FARMINGTON – Justin Maurer’s legacy of support for small farms, producing food without chemicals and eating healthier will live on, his father, Gary Maurer of Leeds, said Monday.
Maurer, 23, died April 7 in a motorcycle accident in Farmington.
Restaurants in Franklin and Androscoggin counties will participate in Maurer’s Meals on Saturday, Oct. 15. This will both highlight locally grown organic and natural food, and benefit a scholarship in Maurer’s name at the University of Maine at Farmington.
During the last couple of years, Justin had achieved a kind of harmony in his life, his father said.
Maurer said his son valued friendship, had a strong personality and radiated a kind of strength, happiness and joy.
Justin, who had lived in Farmington with his fiancee, had planned to move west, probably to Oregon, his father said. The 1999 Leavitt Area High School graduate and 2004 UMF graduate had been very interested in nutrition and was looking into alternative medicine, Maurer said.
“He highly believed people could become healthier by eating better,” he said.
Justin, who earned a degree in community health, had worked on raised-bed organic demonstrations and on a self-designed internship at the bio-dynamic Fare Share Farm and Bakery in Canton during college. The internship exposed him to new things, his father said, including helping to develop farmers’ markets in Dixfield and Mexico.
Sharing a vision
Justin had become such a supporter of the small farm in Maine, and of producing food without chemicals poisoning the earth and the body, that Gary Maurer wanted to build on his son’s vision and keep it going, he said.
Justin felt it was important to make healthy food choices available to people, he said, so in his memory Maurer developed a regional collaboration that encourages local restaurants to offer healthy menu choices prepared from locally grown foods. The effort is to heighten awareness of health through personal food choice, and to bring vitality to local agriculture.
Maurer said he worked with Rick Mealey, owner of The Boiler Room in Wilton, where Justin had worked before he died, to develop the idea of Maurer’s Meals.
Besides The Boiler Room, Davinci’s Eatery in Lewiston, Eli’s Restaurant in Turner, and The Granary and The Homestead Bakery, both in Farmington, agreed to offer alternative specials Saturday using locally grown foods.
Maurer said he received support in his venture from the Western Mountains Alliance, Healthy Community Coalition, Healthy Androscoggin and the University of Maine at Farmington.
Maurer said the Maurer’s Meals concept is designed to help local farmers and restaurants. The Oct. 15 event will raise money for the Justin A. Maurer Memorial Scholarship, which will go to a third- or fourth-year student in the community health program at the Farmington college.
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