Renewed and spirited energy revitalizes Van Buren

When Peter Ashley first started teaching at the Van Buren District Secondary School in northern Maine, the classrooms were full almost 100 percent of the time, except for a few weeks in the fall when they would suddenly empty out. That was when children and teens would join their parents and grandparents in the fields to harvest Maine’s king crop, the Potato.

Exactly when that would happen might vary from year to year, but it was surely sometime in September or October.

Peter was new to Aroostook County in 1970, having secured a job teaching graphic arts to high schoolers. He had grown up in Standish, 330 miles south of Van Buren near Sebago Lake, almost a six-hour drive. For many Mainers, Aroostook County is simply “The County”, a far-flung cousin above Katahdin. Van Buren sits almost at the very top, the juncture where the U.S. fits snugly against New Brunswick like a puzzle piece. It is in the “Crown” or “Rooftop” region of Maine.

And much of Aroostook County’s 6,282 square miles contains some of the most productive farmland in the state. The loamy soil and cooler weather are ideal for potatoes and other cool-weather crops, such as beets and carrots.

For farming families, life revolved around the seasons. And unlike the rest of Maine, the school year started there in August so when potato harvest began, students could take a few weeks to help in the fields.

That tradition was new to Peter, who was already captivated by the warm and welcoming Acadian culture of the St. John River Valley, where French and English are equally spoken.

He asked his boss when the Harvest Break would begin.

The principal smiled, “Oh, you’ll know,” he said.

Sure enough, Peter walked into school a few days later, and the classrooms were empty. Students had joined their families to hand dig the potatoes. They squirreled away income from that harvest, money secured to buy winter coats and boots and Christmas presents for each other.

It was a time when, “mechanical harvesters were a novelty,” said Peter. It was also a time when families were large, and the Town of Van Buren had a population of 5,000 people. Storefronts were filled, and the area was bustling.

“The town was extremely busy,” said Peter.

French-Canadian family ties there were strong, and also across the St. John River from Van Buren in the town of St. Leonard, Canada, where the potato was similarly fixed in the local economy. An international bridge linked the two communities and residents of each crossed the border with ease.

The latter half of the 20th Century was prosperous there. In nearby Limestone, Loring Air Force Base was a major civilian employer and economic driver. At its most robust period, 4,500 military personnel and 1,300 citizen employees worked at Loring. Young families thrived, new schools filled with students, and businesses hummed.

The lumber industry was also productive, with timber harvested in Maine, shipped over to Canada for milling, and then transported back into the U.S. for the construction industry.

Late 20th Century changes

But a harsh economic wave descended over the area in the early 1990s, when the federal government closed Loring. The Soviet Union was collapsing, and the U.S. was paring down its military bases. In 1994, Loring closed for good and a subsequent out-migration from northern Aroostook County followed. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, more than 8,000 residents, one-tenth of the County’s population, left Aroostook.

Peter’s daughter, Susanne, was a senior at Van Buren High School in 1995, and her class decreased by 20 to 30 percent. It was like losing a city, he said, with many of the area businesses shutting down.

It did not help when the federal government, in 2012, moved the bridge location that had linked Van Buren and St. Leonard down the road, evading Van Buren’s downtown. No longer would the international traffic wind through downtown Van Buren, with travelers stopping to shop or eat at restaurants. This led to the closure of nearly every downtown business. By 2022, the Town of Van Buren owned half of its downtown buildings due to tax acquisition.

Community leaders looked for economic and financial solutions, but they were hard to find and implement.

“The community was locked into a narrow scope of what they thought their own potential was,” said Luke Dyer, current Van Buren Town Manager.

Pessimism seeped into the community, as town councils were at a loss of how to shape a newer vision for their hometown. Buildings deteriorated and as the result of unpaid property taxes, the town found itself owning half of the downtown. Van Buren’s pride was lost.

This was not solely a Van Buren phenomenon. Across the country, municipalities were hoping — even competing — for the private sector to locate to their communities, to bring jobs and property tax revenue. The mantra of “jobs, jobs, jobs” echoed across Maine.

“There had been years all across rural America when many communities sat and waited for a big corporation to move in and save the town by employing people,” said Luke. “The sad thing about it is, Van Buren had everything it needed to revitalize right under its feet.”

But it would take another decade for the community to realize that there are different assets on which to capitalize, like snow, or rivers, scenic beauty, or the cultural heritage of a region filled with unique history.

“It was like the people were punched in the stomach, or still in the 25-year recovery period after being punched in the stomach,” Luke said.

Recovery, revitalization

Luke knew better. He recognized that a community is as empowered as its own residents decide it can be. With a sense of identity and energy from within, possibilities grow. The work was to find catalysts to shift stale paradigms, or knock them out of the way.

