If you didn’t know better, Gouldsboro residents Cynthia and Bill Thayer sound like any pair of farmers excited about an upcoming barn-raising.
“The slab has been poured,” Cynthia Thayer said in a phone interview. “Bill’s picking up horses today.”
But this is no ordinary barn-raising at Darthia Farm. In the early hours of May 7, a fire reduced the Thayer’s 153-year-old post-and-beam barn to ashes, killing the farm’s animals housed within. Cynthia also suffered second-degree burns trying to save the animals. Just a month later, the Thayers were preparing to rebuild, thanks to a whirlwind fundraising effort reminiscent in its rapidity to the outpouring of generosity at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, where a community rallies around a family that has supported it so many times in the past. The donations, both large and small, have touched the farmers’ hearts.
“A little boy came up to us with a dollar bill and said, ‘This is to help with the farm.’ We’ve had a $10,000 donation,” Cynthia Thayer said. “Each one is just as important.”
Mainers have rallied around the farm because it has become a cornerstone of so many different communities, fundraisers say. The Thayers are veteran organic farmers and longtime fixtures at the popular Common Ground Fair in Unity, and they have helped many Mainers get a start in farming, said Russell Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association (MOFGA).
“They’ve taught so many people. For miles around Gouldsboro, there are so many former Darthia Farm apprentices,” Libby said.
The wood for the barn was donated by MOFGA, with farming tools donated by Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Local labor is also being donated. The fundraising has been needed to close the gap between the $100,000 it will take to rebuild the farm and restock the animals and the $15,000 insurance policy the Thayers carried for the farm. Adequate insurance coverage for barns is often prohibitive in cost for most farmers, according to Libby.
The Thayers also are firmly entrenched in Maine’s literary world. Cynthia is the author of three works of fiction: Strong for Potatoes, A Certain Slant of Light and A Brief Lunacy. Longfellow Books, a popular Portland bookstore, held a fundraising get-together with 25 Maine authors. For one night, the bookstore’s sales, after cost, went to the rebuilding effort. The fundraiser, dubbed “We Take Care of Our Own,” raised $2,600, said bookstore owner Chris Bowe.
“None of us have a lot of money, but together we can get some money together,” Bowe said.
The Thayers also have been active in civil life in the Winter Harbor peninsula and beyond. They have worked with local schools and government and have been a driving force behind the creation of the popular Schoodic Arts for All summer festival. Individual fundraising has been funneled to the Darthia Farm Phoenix Fund through Bar Harbor Bank and Trust, as well as through the online fundraising site GiveForward. Bar Harbor writer and publicist Nicole Ouellette quickly created the website after the fire.
“We wanted to take advantage of the people talking about it now,” said Ouellette, who runs Breaking Even Communications, an Internet marketing website.
The online effort quickly took on a life of its own, enough so that the Thayers had to ask for it to be capped when fundraising goals were met, Ouellette said. Friends say the Thayers have always been private and independent people, and Cynthia Thayer said it took a shift in thinking to embrace the fundraising effort fully. She needed to realize their little farm has become an important part of a greater community, and the community is now reinvesting in them.
“It’s become kind of a symbol of something everybody can do,” she said.
The farm will continue to offer produce and Community-Supported Agriculture shares throughout the summer. The barn is expected to be up soon. q
You can follow the rebuilding efforts through Cynthia’s blog at www.darthiafarm.com.
Craig Idlebrook is a freelance contributor living in Cambridge, Mass.
