Two thousand dollars to purchase materials for an SAT prep course. $1,687 to support an herbal products business. $1,500 for an art therapy program.

Each year, a committee of �ֲ���ý students convened by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships awards grants to local organizations from the James W. Carignan ’61 and Sally Larson Carignan ’62 Fund for Community Programs. Up to $2,000, the grants support specific, sustainable projects and partnerships with �ֲ���ý students.

Participants in the Herban Works business at Lewiston’s Center for Wisdom’s Women show off a calendula salve in 2017. Herban Works was a 2019 Carignan Grant recipient. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The grants honor the legacy of Jim Carignan, Dean Emeritus of the College, who died in 2011, and his wife Sally, both of whom made community partnerships central to their work at the college and in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

“Jim and Sally Carignan were devoted to bettering the lives of the people of this community as well as breaking down barriers that existed between �ֲ���ý and its neighbors,” says Peggy Rotundo, director of strategic and policy initiatives at the Harward Center.

“How fitting to honor the Carignans through grants that strengthen the work of our local nonprofit institutions and forge stronger connections between the College and the community.”

Dean Emeritus of the College James W. Carignan ’61. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Similar to past years, the 2019 grant committee, which comprised seven students, was briefed on the nonprofit world, fundraising, and grant evaluation, this year by Holly Lasagna, health equity manager at Healthy Androscoggin.

Since 2007, the student committees have distributed more than $100,000 to a wide variety of community organizations.

Here are the 2018–19 Carignan grant recipients:

• L/A Arts: $1,600 for an internship for one or more �ֲ���ý students to help expand the Art Walk, and for the purchase of portable exhibition materials
• Museum L-A: $2,000 for two students to finish an educational project for museum visitors
• ArtVan: $1,500 for an art therapy program for students at Martel Elementary School in Lewiston
• Center for Wisdom’s Women: $1,687 for production, gardening, marketing, capacity building, and volunteer recognition at Herban Works, the Center’s herbal products business
• Lewiston High School Aspirations: $2,000 for SAT prep books, SAT prep workshop lunches, and an SAT prep coordinator for the �ֲ���ý–LHS Aspirations Program.

Brie Wilson ’18 of Lewiston has volunteered and worked with organizations in her community since high school.

So when she heard about a �ֲ���ý student group that gives grants to those organizations, she didn’t hesitate to join.

Each year, a student committee convened by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships decides how to disburse money from the James W. Carignan ’61 and Sally Larson Carignan ’62 Fund for Community Programs — each grant up to $2,000 for specific, sustainable projects that help the organization as well as enhance partnerships with �ֲ���ý students. This year’s grants total $8,787.

“I learned how many awesome organizations and people we have in Androscoggin County that are working to better the lives of the people living in the county,” she said. “There were some organizations that I didn’t know much about even though I am from the area.”

The fund was established to honor Jim Carignan ’61, Dean Emeritus of the College, who died in 2011, and his wife, Sally Larson Carignan ’62. Since 2007, �ֲ���ý students have distributed a total of $92,000 to fund projects ranging from materials for Somali Bantu Youth Association of Maine citizenship classes to a smartphone app for the Androscoggin Land Trust.

+2017-18 Carignan Grant recipients

One of this year’s grantees is the Lewiston Housing Authority, which runs an after-school program at its Hillview Apartments. Seeking to encourage older students to participate in the program, Hillview will use its $1,000 Carignan grant to buy books at higher reading levels. Several years ago, Hillview used a Carignan grant to install dividing walls for its auditorium, allowing the program to host more activities for students.

Jim Carignan ’61, in whose honor students distribute grants each year, stands next to the campus oak planted to honor his retirement in 2003. (Phyllis Graber Jensen.)

“The working tools and supplies acquired through Carignan grants are used on an ongoing basis,” said Carla Harris, manager of resident services at Hillview. “Youths’ lives are being impacted in a way that will make a difference now and in their futures.”

Before they give out the grants, the seven students on the committee, all involved in the Lewiston-Auburn community, get up to speed on the ins and outs of nonprofit work and grant writing.  

This year, Holly Lasagna, a longtime staff member of the Harward Center who is now with Healthy Androscoggin, explained how nonprofits work and what makes a good grant proposal.

The students then read each proposal on their own and came back together a week later to discuss which ones to select.

“They help each other see things they wouldn’t see otherwise,” said Peggy Rotundo, director of strategic and policy initiatives at the Harward Center and the Carignan fund’s administrator. “That’s beautiful to watch.”

Wilson, who was also on the committee in 2016, said being from Lewiston gave her extra insight into the organizations that applied for grants. Lewiston Middle School, for example, asked for $300 for books for an English Language Learner classroom. Wilson, who attended Lewiston public schools with ELL students, understood the need for books that satisfy both the maturing interests and language skills of older students.

Other proposals were more difficult to choose. “What surprised me about this process was how long we could spend on making a decision on certain grant proposals,” she said.