A former police sergeant in Van Buren, Luke is no stranger to the region. He grew up in Caribou, 30 miles in the opposite direction of Van Buren, and was even a police officer in Madawaska when he was younger.

He left law enforcement for government and assumed the town manager position in 2022. This coincided with a shift on Van Buren’s Town Council, whose members were collectively receptive to revitalizing the community.

The elements were there: Van Buren has a strong infrastructure, light, power, water and sewer systems are all owned by the municipality (Van Buren has the second cheapest electricity rates east of the Mississippi; Houlton, Maine, has the cheapest). It has a healthy economic development organization, and plenty of real estate to site public amenities.

Van Buren has also been successful in securing grants. In 2023, funding from the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, helped to identify community assets, and allowed Van Buren to embark on cultural and environmental improvements.

A Maine Department of Transportation Village Partnership Initiative will fund a new 1.7 mile pedestrian/bicycle trail, and a Maine Historic Preservation Grant is to help restore the downtown theater that is owned by two local historian brothers.

Congressional funds will be used to build a new fire station, while an Efficiency Maine grant was used to set up three Level 3 EV charging stations. A federal grant will upgrade the municipally-owned Van Buren Light and Power, while a state resiliency grant was used to build a new park. In that park is a new community garden that emphasizes food sovereignty and carries a mission to mitigate elderly loneliness.

Grow Smart Maine, a statewide planning nonprofit, chose Van Buren for its own pilot community revitalization program, and aspires to assist the town in updating its comprehensive plan.

Yet, in all this renewal there was a missing piece, and that kept Luke awake at night. How would Van Buren engage its residents in envisioning a collective future? It was time to bring everyone in on a shared conversation.

He researched and came upon Community Heart & Soul. Then he picked up the phone, and Community Heart & Soul answered.

In 2023, Van Buren secured a $10,000 Community Heart & Soul Seed Grant. Conversations amongst the residents, he vowed, were to be directed by the community, not a five-member town council.

“After reading all the documentation and watching several videos of what Community Heart & Soul was doing, I knew it was right for Van Buren and our process moving forward,” he said.

He went to visit Stephanie Bresett, a school librarian and Van Buren resident, and chatted with her on the front porch.

“I need your help,” he said, asking her to be the local coordinator for the Van Buren Heart & Soul project.

Being a longtime community advocate, Stephanie said yes, without hesitation.

“My husband and I have always wanted to make the community a better place,” she said. “When we first moved here 23 years ago, I was like, ‘oh my, this is where you are taking me to?’ But decent things happened in little snippets of time, as improvements were being made. Then things fell apart again. With Community Heart & Soul, I could see how things could change for the long-term. It inspired me.”

The combined energy has kicked up a fresh breeze in Van Buren. Residents are getting involved, and seemingly simple initiatives, such as planting trees, or installing greenhouses have buoyed the community.

“We are seeing through Community Heart & Soul and the Van Buren Revitalization Association that it is contagious,” said Stephanie. “Once people see a good thing happening, they want to fix it.”

“The town is hungry for these types of connections,” said Luke.

Van Buren is communicating with residents as it moves ahead with Phase I of the Heart & Soul process. Email blasts, flyers and Facebook pages —Positive Van Buren, and the Van Buren Revitalization Association — are lively and keep the community informed about events.

On Nov. 30, Van Buren celebrated the start of the holiday season with a downtown public gathering and parade. In June, a Music on Main series of concerts is scheduled with different musicians ready to participate. And a new documentary film about Van Buren is to be screened at a black-tie public affair in February.

As the focus on placemaking — creating public spaces to strengthen connections between people — continues, there has been a re-bonding amongst residents.

All of this is music to the ears of Peter Ashley, who loves his town. He was at the recent celebration and was happy to see residents reconnecting. The integrity of Van Buren remains intact — “It is the kind of place I can take my car to a garage, drop it off, and know it will be fixed right away,” he said. “And they will be fair. Everybody is that way.”

What does he love the most about Van Buren?

“It’s the people,” he said. “I love the people.”

For Van Buren Heart & Soul, it is time for conversation, to talk about ideas for the future of the community, to explore and restore a sense of identity, to envision what might be, and to hear each and every story from the people themselves. The work has begun.

Want to bring Community Heart & Soul to your town? Apply for a $10,000 Community Heart & Soul Seed Grant to get started. Learn more at: www.communityheartandsoul.org/seed-grants

Lynda Clancy is editorial director of the Penobscot Bay Pilot, an online community hub that covers a large region of coastal Maine. The beauty and complexity of small towns have inspired her as a writer and photographer since the 1980s. An award-winning journalist, she serves on the Maine Press Association’s Board of Directors, the Maine Legislature’s Right To Know Advisory Committee, as well as local community nonprofits and municipal committees.