UNITY — Logan Wadick, 12, pulled weeds from the gardens, dug in the dirt and gathered beans to be baked in the ground for a future community meal.

Logan was at Triplet Park on Saturday afternoon, volunteering with fellow members of Boy Scout Troop 233 as part of the Unity Barn Raisers’ fifth annual Day of Service.

Additional Images

Thomas Ciarlante, left, and Brett Skelly, volunteers from Unity College, place a Little Free Library, where people can donate and borrow books, at Triplet Park in Unity on Saturday. David Leaming/Morning Sentinel

Volunteers including Susan Wolford, front, weed raised vegetable beds Saturday at Triplet Park in Unity during the Unity Barn Raisers’ annual Day of Service. David Leaming/Morning Sentinel

The Mount View Middle School student, whose father, Jon, is the troop’s scoutmaster, has volunteered all five years. During that time, he helped build the pit for the bean hole in the park, cleared community trails, picked up litter and stacked wood.

“I think it’s a real good experience for children and adults,” Logan said. “I think that people really need to learn how to help other people and do community service like this. It makes me feel good.”

Logan is considered a valuable contributor to the Unity Barn Raisers, as his generation eventually will take over the nonprofit organization, which was started in 1996 to help enhance the small-town character and rural environment of Unity and surrounding towns, while nurturing the local economy.

A community that works together is one that can shape its own future and advance the quality of local life, members say.

The Barn Raisers have renovated historic buildings; drawn businesses to the area; established and maintained the local trail system; built and operated the Unity Community Center, where the organization is based; and created and operated the community gymnasium. The organization also offers space for a local soup kitchen, operates the community meals program and provides a warming space for people during cold months.

The annual Day of Service, which ended Saturday with a pig roast at the community center, drew more than 100 volunteers, including Unity College students.

The volunteers cleaned up local elementary schools, worked on trails, picked up litter on roads and sidewalks, spiffed up cemeteries, dug potatoes for a community food program, did landscaping work at the community center and helped older people in their homes.

Volunteers of all ages work in the spirit of barn raisers of the past, according to Mary Leaming, the organization’s interim programs director.

“The volunteers bring their kids, and it’s really cute,” said Leaming, 29. “They’re the future Unity Barn Raisers board members.”

Diane Hull, 65, said she finds enjoyment and companionship in being part of the effort. She came to Unity in 1998 to help launch Centerpoint Publishing, a large-print publishing company, but lived in Waterville. She worked long hours, so she got to know few people in Unity. When she finally moved to Unity and was about to retire, she started attending community meals, and Tess Woods, then the executive director of Unity Barn Raisers, asked her to volunteer for various events.

“I volunteered for a Day of Service and for different things, and the next thing I knew, I got a call asking if I’d consider being a board member,” Hull said. She retired from the board in June, but continues to help.

“I came here yesterday and chopped vegetables for several hours and peeled apples,” she said.

Unity Barn Raisers, she said, fosters not only volunteering, but also friendships.

“People do stick together,” Hull said. “We have a couple of people right now in Burnham, doing weatherization work and wood stacking for a 92-year-old man. Last year, we washed windows at somebody’s house because her husband had a stroke and she was elderly. It’s some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.”

She said she expected about 125 people to attend the pig roast, which is a big fundraiser for Unity Barn Raisers.

At Triplet Park, named for triplets who died Jan. 12, 2000, in a fire at their home on that property, the community service work Saturday held special meaning for the volunteers preparing gardens for fall.

“We also lost our fire chief that day – Bob Jones, who had a heart attack while filling the tank truck,” said Melissa Bastien, a park steward.

Bastien said it was a horrific day, but creating the park was a way for the community to heal.

“We let the kids design the park,” Bastien said. “The goal is to have a playful landscape that’s also an edible landscape, so we have blueberries, we have strawberries, raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries. The Boy Scouts are pulling dry beans we planted this spring.”

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