SCARBOROUGH – The Scarborough Land Trust recently received a $50,000 matching gift challenge from anonymous donors to help it reach the $500,000 fundraising goal to purchase and conserve the Benjamin Farm, off Pleasant Hill Road.

The land trust has raised $400,000 to date in gifts and pledges, but only has until the end of the year to raise the final $100,000. New gifts made to the fundraising campaign will now be matched dollar for dollar up to $50,000.

“(The opportunity to protect the) Benjamin Farm has galvanized the community like no other project in the history of the land trust,” said Kathy Mills, executive director. “This matching gift challenge from special friends will double the impact of every gift made (through the end of the fundraising campaign). For anyone who has been waiting to make a gift, now is the time.”

The total cost of purchasing and conserving the 135-acre Benjamin Farm property is $2.5 million. In June, the Town Council gave the land trust $2 million from the town’s Land Bond Fund. In addition, a campaign committee of community volunteers has been working to raise the final $500,000 needed by Dec. 31, when the land trust must close on the property.

“The Benjamin Farm is one of the last open spaces in one of the most densely populated areas of Scarborough,” Mills said in a press release. The property consists of open fields, woods and wetlands, including the headwaters of the Spurwink River. It also abuts land owned by the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.

Once the land trust purchases the farm, it plans to build a system of trails, which will be open to the public year-round, according to Mills.

“Benjamin Farm is a huge project for the land trust,” said Betts Armstrong, chairwoman of the fundraising committee. “We are so grateful for the many wonderful gifts we have received to date. We welcome all gifts, large and small, to help us meet (our deadline). This is a true community effort to protect a beautiful Scarborough property forever.”

Overall, the Scarborough Land Trust has conserved more than 1,200 acres for the public benefit. It has also created trail networks on four of its properties – the Libby River Farm, Fuller Farm, Sewell Woods and Broadturn Farm, which also boasts one of the largest organic farms in greater Portland.

In recent years the land trust has also protected the 156-acre Warren Woods property and last week the Portland Museum of Art announced it was donating an easement to the land trust to permanently protect the land and view shed surrounding the iconic Winslow Homer studio in Prouts Neck.

– Kate Irish Collins

A CLOSER LOOK

To make a donation to help purchase the Benjamin Farm mail a check to: Scarborough Land Trust, P.O. Box 1237, Scarborough, Maine 04070 or see www.scarboroughlandtrust.org. Call the Scarborough Land Trust at 289-1199 for more information.

Scarborough Land Trust has a $500,000 fundraising goal to purchase the Benjamin Farm.