Samatar Iman ’21 of Auburn, Maine, and Brie Wilson ’18 of Lewiston, Maine, both served on the committee to award Carignan Fund grants. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Samatar Iman ’21 of Auburn joined the Carignan committee after being selected for the Bonner Leader Program, a four-year program that connects �ֲ���ý students with community organizations and offers leadership development.

Iman said he quickly learned what made a good grant application: While he could see that each organization had needs, proposals that were clear, specific, and sustainable were more likely to be approved. Iman said growing up in Auburn helped him understand how the organizations worked with people in his community.

“I was able to connect and relate with a lot of the organizations that were coming in with grant proposals,” he said. “I was able to put myself in these people’s shoes and say, ‘This is actually what we really need.’”

Sitting on the committee also sparked an idea: Iman, a member of the Somali community in Lewiston-Auburn, wants to start a mentorship program for Somali youth, to get them into college and beyond.

�ֲ���ý students will also help to implement projects funded by Carignan grants. For example, students will help Museum L-A create printed “visitor cards” for self-guided tours, and a Carignan grant will help Pine Tree Legal buy a computer for �ֲ���ý interns. Since learning about Hillview when she joined the committee, Wilson has started volunteering at Hillview’s after-school program.

For Rotundo, community partnerships reflect the values of education, civic engagement, and social justice that are fundamental to �ֲ���ý and that Jim Carignan personified.

“He would be so proud to see the respect with which students do their work on the selection committee and the success they have with their consensus decision-making,” she said.

As a sophomore, Amy Katz ’18 wanted to learn more about nonprofits that work in Lewiston-Auburn.

So she joined a �ֲ���ý committee that disburses grants from a fund named for a couple beloved by college and community: the James W. Carignan ’61 and Sally Larson Carignan ’62 Fund for Community Programs.

A member of the committee that awards Carignan Fund grants, Amy Katz ’18 is shown hiking in her native Colorado.

An environmental studies major from Durango, Colo., Katz is still on the Carignan Fund committee, and is glad of it. For most students, she says, “you hear in passing about Tree Street Youth, you hear about the Art Van — you hear about all these things, but you don’t really know on a deeper level what is going on.”

Working on the all-student committee, she says, “gives you a look into what the different organizations are doing. It also gives you a look at the other side of the grant-writing process — just because, a lot of times, college students are on the side of writing them and not reading them.”

Administered by the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the Carignan Fund honors a couple known for their dedication to community involvement. Jim Carignan, who died in 2011, was an educator, innovator, civic leader and longtime dean of the college. Now of Brunswick, Sally is a former teacher at the Lewiston Adult Learning Center and remains an active advocate for affordable housing.

The fund makes grants of up to $2,000 to community programs with which �ֲ���ý is an active partner. From a dozen applicants, here are the seven programs that Katz and her fellow committee members selected to receive 2016–17 grants:

• Lewiston Housing Authority: $490 for books and calculators for an after-school homework-help program at the Hillview housing complex.
• Trinity Jubilee Center: $538 to support the Free Clinic at this community resource center.
• United Youth Empowerment Services: $791 for the purchase of video editing software. The organization will use the software to make videos of refugees in the community that they can send to friends and family back home.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mid-Maine: $1,000 for supplies to support an expansion of programming in Androscoggin County.
• The Center for Wisdom’s Women: $1,968 for supplies for the center’s Urban Garden Project. A resource for the support and empowerment of women, the center is developing a line of herbal products that will provide job training and some income for women in the community.
• Montello Elementary School: $2,000 for supplies and equipment for an after-school program — specifically, athletic equipment and materials to establish a theater club, including stage lighting.
• Somali Bantu Community: $2,000 to support the Kasheekee Project, an after-school program in which at-risk Bantu youth will be mentored and tutored in the creation of personal narratives about their time in refugee camps in Kenya.

Established in 2006, the Carignan Fund supports projects that strengthen the bonds between the college and its partners in the larger community, says Peggy Rotundo, fund administrator and the Harward Center’s director of policy and strategic initiatives.

Dean Emeritus of the College James W. Carignan ’61. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Jim Carignan would have been thrilled, and Sally is thrilled, to see these organizations receive this funding, because a little bit of money goes a long way for these organizations, and makes these projects possible,” Rotundo says.

The five students on the Carignan committee aren’t thrown into the process unprepared. Last fall, when they began the selection process for the 2017 grants, they were briefed on the nonprofit world, fundraising, and grant evaluation by Erin Guay, executive director of the organization Healthy Androscoggin.

“They read the proposals carefully and listen to each other as they work to find consensus in their decisions,” says Rotundo. “Their process is a model for civic conversation and decision making, and they always end up making wise decisions.”

“Their process is a model for civic conversation and decision making.”

