Grateful for support and participation

To the editor,

Kennebunk Parks and Recreation would like to express its appreciation to those who made our 39th annual Christmas Tree Lighting a huge success. Once again, we celebrated in the Tibbetts Plaza on Main Street and it was great to see a record number of folks having fun and ringing in this festive season.

It was wonderful to have the Brick Store Museum share its latest exhibit with free admission and the Kennebunk Free Library to host a card-making center.

We would like to thank the Kennebunk High School Chamber Singers who performed under the direction of Jesse Wakeman, our wonderful emcee Steve Adams, the Adams family of Kennebunk for the 1949 Jeepster that was Santa’s ground transportation, his chauffeur Werner Gilliam and Video Creations for its time and talent. This year’s beautiful tree was donated by the Chadbourne family of Kennebunk.

Again this year, Santa hosted a skating party to open the ice rink at the Waterhouse Center.

In order to make this a reality each year we extend our gratitude to the crews of Kennebunk Light and Power for their continuous work installing and maintaining all the tree lights in our downtown. Also, the cooperation from the Kennebunk Public Services, Kennebunk Police Department and Kennebunk Fire and Rescue is very important and much appreciated.

Linda Johnson, community events coordinator

Kennebunk

Maine Adaptive Sports seeks volunteers

To the editor,

Interested in making an impact in others’ lives through active participation in recreation and sports? Giving back has never been this fun.

Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation helps children and adults with disabilities develop skills, enhance independence, and provides enjoyment through active recreation.

We are seeking volunteers for programming at Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Pleasant Mountain, and Pineland Farms – both on-snow (Alpine and Nordic skiing, snowboarding, and snowshoeing), and off-snow (front desk, photographers, equipment).

Programming starts the first week in January and continues through March. Training occurs primarily in December but will be available during our January-March season.

Our trained staff and volunteers help ensure a safe and positive learning environment for volunteers and participants alike.

Volunteer as many or as few days as you can.

For more information, visit www.maineadaptive.org/volunteer or contact us at info@maineadaptive.org or 207-824-2440, ext. 0.

In addition to joining a community of folks who love spending time in the great outdoors and love helping others to do so, volunteers have access to deep discounts on gear and clothing and can free ski during your volunteer day when not in an active lesson.

Sunday River

Sunday – Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Adaptive Alpine skiing, snowboarding

Sugarloaf

Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Alpine skiing, snowboarding

Pleasant Mountain (Shawnee Peak Adaptive is now part of Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation)

Monday – Friday 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Alpine skiing and snowshoeing

Pineland Farms

Thursdays 9 a.m. to noon

Snowshoeing and Nordic skiing

Glenn Kroll

Portland

Barnard Tavern meeting scheduled

To the editor,

My husband and I bought the seven-years vacant and uninhabitable building known as Barnard’s Tavern in February of 2021. Our purpose was at the time to see what if anything could be done to save the building. Looking at what we could see before we could open it up, we knew it would be a challenging project, but the hope of saving the iconic structure is what our goal was.

After a year of fighting to be able to work on it due to a stop-work order, the house started to collapse on its own. This is not what we wanted. Because it was so unsafe, we were unable to salvage many of its vintage parts we wanted to reuse.

Here we are almost two years later, still no building permit, still no path forward despite two town votes in support of our endeavors. Why? Many people ask me, ‘Why?’ I have no answer.

This is a private property being funded by private funds, our funds. We had a commitment letter from a local bank for the reconstruction, but it expired two times because of the constant delay on permitting.

Bank: No permit, no loan.

Now, again, we are tasked with going before the Historic Preservation Board for requests that should be a private property owners’ right.

Our meeting is 6:30 p.m. Dec. 14 at town hall, third floor. If you voted, or, even if you just feel that citizens trying to invest in the economic development and the betterment of the town should have private property rights. Please just attend this meeting. You don’t need to speak if that’s not your thing. This is a town government, the people have spoken, so what’s the issue? I have no answer.

Kari Gates

Kennebunk