PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Machias Savings Bank Foundation granted the Aroostook County Action Program $7,500 in funding last month, as part of a $150,000 package of development grants handed out across Maine.
The program will use the grant to provide students at Fort Fairfield Middle/High School funding for their post-secondary education, as well as financial literacy instruction.
Jamie Chandler, chief operating officer at Aroostook County Action Program, said a story from a fellow program employee inspired the grant application. That employee had seen a student she had worked with attempting to utilize the crowdfunding site GoFundMe to pay for their college apartment.
“We have a lot of resources for students, but sometimes there are needs that we don’t have a funding source for,” Chandler said. “We thought the Machias Savings Bank grant might be a good opportunity for us to be able to provide those resources that are more difficult to access.”
Thirteen students are enrolled in a financial literacy course at Fort Fairfield Middle/High School. Each of the students who pass the course will be eligible for a $500 sponsorship that will go toward resources required for post-secondary education. Chandler said that the desired professions of each of the students vary from blue-collar to white-collar.
The working relationship the school already had with the program, along with its small class size, made Fort Fairfield Middle/High School a natural fit for the grant, the program’s Development and Communications Manager Sherry Locke said.
“To think that these students, when they start their education after high school, whatever that looks like, that they will have tools available,” Locke said. “I think that’s huge. And hopefully, that will set them up for a lifetime of success.”
Locke said that while providing funding is an essential aspect of the program’s work, it is far from its only focus. It’s “wrap-around services” caters to the needs of the individual, and can include budget coaching, fuel assistance and help with childcare, among other resources.
“What can be taught in a general way doesn’t apply to a lot of the clients that we’re seeing,” Locke said. “We really want to set them up for success. So, we work with them where they’re at.”
Chandler and Locke said their utilization of the grant to help out students at Fort Fairfield High is in line with the program’s final goal of creating a County population that is economically successful and self-sufficient.
“Our ultimate goal is to not be in business anymore,” Chandler said. “We want to alleviate poverty.”
Machias provided $27,500 of its grants to organizations that affect Aroostook County.
