HARPSWELL

The Harpswell Board of Selectmen will review applications for three grants at its Thursday meeting, which could fund meals for food insecure elementary students, renovations to a historic building and update the town’s comprehensive plan.

Town officials are submitting three applications for Community Development Block Grants, according to Town Planner Carol Eyerman. Eyerman has served as a staff liaison with the Cumberland County Municipal Oversight Committee, which recommends projects for funding to the Cumberland County commissioners.

A community development block grant application is being submitted, which requests $6,000 to continue the Backpack Program at Harpswell Community School.

Organized by the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program and Good Shepherd Food Bank, the Backpack Program addresses food insecurity by sending food home with students, which is confidentially placed in the students’ backpacks.

In its second year at Harpswell Community School, the Backpack Program currently serves 28 students, according to Darcy Baggett, the HCS school counselor. Enrolled students were notified of their inclusion in the program by letter last year, with an option to opt out or continue in the program this year.

“We only had a few families selected come back to us and say they were in good shape and we should enroll a family that was more in need,” said Baggett. “The lobstering industry has been unpredictable and we have a large number of families that depend on that industry, that have to stretch their earnings over the winter.”

Food is distributed to students in the program on Fridays “as discretely as possible,” said Baggett. “The teachers know who in the room receives food and they deliver the food to their backpacks when the kids are at a special (class) or when they are at lunch.

“The program is very well organized and the students have been very comfortable with it,” she said. “We often see the foods distributed come back in the student lunches over the next week.”

The initial two years of the program have been funded by Mid Coast Hunger Prevention and Good Shepherd Food Bank, said Baggett, however funds are needed to sustain the program for the next school year.

A grant application requesting $75,000 for updates to the Bailey Island Library Hall will also be reviewed by the Selectboard on Thursday.

“The request is to renovate the entrance to the hall and the bathroom to make them handicap accessible,” said Eyerman, “and to update the electrical system, among other things.”

The Bailey Island Library Hall contact provided by the Harpswell Town Office was not immediately reachable by phone Tuesday.

Bailey Island Library Hall, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was commissioned to be built in 1912 by a group of year-round and summer residents who formed the Bailey

Island Library Association, according to maineanencyclopedia.com. The structure was designed by Mann and MacNeille, a New York architecture firm whose principals were both summer residents on the island.

Located on Harpswell Island Road, the building continues to serve as a community gathering place though the library is no longer in service.

The Selectboard will also review a grant application requesting $10,000 to be used to update the town’s comprehensive plan.

“We’d be looking to hire a consultant to help with the process,” said Eyerman. “It involves, among other things, several community engagements — 15 or more — throughout the year.”

The Harpswell Comprehensive Plan was last reviewed in its entirety in 2003, said Eyerman, though it was updated to more thoroughly address Mitchell Field, a town owned property, three years ago.

“It is the overarching view and vision that the community has of itself,” said Eyerman of the comprehensive plan. “It expresses the wishes of the community in one document, and the hope is that all the town committees use that as a road map for what they may work on.”

The community development block grant applications are due by the end of January, said Eyerman, and the Selectmen will be reviewing the applications Thursday for final approval.

The Harpswell Board of Selectmen meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Harpswell Town Office, located at 263 Mountain Road.