VAN BUREN, Maine – The Gateway Snowmobile Club in Van Buren is hoping to raise $300,000 for a new groomer garage by the start of the next winter season, as its current building doesn’t have enough space and is in poor shape.
The club has about 150 memberships, an additional 80 business memberships, and grooms roughly 80 miles of trail. Its current groomer shed is just large enough to fit its two groomers, the furnace, and a tiny storage room.
“We can’t do any of our maintenance in the building,” Club President Derek Grivois said. “For most of our maintenance, we take it to a local farmer and borrow his shop if it’s open.”
When the club purchased its most recent trail groomer, Grivois said it was too large to fit into the garage. He said the club had to cut part of the cement floor and the garage door header just to fit the groomer in the building.
“It’s just not feasible for what we need anymore,” he said.
Town Manager Luke Dyer said the club’s current groomer building has also fallen into a state of disrepair and would likely not even survive for the next year’s season.
Grivois said the chimneys are starting to fall apart, and the concrete floor is also deteriorating.
“It’s just harder and harder to fit what we need and what we want to do as a club,” Grivois said.
The club recently obtained some land adjacent to the four-way intersection on Poplar Street, which is right off the snowmobile trail, and this is where they plan to build the new garage. The new building will either be 80 feet by 100 feet, or 100 feet by 100 feet, Grivois said.
“Our plan there is to make a groomer shed-clubhouse,” he said. “We want to host events there, and we want to be able to cook there. So when we have events, we can serve food. That’s in our long-term process, but right now our main focus is getting the building up so we have a good place to store our equipment and a good place to work on our equipment in-house.”
The club currently has two groomers. It has one large John Deere tractor and a New Holland tractor that are each equipped to groom the trails.
The club is a third of the way to its goal, with about $100,000 dedicated to the new building so far. Grivois said this number includes money committed by the town as well as money that the club has saved. It has been saving up for the new groomer for over a year, but Grivois said it recently started pushing the fundraiser and spreading the word earlier this month.
The club placed a billboard on Main Street with a thermometer showing how much has been raised so far. The billboard contains mailing information for donations, as well as a QR code that donors can scan.
“It’s done its time,” Grivois said of the old garage. “It’s done well for us. But it’s time that we upgrade and get something more feasible for us to be able to work out of, and do everything we need out of one building.”
