By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – After years of planning, Bates College has opened a new center to handle all of its volunteer efforts and to boost community service work.

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships, named for former Bates President Donald Harward, has opened on Wood Street.

It will oversee community service, student volunteer projects and community and classroom partnerships.

The Harward Center will take over the college’s old Service Learning Center, but it will not absorb L/A Excels, a fading nonprofit community group that Harward helped establish in 1998.

For years, Bates College has prided itself on its connection to the community.

Last year, students spent nearly 48,000 hours volunteering and working on service-learning projects, which allowed them to put their class work into practice.

Some students worked in local public schools. Others performed research for local governments or served nonprofits.

David M. Scobey, director of the new center, hopes to place a greater emphasis on long-term projects that will allow the college to work longer and more in-depth with community groups.

The center will spend the next year talking with community groups and creating a strategic plan.

It will continue to oversee volunteer and service-learning projects during that time.

For more information or to present a project idea, phone 786-6202.