Artists help veterans project
Thanks to a collaboration between local art students and veterans advocates, Craig Fay is hoping that a new effort will be able to help veterans find their way after life in the military.
Fay, a Marine Corps veteran from the Vietnam War who later worked at Loring Air Force Base, enlisted the design and painting skills of University of Maine Presque Isle art students to enliven wooden donation boxes that will be based around Aroostook County.
A dozen pine boxes, built by Presque Isle woodworker and Vietnam Army veteran Stephen Rand, were painted and fashioned with designs evoking the history of American independence, military service and patriotism. The boxes will be housed at a range of businesses, raising money that will be equally shared between the UMPI art program and a veterans’ assistance fund, via the Marine Corp League Detachment 1414, Fay said.
Students from the the UMPI art club painted and designed the boxes outside of their classwork, said UMPI assistant art professor Heather Sincavage.
“When Craig asked us if we were interested, the students were really optimistic and eager because they know so many veterans as friends or family,” Sincavage said.
Fay, an upstate New York native who settled in Presque Isle in 1980, said the effort is aimed at investing in struggling veterans from around the state, to help them find education and career opportunities, especially in The County.
For some veterans returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and other assignments, “they come back and they don’t know what they want to do,” Fay said. “A lot of these guys get out and work construction or washing dishes. We want to help them out, introduce them to society.”
“We were in the same situation. But we were in the generation where they rejected us,” Fay said, referring to challenges he and other Vietnam-era veterans faced reintegrating into a society deeply divided over the war.
Fay himself moved around the country through different colleges seeking a place to fit in, and found it in Aroostook County. Working with a number of area employers, he wants to use money raised through the donations boxes to help veterans from around Maine find a life up north.
The message is, he said: “Get out of the city, get some peace and quiet. We’d like to offer you a career.”
