BOWDOINHAM

On one of the darkest days of 2014, David Skelton looked at the Bowdoinham Country Store’s broken cooler and freezer, empty shelves and a stack of bills and lost hope.

Despite the dozens of festive holiday cards tacked to the door and a brightly decorated Christmas tree announcing the season, Skelton took to Facebook and told his customers that he was exhausted.

“I want to say I am sorry,” Skelton wrote. “If I have to close my doors and sell off the real estate, please know that I have done everything that I can to keep these doors open for the community. The store has been in the red for the past two years and I am truly tired of fighting (exhausted).”

But loyal customers of the decades-old store — many who pop in several times a day for a newspaper, milk or a red hot dog — thought otherwise. To them, the store helped foster a sense of community in the town of roughly 2,800 people spread out along the shores of Merrymeeting Bay a few miles north of Brunswick.

One customer in particular was determined to help. Without even calling Skelton, Melissa Hackett started an online fundraiser, hoping others who frequented Skelton’s business would chip in to help him out.

In six days, donors contributed $1,685. As of a recent Thursday afternoon, the total was $3,560 — raised by 65 people in just two months.

That type of business fundraising, called crowdfunding, is typically associated with early-stage businesses trying to raise money to get their product or idea off the ground. But increasingly businesses are turning to that type of fundraising to give new takes on the dollar bill’s motto “e pluribus unum” (out of many, one).

Skelton said the fundraiser was what kept the cooler full of butter and local eggs and allowed him to order new parts for the freezer, which should be fixed.

“I don’t know if we would have made it through the winter without (the fundraiser),” he said.

Getting off the ground

Numerous other companies in Maine have turned to crowdfunding to get their start, generating some national buzz. One prominent example is Orion4Sight, the Rockport sunglass manufacturer that last fall grew to become the state’s highestgrossing Kickstarter project, attracting $348,449 after setting a goal of $9,000.

A New York duo is among the latest to try and replicate that crowdfunding magic with a new line of molded sandals they plan to start manufacturing in Kennebunk and build into a brand of water-friendly apparel from swimwear to rain boots, under the name Soak.

“We knew we wanted to do Americanmade,” said Michelle Vale, one of the company’s co-founders who has other fashion products on the market, including a line of handbags.

Vale said she and co-founder Elena Corsano, a former fashion editor for the New York-based Elle magazine, ended up looking to Maine after finding a waning interest in spending summers in the Hamptons and after their business search for a company that could do injection-molding led them to G&G Products in Kennebunk.

With their experiences in Maine in mind, Vale said she and Corsano decided to make the Pine Tree State and its shoemaking history part of Soak’s brand.

“It’s not just about selling sandals, but about bringing back shoe manufacturing and having Maine resurrect that part of their economy,” Vale said.

Recently, the company held a launch party in Portland for their Kickstarter campaign, from which they hope to raise $25,000. Vale said that would be enough to complete all of their molds and put out its first line of sandals.

She said she’s already had meetings with major retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom and that the sandals will retail for around $75.

Vale and Corsaro’s crowdfunding effort offers people various items in exchange for their contributions toward the company’s startup funds, in a strategy that lets the company bring in new capital but still retain full ownership of the enterprise. Vale said the company’s not currently seeking investors to take a stake in Soak, a new type of crowdfunding that state law allowed starting Jan. 1.

That law takes a more formal approach to crowdfunding that allows investors to gain small amounts of equity in a company and gives a company access to up to $1 million per year. It also allows an individual investor to buy up to $5,000 in those types of securities per year.

While the types of crowdfunding the Bowdoinham store and Soak used have taken off, that new investment law in Maine is just getting its start. Judith Shaw, Maine’s securities administrator, said her office has had one application to register its securities for the state’s first crowdfunding offering, from the Lewiston-based nanobrewery Bear Bones Beer.

That registration is still pending, Shaw said.

Investing in community

Less complicated were the motivations of patrons in Bowdoinham, many of whom donated $25 — or even $5 or $10, if that’s what they had.

“I used to frequent this store since before I could remember,” one woman wrote beside her $5 donation. “I would be heartbroken if it closed. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of money to spare right now, but whenever I have a little extra money, you can bet this is where it will go!”

“People seem to be giving, even though they don’t have a lot to give,” Skelton said.

Others had more to spare. One anonymous donor contributed $1,000, and Skelton said one man came in to buy two sodas and told him, “Add $500 to that — you need it more than I do.”

Skelton suffered a few more setbacks — the hot dog steamer broke, but is back up and running. And he’s still waiting for the meat saw to be fixed so he can return to selling bone-in meat.

But as the days grow brighter, so has Skelton’s outlook.

“We’re still in the red, but we’re closer to being in the black than we’ve been in awhile,” he said. “And I have a lot of optimism we’re going to make it.”

Hackett said that she’s thrilled with the outcome, but not surprised that Bowdoinham residents have been so generous.

“I don’t know that many people in town, but a lot of people have lived here their whole lives and everybody knows everybody,” she said. “I’m really happy that he was able to at least keep the store going for now. Who knows what the future will bring, but that is an important store for a lot of people in this town. And it was important for him to see that his hard work is appreciated and that, even though he’s struggling, everyone else is willing to step up.”

FOR MORE, see the Bangor Daily News at www.bangordailynews.com

Draws a crowd

NUMEROUS OTHER COMPANIES in Maine have turned to crowdfunding to get their start, generating some national buzz. One prominent example is Orion4Sight, the Rockport sunglass manufacturer that last fall grew to become the state’s highest-grossing Kickstarter project, attracting $348,449 after setting a goal of $9,000.