NORWAY – Volunteers are being sought to help clear the way for the construction of the Riverside Trail that will be built this summer.

The trail, which is being funded by a $160,000 grant from the New Balance Foundation to Western Maine Health, will be built by the Maine Conservation Corps, which will camp in the area during the projected 14- to 16-week length of the project.

The trail will in part connect the existing Viking Trail at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and the trail at the Oxford Hills Middle School. It will be a mile long and made of packed gravel, allowing access for wheelchairs and strollers.

“It’s still very new,” Kate N. Wight, community relations coordinator at Western Maine Health, said Tuesday of the plan. A team leader is expected to be in the area in the next several weeks to work out the details of the plan and other issues, such as camping accommodations for the crew.

Meanwhile, volunteers are needed June 2 to clean the Viking Trail and perhaps make some headway on the site of the new trail. “We’ll know better how much work is needed in a few weeks,” Wight said.

Volunteers will meet at the Viking Trail head near the high school parking lot near Western Maine University at 8:30 a.m. June 2. Work will take place until 11:30 a.m. Water, plastic bags and gloves will be provided, or volunteers may bring their own.

Trail work will be coordinated by Healthy Oxford Hills and completed in two sections, with the majority of the construction done by Maine Conservation Corps field teams, Wight said.

The Maine Conservation Corps is part of the Maine Department of Labor and provides people with conservation, environmental education and other opportunities to learn skills and gain experience in environmental careers. Field teams of three to five members with one or two team leaders, such as the one coming to Norway, have carried out conservation projects for more then two decades in Maine, including working in areas of Grafton Notch State Park and Acadia National Park.

The work on the first part of the trail will require heavy equipment and will be done by local contractors, Wight said.

She said the New Balance Foundation grant was initiated by a joint effort of Western Maine Health, Healthy Oxford Hills and local pediatricians as a way to reduce childhood obesity.

More opportunities for trail cleanup and assisting the corps staff with the project will be announced as soon as the team assesses the construction site and formulates its plans, Wight said.