CARIBOU, Maine — Belinda Ouellette, wife of the late Dale Ouellette — who taught Industrial Arts at Caribou Middle School for 38 years — recently donated $2,000 to the Caribou Project Graduation program after students helped her clean the home she shared with her husband.
Project Grad co-chair Kim Barnes said this year’s graduating class would have been one of the final groups he taught in middle school.
“[His] humor, talents and love of learning inspired students to seek a future in the trades,” she said.
Barnes’ daughter Shelby Barnes, a senior at Caribou High School and 2020 class secretary, said she and her mother would often visit Belinda after her husband died in 2017, and that she said she was planning on eventually selling the house.
“Mom suggested that Project Grad help her clean the garage and house,” said Barnes, “and help her grieve the loss of her husband.”
Barnes said that she, along with about 50 students, completely cleaned the home this past summer.
“We emptied pantries, cleaned the cupboards out and went through their bedroom and the clothes they had worn,” she said. “She ended up donating most of the things in the house, because she couldn’t stand to keep it at that point.”
Belinda Ouellette was at the house as the students cleaned, and Barnes said she helped them figure out what could be thrown out or donated, and what “meant a lot to her.”
“There was a lot of stuff in the garage that Mr. Ouellette worked on,” she said. “He did a lot of woodworking and there were still quite a few supplies there.”
Abbigail Allen, a senior at Caribou High School, said that when she took Dale Ouellette’s class, the two would often discuss having a goldendoodle dog, which is a cross-breed between a golden retriever and a poodle.
“We’d show each other pictures of our dogs,” Allen said. “As soon as I’d walk into class, he’d say ‘Hey, do you want to look at my dog?’”
Allen’s mother also works as an emergency room nurse at Cary Medical Center in Caribou, and Belinda Ouellette would often see her as her husband’s health began to decline.
“He’d talk to me about how sweet my mom was,” Allen recalled.
Barnes said she first attended one of Dale Ouellette’s classes in sixth grade but, that by eighth grade, it was apparent that he had fallen ill as he did not attend class as often and “was not able to move around a lot.”
“[Industrial Arts] wasn’t a subject I was excited about,” she said. “But he made it so it was my favorite class. I always looked forward to going down and seeing him. We did a lot of woodburning and soap carving, where he gave us designs to carve into soap, which was really fun.”
The money donated will go toward one final event for the Class of 2020 to experience together after graduation.
“After graduation, our class will go the rec center as one last thing that we all do together,” Barnes said. “There’s an escape room, and a hypnotist will come. They’ll also have a bounce house, and a bunch of fun stuff for us to all do together one last time.”
