Open house to kick off hospital’s Legacy Project

    FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — An open house at TAMC’s Fort Fairfield Health Center Wednesday, July 16 from 2-5 p.m. will also serve as an official kickoff to a project designed to celebrate the history of health care in the community. Set as an event during the Maine Potato Blossom Festival, the open house will launch the Community General Hospital Legacy Project, a tribute to the facility and the people who served it and were served by it.
The open house will feature free health screenings and tours inside the health center, activities for children including a bouncy house and face painting, and free refreshments, among other activities. Also planned is a “sod turning” for a community project that will sit on the site of the original 1950 section of the building, which is set to be taken down later this month.
What is different about this open house is that organizers are hoping that those who visit — especially area residents with a connection to the facility — come along with their memories and mementos.
“We are asking individuals with photos or some other memorabilia of Community General Hospital to bring them with them to the open house,” said Betty Kent-Conant, who began her nursing career at the Fort Fairfield hospital and is serving as co-chair of the Legacy Project Committee. “We will have folks on hand to scan photos and take pictures of items from CGH through its more than six decades. We also welcome any other photographs and historic artifacts that chronicle health care in our community including those from the hospital that pre-dated CGH that was owned and operated by Dr. Herrick Kimball.”
Kent-Conant and Fort Fairfield native Rayle Reed Ainsworth are co-chairing the joint Fort Fairfield Quality of Place/TAMC Fort Fairfield Area Community Health Advisory Committee group that will begin work later this summer to plan for both what will occupy the space where the 1950 section of the hospital has sat and other efforts to pay tribute to the legacy of the facility and its staff, volunteers, donors and patients through the years. The working group is looking for interested community members to join in the effort.
“We really want this to be something meaningful for the community,” said Reed Ainsworth. “Community General Hospital is the place where many of our residents were born, had medical procedures performed, were nursed back to health, visited with loved ones, and spent a good number of their working years. It is still where many of our community members turn to access much of their health care through TAMC’s Fort Fairfield Health Center. It has been, and continues to be, a place of great significance in our community and is a legacy worth preserving.”
As the work of the new group gets underway, so does the demolition on two sections of the hospital building. According to Tim Doak, TAMC facility engineer, Soderberg Construction will begin to take down the 1950 and 1971 sections of the hospital in late July. It is expected to take between three weeks and a month to complete the demolition and backfill work.
Following a concerted effort by Fort Fairfield community leaders and TAMC to identify a good reuse option for sections of the former hospital, officials recommended in April to move forward with taking down two sections of the building and retaining the space currently occupied by the Fort Fairfield Health Center.
The Fort Fairfield Health Center was established by TAMC in 1990. CGH merged with TAMC in 1982. The Community General Hospital facility sits on a 2.5-acre site with frontage on Route 161 and Green and Brown streets.
Individuals who are unable to participate in the July 16 open house but would like to take part in the effort by either sharing photos and artifacts or joining the CGH Legacy Project team, should contact TAMC Fort Fairfield Health Center Manager Kerry Spooner at 207-768-4750 or kspooner@emhs.org to share their name and contact information.