Maine Trail Center

Trail Center Progress: ▪ Utilities stubbed in at the street ▪ Foundation footings, frost walls and slabs poured ▪ Sewer line substantially trenched and run to main building ▪ All soils and concrete testing to date have exceeded specifications Project work will soon commence again on the crew cabins.   Volunteer opportunities will be emailed upon clearance from the contractor. Shingling, painting, interior trim, bunk ladders and cleaning are just some of the things on tap for remainder of summer and into fall.

  Crew Cabins

MATC is grateful to receive a transformational bequest to Trail Champions, the Campaign for the Maine Trail Center from the late Mark Andrew McAuliffe. With this gift, the Maine Trail Center facility shall be known as “The Maine Trail Center: Honoring the Memory of Mark McAuliffe, a Devoted Member and Volunteer of MATC.” Click here to read the full announcement: https://trailchampions.matc.org/markandrewmcauliffebequest/

  Trail Center Progress: ▪ Building Permit received, NO CHARGE! ▪ The road is 90% completed. Working to get utilities, Power, Water, Sewer, permits. ▪ Need to obtain easement from neighbor across street for utility pole guy wire support. ▪ Hashing out procurement process with MATC “supplied items”, ie kitchen, bath, lighting, water heaters with contractor and architects. ▪ Planning small informal groundbreaking 5/22, 23, or 24, no media. Our driveway is named “ Maine Trail Center Drive .”  The Main Building is #45 .  The crew quarters are #54 and #55 . The federal budget was finally signed, making the Collins/King CDS grant of $475,000 a potential reality.   At this writing we await contact from HUD to begin the process of identifying and undertaking the many procedural requirements to utilize the grant monies.   With our project already well underway, we have a lot of questions for HUD.  

We are nearing the trail’s end for the campaign and offer our warm thanks to all 471 donors. We must reach the campaign goal to advance construction of the Trail Center main building and maintenance building.  In June 2023, the campaign received a grant for $75,000 from The Windover Foundation to support the construction of the Trail Center in Skowhegan, Maine. We are profoundly grateful for their generous support.  Thanks to a partnership with the Maine Army National Guard through its Innovative Readiness Program, roadwork and preliminary construction began in 2022 and continued into 2023. This Program offers free labor, tools, and equipment to municipal and nonprofit entities for projects deemed useful to the Guard as a training exercise.   In 2022, the 136th Engineering Battalion of the Maine National Guard installed erosion control features, removed stumps, and brought 800 feet of the road to sub-grade. This past June, soldiers built two Crew Cabins (sleeping quarters) at the Maine

On July 21 we received exciting news.  MATC worked diligently this spring on a special funding opportunity through Senator Susan Collins and Senator Angus King’s offices.  Once known as “earmarks,” federal funding for projects is now called Congressionally Directed Spending requests. MATC submitted our request for $475,000 to support the Maine Trail Center project back in March 2023.  Senator Collins and Senator King had both endorsed the request, and it was submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where Senator Collins serves as Vice Chair. The request for the Maine Trail Center cleared those first two hurdles, and we have now learned that the last hurdle is the full House and Senate vote on the FY2024 federal budget, sometime later this calendar year.  This request reflects the excellent work of Holly Sheehan, Club Coordinator; Brendan Mysliwiec, Appalachian Trail Conservancy Director of Federal Policy; and Tom Gorrill, MATC President.  Let’s all keep our fingers crossed!