GORHAM – Bubbling with ingenuity, talent and friendliness, a group of sixth-grade students at Portland’s Lyman Moore Middle School cheered assisted living residents in Gorham on Monday.

Technology education teacher Julie Marshall took a school bus contingent of 26 students, along with their inventions, to the Inn at Village Square, an Avesta Housing assisted living community at 123 School St. Four groups of students explained their inventions. They included devices for carrying a cup of coffee on a wheelchair or while pushing a walker. They also created book holders to aid the residents.

“This has been an exciting experience for the students,” Marshall, a 1974 graduate of Gorham High School, said Monday. “We had a lot of trial and error.”

“I’m very proud of the students,” said Marshall, who has previously served as a volunteer at the assisted living facility. Her sister, Sue Parsons of Gorham, is a staff member at the residence.

A coffee cup holder featured a board with clips to easily adapt to handles. Colorfully designed book holders allow handling ease for residents. Parsons said one book holder was personalized for one of the women at the residence.

Marshall said the true test would be whether residents would be willing to use the inventions. The answers among residents were positive.

“I’ll think they will really work,” a resident, Ann Moody, said about the inventions.

Another resident, Madeline Vincent, formerly of Westbrook, praised the students’ skills. “It’s surprising the ideas that the young people developed,” she said.

The inventions even drew plaudits from the staff at Inn at Village Square.

“I thought they were pretty neat,” said Paul Schreiber, director of assisted living. “Pretty innovative.”

Marshall’s students undertook the projects after three residents visited her class in September. During that visit, students asked them how could they help. Narrowing a long list of suggestions, the students focused on a method for carrying the coffee cups and the book holders. The students brainstormed to develop solutions.

After explaining their demonstrations that even included a slide show and a dance routine accompanied by a music tape, students with pads and pencils sketched renderings of residents as they mingled with them in a community room at the inn. Students interviewed residents to learn about their school days.

Moody, a Gorham native, lauded the students as “wonderful. They were very organized, very quiet, orderly and ingenious.”

The visit was momentous for the residents, who applauded after the students’ demonstrations. “Everyone was very pleased,” Parsons said.

Visiting Inn at Village Square on Monday in Gorham, Isabella Probert of Lyman Moore Middle School in Portland sketches resident Ann Moody. Staff photo by Robert Lowell