JAY – Resident and teacher Rob Taylor asked selectmen Monday to use money from a recreation fund to provide matching dollars needed to apply for a $5,000 Project Learning Tree grant.

Taylor also asked about in-kind services from the town that could be provided to go toward the match. Services include maintenance and mowing on the property.

The board could take no action Monday due to a lack of quorum but agreed to put the request on the agenda for its Monday, Oct. 22, meeting. The application deadline is Oct. 31.

A minimum of $2,500 is needed to apply for the grant to get the Jay Outdoor Education Project going. In-kind services, expertise and time donations would count toward the match, as well as donations from individuals and businesses. The grant is highly competitive, Taylor said, and the more matching funds and in-kind services donated the better chance of getting it.

The project is designed to bring together groups with similar goals involving outdoor education, Taylor’s draft application states.

“The mission of the project is to provide the youth of Jay with outdoor learning and community service opportunities by utilizing and developing resources within the community. Students will be an integral part of the planning, development and maintenance of a 200-acre community property known as the Jay Recreation Area,” Taylor wrote. “The ultimate goal is to develop the property into a sustainable forest and outdoor education and recreation facility.”

Town officials hired a timber resource firm last year to conduct a forest inventory involving professional foresters and Jay High School students working together to collect data. Students from both the high and middle schools helped create a forest inventory growth plot, which will continue to be monitored annually and used to compare with student collected data across the country.

Students have also worked with the town’s Recreation Committee, which has been charged to develop a management plan for the area.

Timber Resources Inc. is using the inventory and goals to create a forest management plan and harvesting is expected soon, Taylor said.

Since the recreation area behind the schools is expected to be harvested last, Taylor asked if some of the proceeds from the harvest of other town properties could be used until that property is harvested and the money could be repaid. Selectman Chairman Bill Harlow said it is set up so that the money from the town property harvest would need to be voted on to be used.

The cell phone tower fund that gains the town $690 monthly is another option.

The goal of the harvesting is to manage the property to provide funds for recreation while maintaining the property’s attributes and contribute to development of a multiuse trail system, forest management demonstration areas, wildlife observation platform, and an amphitheater. Schoolchildren already use the land behind the high school for science-based learning, team building and other activities.

The grant would be used to improve the existing Project Adventure Course, develop an elementary school seed sale and community garden, a butterfly garden, composting demonstration, forestry studies and improve trails. All of the projects involve students and service-learning as well as curriculum studies.