Tom Edwards, together with accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers of Boston and other local patrons of the arts, have teamed up to make a significant contribution of 19 paintings to Regional School Unit 5 and to the Freeport Community Center.

Edwards, a former Freeport High School principal, for whom the Freeport Performing Arts Center Edwards Gallery is named, talked about the gift last Wednesday with the RSU 5 Board of Directors. Edwards indicated that the total estimated value of the paintings is nearly $40,000.

Two paintings each are on display at all six RSU 5 schools, as well as the Central Office. The others hang at the Freeport Community Center. During his presentation to the board, Edwards put on display the two paintings that will be part of the exhibit at the Freeport Performing Arts Center, which is part of Freeport High.

“I loved the enthusiasm for the arts when I was principal here,” Edwards said. “PriceWaterhouse has a new building, and they’re donating art from their old building. It’s something like Colby College’s Bernard Langlais gifting.”

In February 2015, Edwards Gallery and the community center became home to one work each by Langlais, a celebrated Maine folk artist. Edwards had applied for a grant from the Wisconsin-based Kohler Foundation, established in 1940 to support the arts and education. The gift of the two Langlais paintings are the result. In December 2012, Colby College made a gift of nearly 3,000 Langlais artworks to the foundation.

The 18 paintings from PriceWaterhouse have a value of $36,000, Edwards said. A chalk work entitled “Prom Dress,” by David Graham Baker, is valued at $3,800 and is the gift of the 13 donors, he said. Edwards included couples as single donors.

“Prom Dress” is one of the two paintings on display at the Edwards Gallery. The other is a unique painting consisting of two unequal parts by the late Charles Gordon Harris, a Rhode Island artist, entitled “Island Mud Flats.”

Edwards, RSU 5 Superintendent Ed McDonough and Will Ridgell, head custodian at Freeport High, spent several minutes carefully putting together “Island Mud Flats” on adjacent easels so that the painting appeared as close as possible to one piece. One section of the painting is taller than the other, which has galvanized steel as a backing.

“We are looking on the left at a very interesting painting,” Edwards told the board. “It’s an embracing curve in a river. The water going over the bend is reflected, and the galvanized steel picks up the reflection beautifully.”

Edwards noted that “Prom Dress” is difficult to discern, due to its lightness in color. Baker was a Maine artist, and the piece was purchased from the Dowling-Walsh Art Gallery in Rockland, he said.

Caroline Ceglarski, who works for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, worked with Edwards to arrange the gift of the Harris painting, Edwards said.

Celgarski and Tom and Tina Edwards were joined by Kathleen and Nick Alfiero, Joel and Betsy Bard, Paul and Ann Bulger, Charlie and Martina Dill, Katrina Van Dusen and John Gleason, James and Meg McLane, Mary and John Moore, David and Ann Simmons, Tom and Jules Whelan, Diane Whitmore and Carol and Lyndal Wischcamper collaborated to gift the Baker painting to RSU 5.