Volunteers help spruce up Caribou Historical Society

13 years ago
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Contributed photo by Alysa Snowe
From left, students of the Loring Job Corps Center Desmond French, Brandon Raymond and Thomas Hogan help straighten up the grounds of the Caribou Historical Society. Shown at back left is Joe Bouchard, Caribou Historical Society past president and current director.

CARIBOU — Five youths of the Loring Job Corps Center not only volunteered to help maintain the grounds of the Caribou Historical Society — they had a good time doing it, too.

“We finished working in the garden early, so we offered to rake the whole lawn and clean up the front area,” said Home Builder’s Institute/Loring Job Corps carpentry student Thomas Hogan.

The five students – Hogan, Dennis Wilder, Brandon Raymond, Jesse Coolbeth and Desmond French — were prepared to volunteer until 3 p.m. on May 2, but they’d finished spring cleaning the lawn by lunchtime.

Bouchard and the young men worked side-by-side, raking the gardens and cleaning the yard.

“They did an excellent job,” said Caribou Historical Society Past President and current Board of Directors member Joe Bouchard, mentioning that the historical society’s current president praised the work the students did.

“He felt they did above and beyond what we expected of them,” Bouchard added. “I told him that the boys were very polite and helpful — really great to work with.”

Bouchard expressed that the historical society is hoping that the students will return to help plant some annuals in the garden — and the volunteers expressed their willingness to lend a hand wherever they’re needed in the community.

“[We] enjoy going off Center to help the community by volunteering and doing what we can,” Hogan said, mentioning that the best part about volunteering at the historical society was seeing Bouchard smile.

“He was very thankful,” Hogan said. “He even took the time to take us on a tour of the museum and took us down the nature walk.”

Further showing his appreciation, Bouchard bought the volunteers pizza for lunch.

The Loring students said they liked learning about the large equipment and other artifacts displayed at the museum.

“We didn’t realize Caribou had that much history; it was really cool,” Hogan mentioned. “We enjoyed [the project] and would love to return — we do a lot of special projects and would like to build [Bouchard] a picnic table for the nature walk he took us on.”

With a center filled with students eager to volunteer, Bouchard recommends the Loring volunteers for other non-profit groups.

“There are a lot of things that many local organizations need to have done but they don’t have the manpower — for example, many clubs in the area like the garden club are having age take its toll,” Bouchard explained. “Many of our most active members are in their 80s, and they need that manpower.”

“I would recommend your students to anybody in the area,” Bouchard told LJC’s assistant coordinator for Work-Based Learning Alysa Snowe.