Katz notes that the committee is rigorous about the criteria they apply to grant proposals. And the criteria, in turn, help the students negotiate differences of opinion about particular proposals. “Is it sustainable, does it have a good connection with �ֲ���ý students, is this a feasible project?” Katz explains. “And if it’s not, then it kind of sorts itself out.”

The students’ role in selection is a win-win, Katz adds. As noted, the students gain insight into how grantmakers weigh grant applications — insight that’s useful for people whose academic, and perhaps professional, careers may depend on their skill at asking for money.

“We get to learn what goes into a good grant,” she says.

But the committee students, who are all involved in the community as volunteers or through community-engaged research, also have a front-line perspective that established grantmakers might not have.

“Most of us on the committee are super-involved in the community, so we have a pretty good understanding of these organizations and what they’re doing,” Katz explains. “Since the focus is on the connection with �ֲ���ý students, we really understand better than anyone what’s going on between those two parties.”

Bill Curley ’16 of Wilton, Conn., works with a young Hillview resident during a first aid lesson in the “How Everything Works” program at Hillview’s Community Resource Center in February 2016. The community center has received a number of Carignan Fund grants. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Between 2006 and 2016, 51 Carignan Fund grants totaling approximately $85,000 have been awarded. Grant recipients have ranged from Safe Voices, which received funding for the development of employer toolkits on domestic violence; to the Franco Center for a French film series that �ֲ���ý faculty and students facilitated in French; to the Androscoggin Land Trust to develop a smartphone app that �ֲ���ý students beta-tested, Rotundo says.

In addition to his role at �ֲ���ý, James Carignan chaired the Maine Board of Education, served on the Lewiston City Council, and contributed service to more than 25 other local and state boards. He helped establish the Harward Center and served as its first director.

“Jim and Sally were both dedicated to the Lewiston community,” Rotundo says. “Jim was always very interested in improving relationships between the community and the college, and improving people’s lives.

“And that’s what this program does — it enhances the capacity of nonprofits in this community to provide services for the people of Androscoggin County. But it also helps to cement the relationship between those organizations and �ֲ���ý students, who are so active in the community.”

She adds, “Jim always believed that if students were given the opportunity they would make very good decisions. So when I sit there and I watch these students on the committee make great decisions, I just think, ‘Jim, you were right.’ “

Alisa Amador ’18 of Cambridge, Mass., helps a budding author design a chapter book at the Lewiston Public Library. Amador volunteers with the Art Van, a mobile art program for children that received a $1,300 grant from the Harward Center’s Carignan Fund. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Honoring a prominent and deeply respected �ֲ���ý couple, grants of $8,500 from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships will help six community organizations create, expand, or advance public-service programs that improve the lives of local residents.

The grants are funded through the center’s James W. Carignan ’61 and Sally Larson Carignan ’62 Fund for Community Programs, established through gifts from more than 150 �ֲ���ý alumni and friends to honor the Carignans’ many contributions to both campus and community life.

Here are the grants awarded for 2016-17:

• Museum L-A: $2,000 to assist with the research and preservation of vintage silkscreens that were used to manufacture linens in local mills.
• College for ME-Androscoggin: $1,823 to support the creation of a new county-wide “Decision Day” event that will help local students plan their education beyond high school.
• Raise-Op Housing Cooperative: $1,823 to support the creation of materials and programs that will help tenants better understand the goals, expectations and responsibilities of living in a housing cooperative.
• Lewiston Public Library: $1,300 to help fund the library’s “ArtVan” mobile art program which provides creative projects and art opportunities for children.
• YWCA of Central Maine: $1,110 to support the organization’s annual “Stand Against Racism” event, which fosters multi-cultural understanding by bringing together local activists, community leaders, students and researchers.
• Lewiston Housing Authority: $533 to purchase office furniture for “How Everything Works,” an after-school science, engineering and technology program.

In addition to the grants, each organization will be able to tap resources at the college, such as faculty and staff expertise, student workers and student researchers. �ֲ���ý students made up the bulk of the committee that selected the grant winners.

In 2003, Jim Carignan ’61 stands next to an oak planted on campus honor his retirement as dean of the college. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“These grants will support programs and organizations that work hard every day to improve the lives of local residents, students and children,” said Darby Ray, the director of the Harward Center.

“We are amazed by the work that these groups do, and we are proud to be partners in their efforts.”

“We are amazed by the work that these groups do, and we are proud to be partners in their efforts.”

The late Jim Carignan, dean emeritus of the college, was an educator, innovator, and civic leader who chaired the Maine Board of Education, served on the Lewiston City Council, and contributed his service to more than 25 other local and state boards. He helped establish the Harward Center (then known as the Center for Service Learning) and served as its first director. He passed away in 2011.

His wife, Sally Larson Carignan ’62, is a former teacher at the Lewiston Adult Learning Center and an active advocate for affordable housing.

“The Carignans exemplify what it means to be engaged citizens and community members, and these grants celebrate and carry on their commitment to respectful, beneficial community partnerships that improve the lives of our neighbors,” Ray said.