AUGUSTA — The Harold Alfond Foundation announced a $10.85 million gift to the Maine Community College System and Good Will-Hinckley during a news conference Monday at the Blaine House.
The gift enabled the state’s college system to buy 600 acres and 13 buildings from Good Will-Hinckley so Kennebec Valley Community College can expand its enrollment and course offerings.
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It also will boost Good Will-Hinckley’s Maine Academy of Natural Sciences.
The magnet school, which opened last fall, focuses on hands-on learning, agriculture, sustainability, forestry, and work and living skills. In its second semester, it has about 20 students.
Good Will-Hinckley Executive Director Glenn Cummings and Maine Community College System President John Fitzsimmons signed 34 documents Monday completing the sale of 600 acres of the Good Will-Hinckley campus to Kennebec Valley Community College.
Negotiations had been in the works for about two years.
The deal was made possible by the Alfond foundation’s gift.
Fitzsimmons said the foundation’s donation heralds the birth of a new college campus and the rebirth of Good Will-Hinckley, founded by the Rev. G.W. Hinckley in the 1880s.
Fitzsimmons said Harold Alfond, a noted philanthropist, dreamed bigger than most.
The community college system will use $4.5 million of the gift to buy the middle 600 acres of Hinckley’s 2,450-acre campus, as well as Averill High School, an organic farm, the Harold Alfond Recreation Center, Moody Chapel and other buildings alongside Route 201 in Fairfield.
Buoyed by $2.5 million from the Foundation for Maine’s Community Colleges and $2 million from the community college system, $9.85 million also will be spent on upgrades and construction at the new Kennebec Valley campus.
With the expansion, Fitzsimmons said, the college will be able to increase its enrollment by 2,000 students, to nearly 5,000.
“Thousands of Mainers will be able to obtain an affordable college degree and have a better life,” Fitzsimmons said.
Barbara Woodlee, president of Kennebec Valley Community College, said officials would be good stewards of the new campus, which is about six miles from its current 64-acre campus in Fairfield.
The lone institution of higher learning in Somerset County has come a long way since it began in 1970 with classes at Waterville Senior High School, said Woodlee, who has been the college president for 28 years.
Plans for the new campus include a dormitory and an associate degree in agriculture sciences.
In addition to the $10.85 million gift, the state will provide $750,000 in annual operating costs for Kennebec Valley Community College and $530,000 in annual funds for residential programming at Good Will-Hinckley.
Gov. Paul LePage said they are wise investments.
He said the state’s economy will prosper by having a strong education system that heeds the needs of the market.
“It’s all about the kids,” he said, calling community colleges “catalysts that will transform the economy.”
Morning Sentinel Staff Writer Beth Staples can be contacted at 861-9252 or at: bstaples@centralmaine.com
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