Courtesy / The Ecology School
The back of the farmhouse at River Bend Farm in Saco.
May 22, 2019
Feds award $8.6M loan for Ecology School’s River Bend Farm project in Saco
Courtesy / The Ecology School
An aerial view of the River Bend Farm in Saco, where The Ecology School plans to begin construction this summer on a 7,000-square-foot dining commons and a 9,000 square-foot dormitory. The project received an $8.66 million loan from the U.S. Department of Rural Development.
By James McCarthy
The Ecology School has been awarded an $8.66 million loan from the U.S. Department of Rural Development, which will be used to construct an environmentally friendly 7,000-square-foot dining commons and a 9,000 square-foot dormitory at the River Bend Farm in Saco.
A nonprofit based in Saco, the Ecology School closed on its purchase of River Bend Farm in Saco in 2017, beginning a multi-year transition from its rental property at Ferry Beach to the new campus it is creating at the 105-acre farm on Simpson Road. The move to the 105-acre River Bend Farm on the Saco River will significantly increase the school’s reach by making year-round programming possible, including onsite school vacation and summer program offerings for both children and adults along with increased community engagement with the school’s resources on conservation, agriculture, ecology and sustainability.
The nonprofit has 10 staff members and 13 seasonal employees. Funding for the loan was provided through the U.S. Department of Rural Development’s Community Facilities Direct Loans and Guaranteed Loans program.
“For more than 20 years, the Ecology School has been committed to teaching future generations about our natural environment and the responsibility we all have to protect it,” U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, said in a joint statement announcing the loan. “This important funding will allow the Ecology School to improve and expand their campus and continue to provide meaningful environmental education opportunities to students from Maine and beyond.”
Last year, Collins and King sent a letter in support of the ongoing projects at the school.
"The senators and their staff have been tireless advocates for the Ecology School in our mission to guide people in the development of authentic connections with the environment and local agriculture and to become empowered stewards of Maine's environment,” Drew Dumsch, president and CEO of the school, said in a news release.
Dumsch said construction will begin this summer on the River Bend Farm project, which includes a 7,000-square-foot dining commons and a 9,000 square-foot dormitory that will meet the most advanced measures of sustainability in the built environment through certifications with the Living Building Challenge. The Living Building Challenge aims to create buildings that generate more energy than they use, capture and treat all water on site, and are made using healthy materials.
The Ecology School partnered with four sustainable architecture firms in Maine — Kaplan Thompson, Scott Simons, Briburn, and Richardson & Associates — to execute a site plan developed through comprehensive study of the property and analysis of programmatic design.
The long-term vision of the property includes a full-scale organic farm with crops and livestock that will adhere to a conservation easement now held by Maine Farmland Trust and recently transferred from Saco Valley Land Trust, according to the nonprofit’s website. The farm operation will be a key component of the new site, the nonprofit stated, and will signifcantly expand the school’s programming in agroecology, the study and practice of ecology through the lens of sustainable agriculture.
“We have long had aspirations to develop a full-scale organic farm for educational and research purposes,” Dumsch said in a November 2017 news release. “One of the best ways to help students connect ecology and sustainable living to their own lives is through the study of food systems and the daily act of eating.”
The River Bend Farm property was purchased from the family of the late Mary Merrill, who lived there from the 1950s until passing in 2005. Tom Merrill, Mary’s nephew, said at the time of the closing that The Ecology School’s plan to conduct conservation education on the land falls exactly in line with what his aunt would have wanted. Her lifelong interests included youth, education and conservation, he says.
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