” session. The group offers firewood to native households in want. Submitted photograph

The schools will analysis wooden banks throughout the nation and create academic sources to assist begin and maintain these applications, moreover internet hosting a nationwide on-line summit for wooden banks.

“Slicing your personal firewood sounds nice, however you do want a chainsaw, you want security tools, you want a car to move it,” Leahy stated. “There’s only a lot that goes into it. And so, not everyone can do this.”

Tight funds, bodily incapacity and age might all hinder somebody’s capability to supply their very own firewood, she stated. For individuals dealing with the selection between meals or warmth in Maine’s frigid winters, wooden banks is usually a very important neighborhood useful resource.

“There’s widespread perception that individuals are actually accountable after they ask for wooden,” Leahy stated. “Most of the teams in Maine don’t use a vetting course of to have individuals show their earnings. They belief that individuals (are sincere),” she stated.

‘CUTTING AND SPLITTING’

It was a one-off donation from a neighborhood resident which kick-started the Bethel Rotary Membership’s firewood program greater than 10 years in the past.

Now, firewood coordinator Scott Hynek stated he realizes the logs had been donated to encourage the membership to do exactly that.

“We didn’t perceive that immediately,” he stated. “All we knew was that wooden had appeared by magic, and I ultimately discovered what had occurred.”

Yearly, Hynek and different members of the membership set up quite a lot of “chopping and splitting” periods, typically with volunteers from Dirigo Excessive Faculty.

Native residents with further logs or undesirable felled bushes invite the membership to return course of the wooden. The membership then transports and shops the cut up wooden till winter comes.

Over the past a number of winters, the group has often provided 4 households with firewood, Hynek stated.

Rotary membership member Bruce Powell helps cut up and stack wooden for the membership’s wooden financial institution earlier this 12 months. The group offers firewood to native households in want. Submitted photograph

Advertisement

Requesting wooden is easy and largely nameless, Hynek stated. Residents are welcome to succeed in out to him personally with requests. The one different one that is aware of who the wooden goes to is the driving force, he stated.

The membership is all the time looking for donated wooden and volunteers to assist course of it.

Typically, gathering wooden for this system is so simple as serving to to clear away an undesirable, fallen tree.

“Not everyone in Maine is aware of how one can work a chainsaw,” he stated. “We simply go clear up the yard, take away the tree. All people’s completely satisfied.”

Of their finest 12 months, the group cut up 12 cords of wooden. This 12 months will seemingly be smaller, however they’re not completed but. Their subsequent chopping and splitting session is deliberate for this weekend.

“It can be crucial as a result of most individuals which might be heating with wooden aren’t individuals who have a number of extra cash round anyway,” Hynek stated. “It’s not as straightforward as letting your thermostat and checkbook do it with oil.”

And like many different issues as of late, he stated costs for buying firewood are rising.

“That is (simply) a chunk (of) the kind of issues that Rotary Golf equipment do in all places,” Hynek stated. “It’s a service earlier than self type of operation.”

BUILDING COMMUNITY

Leahy first started researching wooden banks in 2014 with Sabrina Vivian, then an undergraduate scholar. The pair wrote a information to help communities with beginning and working their very own wooden banks.

Whereas researching the information, they organized a summit to deliver collectively wooden banks throughout Maine and study their applications. Leahy stated that the attendees’ operations ranged in measurement from a girl who paid to maintain the woodshed on the finish of her driveway stocked to giant teams with their very own processing tools.

“Wooden banks are inherently a neighborhood phenomenon,” Leahy stated. “You don’t wish to transfer firewood very far.”

There are few wooden banks which promote themselves as such. Many are run informally and are recognized solely to these residing locally.

Again when Vivian and Leahy had been researching wooden banks in 2015, they’d solely recognized a handful in Maine. Since then, others have been created.

Apart from the one in Bethel, there are additionally recognized wooden banks situated in Cumberland, Orland, Boothbay Harbor, Penobscot and throughout Waldo County.

Probably the most profitable applications are those which transfer slowly in growing their course of and figuring out location, Leahy stated. She recommends these all in favour of beginning wooden banks attain out to different profitable organizations within the state and hearken to neighborhood members about what is going to work finest.

A requirement evaluation carried out by Vivian and Leahy in 2015 discovered that residents close to Farmington, Rangeley, Buckfield, Canton, Stoneham and Brownfield would possibly discover wooden banks to be notably useful. The evaluation thought-about earnings ranges and the variety of houses heated by wooden utilizing census information.

This 12 months, the Alliance for Inexperienced Warmth will distribute grants to current wooden banks ranging between $5,000-15,000. However subsequent 12 months, this system will develop to assist fund new and newly forming wooden banks.

And as useful as wooden banks might be for these in want, it’s additionally a wonderful option to construct neighborhood, Leahy and Hynek agreed.

“It’s no person’s thought of a enjoyable factor to do, chopping and splitting wooden,” Hynek stated. “However when you’re doing with a bunch of people who you realize and are acquainted with, it may be a number of enjoyable. The children (highschool college students) catch on to that. That’s an exquisite factor for them to know.”

“I simply suppose the social capital that individuals get from working collectively to assist their neighbors — it’s nice to get individuals their firewood and construct neighborhood on the similar time, and wooden banks present that,” Leahy stated.

« Earlier

Subsequent »

Associated Tales