RAYMOND – The Raymond Revitalization Committee wants to do what its name implies: Breathe new life into Raymond.

The eight-member committee, which coalesced around group founder Wayne Holmquist’s vision of renewed community pride and progress, is hoping to solicit Raymond residents’ feedback with a new survey.

The committee also hopes to bolster town pride by focusing on and expanding on what it feels are the town’s strongest assets: its schools, its small shops, and its place on Sebago Lake.

“We are trying to make this into what we consider the town should be, a beautiful New England town,” said Holmquist, a former real estate broker and resident since 1988.

The committee has no ties to town government, although member Sam Gifford is a selectman and the town’s code enforcement officer, Chris Hanson, is also a member. Holmquist, whom Gifford praises for having a passion and plan for Raymond renewal and is the driving force behind the committee, said the citizen-led group can do things government can’t, like promoting and fundraising for community projects and setting up other organizations that will work to better the town, such as a business association or group to oversee an endowment.

The committee’s recently devised survey asks residents to list the types of businesses they would like to see in Raymond and their top three leisure activities. It also asks business owners whether they plan to expand. In particular, the survey seeks the opinions of younger Raymond residents.

Steering the town in a direction endorsed by residents and businesses would lead to a renewed community spirit, Holmquist said, which would in turn attract new businesses looking to locate in a prosperous place where residents are happy. The addition of businesses, he said, would broaden the tax base and create a self-replicating effect, with even more people wanting to move to Raymond due to quality schools and lower property taxes.

While the goals are dependent on many variables and made more difficult by the current economy, Holmquist believes a sustained, focused effort will result in a stronger community, which he said is lacking now.

“Early in the history of Maine, every town had a social center, the glue that held the town together. That comprised the churches, the Grange halls and schools,” he said. “Raymond, in essence, has lost its schools, has lost total control anyway. It doesn’t have a Grange hall, and there is no church in Raymond that has enough parking for its own parishioners. So there is no social glue that holds the whole town together.”

To provide that “glue,” Holmquist said, the whole town should start thinking long term. It has to maximize what it has, which he says is a populace that prizes education for its children. He also thinks the town should maximize its commercial potential by focusing on luring quality, not the quantity that is already available with the big boxes four miles away in North Windham. Boutiques and eco-tourism opportunities could be Raymond’s main economic offering, Holmquist said.

“We’re not going to be able to compete with the horsepower of marketing in Windham or the typical big business, so we’ve got to get niche-type, boutique-type businesses that can survive,” he said. “We’ve got the Good Life Market, the Mosquito (ice cream shop), all those things are successful, and I think it can be expanded. Because here we’re sitting in the heart of the Lakes Region and the only thing capitalizing on the waterfront are the boat sales places. There are all kinds of peripheral things that could be added to support that endeavor.”

So, what is the model town for a revitalized Raymond? Newburyport, Mass., says fellow committee member Sam Gifford, who among other pursuits wrote for Time magazine. Gifford visited his brother, who lived in the seaside town, about eight years ago, and basked in the natural and cultural features it offers residents and visitors alike.

“I visited my brother in Newburyport and remember saying, ‘I want to live here,’” Gifford said. “It’s a poster town. It has a little town square, with small businesses of all kinds, which all seem to be successful. Those are the kinds of businesses we are looking for. It’s got character. It’s got a sense of place. That’s what we want.”

While Newburyport may be a guide, it probably won’t happen anytime soon, Gifford said, simply because Raymond has been struggling as of late. The business tax base has been hurt with the downsizing of what was once the town’s top employer, Dielectric. Planned subdivisions remain stalled. And Jordan-Small Middle School, always a source of pride for Raymond and a major draw for transplants, nearly closed recently as the Windham-Raymond School Board sought budget cuts.

Holmquist’s efforts to create the revitalization committee were partly inspired by efforts to close the school.

“I owned three real estate agencies and what I found was that people moved here for the advantage they wanted for their children,” Holmquist said. “The lake effect and education effect were the motivating factors for growth in Raymond.”

Good schools attract educated and highly skilled parents who have high-paying jobs or own businesses themselves, Holmquist believes, and their presence in town has a significant economic effect.

“That’s why we jump up and down about the schools. No schools, no business,” Gifford said.

“So one of the things I’d like to see happen is to get some kind of a glue together that will give this town an esprit de corps,” Holmquist said. “Because any kid who grows up in Raymond today, without change, is not going to have any bond to bring him back home, except to see his parents. And once they’re gone, he won’t even come and visit.”

Beyond shoring up the schools’ vitality and luring quality companies to town, specifics of the committee’s long-range goals include creating a sewer for the mile-long commercial strip on Route 302, which would allow multi-story buildings in downtown. They also want to explore ways to maximize the town’s Sebago Lake shorefront, create a business association, and possibly develop for community uses a 1,000-acre parcel in town that the state purchased and has since gone undeveloped.

Holmquist, who started a recreational endowment in Gray that resulted in the establishment of the Libby Hill Forest near Gray-New Gloucester High School on Route 26, eyes a similar trail system or park that could rally Raymond’s community spirit.

“I lived in Gray for a number of years, and we did a study of town and found more people were involved with recreation than anything else in town so we started our endowment to emphasize growth in recreation. As a result of that, we have 175 acres of land over there that has been developed (into a trail system). So I’ve had visions, and I already know how to handle that 1,000 acres” in Raymond, Holmquist said.

All this spirit building, however, can’t be done without the community’s support, Holmquist and Gifford say. The survey, which is available in local businesses, on the www.raymondmaine.org website, and at the library and town office, is key to getting the ball rolling.

“We’ve given the survey to businesses to pass out to employees and customers and gave schools copies to send home to students,” Holmquist said. “What we’re trying to learn on the survey is what townspeople want so we can direct our efforts to satisfy their wants and desires and needs.”

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