FARMINGTON – Red, white and blue balloons bobbed in the air above a sign that says “Thanks to all – $105,000 have it now” at the Fairbanks School Meeting House on Route 4.

Members of the Fairbanks School Neighborhood Association have held fundraiser after fundraiser and received donations from community members to help them meet their goal.

The group had been awarded a $300,000 loan and grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture but had to match it with $105,000 for the project they’ve had their eye on all along.

Members planned to rebuild a replica of the school building that was no longer used to educate children, but as a business when it burned in 1998. All that had been left standing after the fire, for the most part, was an elevator shaft and the basement.

So far, the group has the shell of the building up and closed in and the Share & Care Food Closet and the Western Community Action Agency Food Distribution Center using space in the basement.

“It’s been a lot of work,” association President Cindy Kemble said Wednesday, but well worth the effort.

They’ve been working on the project since 2000.

The USDA gave the group a $250,000 loan and a $50,000 grant that was subject to the local match.

Now they’ll be able to finish the upstairs and plan to rent space to help repay the loan, Kemble said.

They plan to have a kitchen, office space and a meeting space big enough that it could hold 100 people and be used for receptions, showers, suppers, educational classes and other community uses, Kemble said.

“It’s been done locally by a small group of people who have worked hard to get this done,” Kemble said, and they’ll continue their fundraising.

Future efforts will focus on constructing a commercial kitchen downstairs in the meeting house.

“The Fairbanks School Neighborhood Association would like to thank the community for its continued support in helping to achieve this goal, and hopes to see you using the space in the future,” a press release from the group states.