WINDHAM – For seven hours a day, five days a week, prison inmate Bobby Fiorentino is doing his best to reverse the damage caused in last summer’s arson at the Raymond Hill Baptist Church.

Fiorentino, a woodshop employee at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, is in charge of refurbishing five pieces of ornate 200-year-old mahogany furniture that once adorned the church that survived an arson attempt by Carol Field, the Standish grandmother who was sentenced to four years in prison last month after setting several fires in York and Cumberland counties last year.

The furniture suffered only slight fire damage, but water and smoke took more of a toll, and it is Fiorentino’s goal to restore the three chairs, chalice table and podium to their original condition. The work is painstaking, and with many delicate pieces, Fiorentino must be careful not to break the two-century-old wood.

“A lot of times we’ll improvise, we’ll put sandpaper around a nailset and try to dig into it,” Fiorentino said. “It’s a challenge, definitely. There’s no doubt about that. But I enjoy doing it. Sometimes I get a little tired, but that’s only natural since it’s so tedious.

“But what I keep in my mind is how the piece is going to look when it’s done. And when you think like that, it gives you drive and initiative to go forward.”

Overseeing the work is woodshop manager Matt Theriault, originally from New Gloucester. Theriault worked as a finish carpenter before coming to work at the prison in 2010 and is in charge of a staff of about 10 employees. Theriault praises Fiorentino’s attention to detail and positive attitude.

“I feel some of these guys feel like they are giving back, too. They’re giving back to the community,” Theriault said.

“In my case,” Fiorentino adds, “I feel like I’m trying to make things right.”

Fiorentino, who has also served time in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and has committed a long list of crimes, said he is unlikely to outlive his prison sentence, which resulted from a sexual assault on a woman and several robberies. While in prison he said he has become a Christian, and his faith helps him find more meaning while working to restore the church furniture.

“I think the fact that these pieces came from a church holds a little sentimentality for me,” Fiorentino said. “I’ve tried to become a Christian. It’s a hard way to walk; it’s not easy to walk that way. It’s a battle. You go up a couple of rungs, and go back one. But I kind of got my heart into this project with this church.”

Deb Baker, who acts as the caretaker of Raymond Hill Baptist Church and has attended the church for her entire life, is happy to hear the inmate working on the items is finding some deeper meaning.

“If this gives him work and helps him feel there is worth to what he’s doing, then I think that’s wonderful,” she said.

The furniture could have been consumed in the fire, Baker said, if Raymond firefighters didn’t risk their lives in saving the items in the early stages. On the afternoon the fire happened last August, Baker, standing with her family watching the rescue as it took place, remembers being relieved with each piece that firefighters retrieved.

“I grew up looking at those items and they have been there for over 200 years, which is amazing when you think about it,” she said.

“So you can see how the items in that church are special. And you could see at the time of the fire that as soon as that back corner of the church was under control the fire department took the risk of going in and getting those items out to save them, which we thank them for. They took those items out while they were fighting the fire.”

The church decided to keep some of the lesser-damaged pieces as mementos of the arson that they have overcome.

“Actually items in the church now that have burns on them, I just decided to not even try to do anything. It’s history. We’re here carrying the torch so to speak,” Baker said. “These people in the distant past had those items in the church, and we’re just trying to do whatever we can to preserve them for people of the future.”

Baker heard about the prison’s furniture restoration service through a work friend and brought the pieces to the prison in July. The antique furniture needs extensive repair, including some pieces that will be reupholstered. But much of the work revolves around sanding off the finish and reapplying stain and lacquer. It’s a process likely to last about two to three months with Fiorentino doing his best to repair the damage caused.

“It’s rewarding to see the pieces as they get finished,” he said. “Especially when you saw what they looked like when they came in.”

Firefighters carry out water- and smoke-damaged furniture from the Raymond Hill Baptist Church after suppressing an arson last August. A year later, the furniture is being restored.   
Bobby Fiorentino, an inmate at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, is painstakingly refinishing each of the pieces of furniture damaged in the Raymond Hill Baptist Church arson last summer.  
Watermarks where soot collected in water droplets dot a chair that needs to be completely refinished as a result.