The Center launched the Community Destination Academy in the Moosehead Lake region ito help local stakeholders understand emerging travel trends, enhance the area’s destination appeal and capitalize on related economic opportunities.

High speed internet access is essential for building the New Forest Future, making rural communities viable and attractive places to live and work.

The Center has supported visionary economic development projects that sustain and create forest-based jobs while at the same time providing a range of community and environmental benefits through New Markets Tax credit financing.

Rural communities face a common suite of challenges, from inadequate internet service to dwindling school populations and workforce training.

The Center helped KBS address the major challenge of improving technology and overcoming the lack of available skilled workers, by covering almost half of the cost of initial employee training in lean manufacturing.

In 2018-19, with grants from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation and the Maine Community Foundation, the Center improved public internet access in 11 libraries serving the Maine West area.

The Community Destination Academy (CDA) held in the Bethel/Mahoosuc area in Maine helped community leaders understand emerging travel trends, enhance the area’s destination appeal, and capitalize on related economic opportunities.

We teamed up with the Trust for Public Land to help Mahoosuc Pathways and residents of Bethel, Maine, create a 978-acre Community Forest.

The Center and its partners in the Maine West coalition provided mobile hotspots to help students in Oxford Hills, Bethel, Rumford and the River Valley connect to online learning services.

Members of the Maine West initiative are using a new regional mapping tool to help prioritize community conservation projects with strong ties to other important community interests.