The new, specially equipped bus will seat 14 passengers, and will liberate the group that hasn’t been able to take trips since the old one was taken out of service last July.
The new bus won’t be available anytime soon — it will take three months to build it once the bid winner is determined on Aug. 22. Not in time for foliage season, in other words.
But The Freeport Elders, supported well by the community in their fundraising efforts, see better times ahead.
“I’m hoping it will bring life back into the association, so people can get out again who have been stranded for so long,” said Bill Gifford, head of the fundraising committee. “It will really open the door for them. They have earned this.”
Indeed. The Freeport Elders have been raising money the old-fashioned way, with pancake breakfasts, craft shows and special events at places like Wilbur’s of Maine.
Fran Bishop, 97, made clothes for American Girl dolls which fetched $700.
Freeport Clammers, the Rotary Club, Quilts by Carol Van Sickle and many others have aided the cause.
Carol Piecuch, vice president of The Freeport Elders, said the group has been making do.
“We carpool,” Piecuch said. “We just stay closer to home, that’s all.”
In their old bus, the Elders used to scurry around the state, and into New Hampshire. They went to museums. They would travel to Boothbay for meals, to Waterville, to Skowhegan, Augusta and Wells.
“We’d go on mystery trips — all around,” Piecuch said. “We’d go one way and go home the other way. We had one lady bus driver, and we’d have sing-alongs.”
Most of all, they like finding new places to eat.
“We love to go out to eat in different places,” she said. “There’s this restaurant in Cornish we love. We’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.”
Piecuch and Germaine Blake sat knitting for the thrift shop, which helps the Elders pay for their space at the Community Center. They chatted with Don Cheney, who is looking forward to the new bus.
“I really miss it, too,” Cheney said. “It’s been hard.”
“At this point,” Blake said, “it’s hurry up and wait. It’s gone out to three different bidders. It will take three months to make.”
The grant money has put the group just over its goal.
“That will help when it comes to the insurance,” Gifford said.
The new bus, which will seat 14, will feature a chair lift and a floating floor, to decrease the effects of vibrations. There will be reclining seats for full head rests.
Not in time for the fall colors, maybe, but worth the wait.
“We’ll just enjoy the foliage in our back yards, I guess,” Piecuch said. “But we may have it for our Christmas parade.”
lgrard@timesrecord.com
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