LEWISTON — SeniorsPlus, a nonprofit devoted to serving older Mainers, expected to break ground this spring on a new education and nutrition center on Mollison Way. The planned $5.5 million building will house a kitchen for the nonprofit’s Meals on Wheels program serving three counties, along with an education center to help Maine’s aging population access technology. But there’s a hitch.
A rendering shows the kitchen in a proposed nutrition and education center that SeniorsPlus hopes to build in Lewiston. Its planned opening is in the summer of 2026.
When Congress approved a resolution last week to keep the government funded until October, it removed hundreds of millions of dollars in congressional earmarks that lawmakers approved last year. One of them was a $1 million item that U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, had pushed through to help pay for the new SeniorsPlus center. Betsy Sawyer-Manter, president and chief executive officer of SeniorsPlus, called the move “very disappointing” after the nonprofit went “all the way through the funding process” with one key exception: it hadn’t gotten the money yet.
Both of Maine’s senators, Republican Susan Collins and King, voted for the resolution, which they said was needed to prevent a government shutdown. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, from Maine’s 2nd District, was the only Democrat to favor the measure in the House.
The hit to SeniorsPlus was far from the only financial blow for projects in Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties. All told, the measure wiped out tens of millions of dollars for the region that had been earmarked for everything from police safety gear to road construction projects.
In Auburn alone, the measure yanked back $3.2 million for improvements to the Washington Street pump station and $6.4 million for improvements to Court Street.
“The indiscriminate reduction in federal funding, without any apparent regard to the impacts of those cuts, will adversely affect Auburn residents,” Auburn Mayor Jeff Harmon said Wednesday. “Reducing services to our most vulnerable residents, such as seniors and children, will cause additional pressure on municipal services at a time when we are struggling to fund current services,” Harmon said.
Among the other allocations canceled in the wake of last week’s resolution are $5.6 million for renovations to a Spurwink Lewiston Behavioral Health Center, $8 million for safety improvements to Route 4 between Auburn and Livermore, $2 million for protective gear and other safety equipment for Lewiston police, $6.4 million to renovate and expand Rumford Hospital’s emergency department, and $600,000 for an entrepreneur incubator program in the Jay, Livermore, and Livermore Falls region. Farmington lost $185,000 for a regional recreational facility and $240,000 for public safety equipment. The University of Maine Farmington will no longer receive $400,000 targeted for pathways to degree and certificate programs in health care fields. Oxford saw money for two projects evaporate: $8 million for reconstruction of Route 121 and $9.6 million for reconstruction of Route 26.
SeniorsPlus was still raising money for its new education and nutrition center even before it got the bad news of diminished federal cash for it. It had raised about $3.5 million of the total tab, according to a website created for the fundraising campaign, but that included the $1 million that Congress snatched away.
The new building is meant to provide space to supply and store more than 175,000 meals annually to benefit 1,000 older Mainers and adults with disabilities. It will also have space for the nonprofit’s nutrition staff and clients, a pet pantry to help clients feed their companions, a dining area, adult learning classroom, and much more.
The future of the center now relies heavily on the community’s ability to contribute further financial support, as the implications of the recent funding cuts resonate throughout the local area.
