Irving Tanning Community Center, at 62 Elm St. in Hartland, was awarded a $238,000 grant from USDA Rural Development. The grant is to be used toward replacing the center’s roof and improving the heating system. Photo courtesy of USDA Rural Development

HARTLAND — The Irving Tanning Community Center in Hartland will soon have a new roof and an improved heating system thanks to a $238,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development department, according to a news release sent Nov. 1 from Rural Development Director Rhiannon Hampson.

The nonprofit, volunteer-led center serves as a space for town meetings, public hearings and community activities for Hartland, Palmyra and St. Albans. Its 24,000-square-foot facility holds a community room, gymnasium, meeting rooms and offices. 

The roof replacement is long overdue, said Jim Dyer, treasurer of the Irving Tanning Community Center board of directors.

“It’s been 25 years since the building has been re-shingled,” said Dyer. “There were concerns about water damage if we didn’t take care of it pretty soon.”

The award comes through their Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program, in partnership with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who earmarked the money for the center in her fiscal year 2024 congressionally directed spending budget.

The center was eligible for grant funding because it qualifies as an essential community facility, which USDA Rural Development defines as a facility that provides an essential service to the community in a primarily rural area. Hampson said her team uses that criteria to identify what spaces are necessary for a community.

“That’s why a project like this one really rises to the top in terms of a priority for us,” Hampson said. “Because it becomes a space where we know that gathering is essential, we know that combating rural loneliness is essential, we know that making spaces for people to convene at town meetings and to have those kinds of discussions is now more essential than ever.”

After starting to work with the rural development team last year, the community center board requested the funding from Maine’s congressional offices and, upon being selected by Sen. Collins for appropriations, went on to complete the grant process.

The project is estimated to cost a total of $317,333, according to Dyer. The grant makes up 75 percent of that sum, leaving the remaining amount to be funded by the community center’s board, which has been fundraising for the last two years and will continue raising money to make their $79,333 local match contribution.

Irving Tanning Community Center, located at 62 Elm St., is receiving a $238,000 grant from USDA Rural Development. Photo courtesy of USDA Rural Development

While the brunt of this project is focused on a new roof, Dyer said the board would like to have enough funds left over to replace the 35-year-old heating system. Hampson said her department is connecting the center’s volunteers with resources from other state organizations like Efficiency Maine, which may have opportunities for energy savings or heat pump efficiencies.

The community center was opened by the town in 1999, operating out of an added wing in a local elementary school complex. When all of the schools in the area were later consolidated and relocated, part of the property went to the development of affordable housing and the rest went to the community center’s board of directors to continue offering its keystone programming: youth recreation, musical events, bingo and community fundraisers. 

Dyer said that the building is especially important because of its municipal function.

“It’s a critical facility to the town too, because there’s no other site large enough to hold public meetings,” Dyer said.

Hampson said that the center’s work to maintain programs over the past few decades was visionary, especially for a small rural community.

“We’ve seen a lot of small rural communities in Maine maybe not have the desire to maintain these buildings, but also just not have the capacity to do so,” Hampson said. “And so for a community like Hartland, which is so small, to allocate those resources to really fully partner with us, with the Irving Tanning Community Center volunteers — it’s pretty phenomenal, and I’m really proud of them. They’ve earned this.”