The Friends of Reid State Park present an $11,000 donation to park staff Thursday to help build a new nature center. (Katie Langley/The Times Record)

GEORGETOWN — A rundown former concessions stand overlooking a lagoon in Reid State Park will become the new base for the park’s educational programming.

In partnership with the Friends of Reid State Park, the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Bureau of Parks and Lands is accepting donations to transform the old food stand on Griffith Head. The fundraising goal is $100,000.

“We’ve got very, very high hopes for this little building,” said Gary Best, southern regional parks manager at the BPL.

The new nature center will include hands-on exhibits and host the park’s educational programs — such as nature walks and talks on lobsters, sharks and jellyfish — said Reid State Park Manager Haylee Parsons.

“It’s taking these programs and putting it all into a sort of outdoor classroom in here, where anyone can come in at any time and be able to enjoy everything that the park has to offer, and all the natural beauty that this park has,” Parsons said.

Reid State Park on Thursday. (Katie Langley/The Times Record)

Friends of Reid State Park sent mailings out to hundreds of Georgetown households with the goal of raising $2,500 for the new nature center, and matching that with their own donation.

“In two days, we exceeded that,” said Jim Peavey, president of the Friends group.

The Friends increased their goal to $5,000, and met it — and then some. On Thursday, they presented a check for more than $11,000 — the amount raised plus the organization’s fundraising match —  to park staff and DACF Commissioner Amanda Beal.

Members of the organization Age Friendly Georgetown founded Friends of Reid State Park about five years ago, after volunteering to shovel the paths at Reid in the winters so people of all ages and mobility levels could visit the beach year-round.

Since then, they’ve been invaluable partners to the park. They stepped up to clear out trees and brush from the park’s historic Seguinland Road Schoolhouse in 2023 and helped clean up the beaches after the destructive storms of winter 2024. This year, they worked to collect hundreds of leftover Christmas trees after the holiday to serve as buffers for dune erosion.

“Governor Mills was very generous with our state parks by allocating $50 million [through the Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan Program], so we’ve been able to address a lot of historical deferred maintenance problems,” Beal, the DACF commissioner, said. “But, at the end of the day, $50 million to take care of all of our parks just isn’t enough, so that’s why it’s important that folks like the friends group for Reid State Park is here and engaged and helping us to not only address some of the long-standing infrastructure issues that we have, but to really help us vision and move forward with new ideas.”

The Georgetown park is more popular than ever, with more than 200,000 visitors making the trip last year, said Andy Cutko, director of the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.

“One of the things we share with the Friends is a passion for our state parks, and a passion for Reid,” Cutko said.

Cutko said the nature center will be built in phases while the fundraising effort continues, and will hopefully be open by next summer. Those interested in donating to the project can go to the DACF website under the Bureau of Parks and Land, click donate and choose Reid State Park. For large contributions, people can contact the BPL directly.