WATERVILLE – Help for Maine soldiers and their families – from one-on-one counseling to plowing driveways – may be on the way.

Maine National Guard leaders launched a statewide initiative Thursday aimed at linking military families with the agencies and volunteers who can help them.

The Maine Military & Community Network is designed to create a central place for families to seek help during and after overseas deployments.

“The help is out there,” said Gen. Bill Libby, Maine’s adjutant general. “But it’s difficult to connect everyone, particularly in rural areas.”

Plans call for regular meetings in at least eight locations around the state, including Lewiston-Auburn. Attendees will be encouraged to enlist business and civic leaders to join the network.

The initiative is patterned from a Vermont program that has connected with 400 agencies since it started in 2005.

The Maine work comes just as the state is preparing to send as many as 40 percent of its National Guard soldiers to the Middle East for deployments.

The 500-soldier 133rd Engineer Battalion, which spent most of 2004 in Iraq, is scheduled to return early next year. The group is based at armories in several locations, including Lewiston and Portland.

About 177 soldiers from the 1136th Transportation Co. are preparing to go to Afghanistan. The unit is stationed in Bangor, Calais and Sanford. In 2003, that unit was deployed in Kuwait.

The Maine National Guard will do its best to help the soldiers and their families while they are gone and when they return, Libby vowed.

“I am a Vietnam-era vet,” Libby said. “I am obsessed about taking care of our guys and gals when they get home.”

Deborah Chase of Farmington, who leads Operation Military Kids in Maine, hopes the new links can help her connect with children she has missed so far. Her group helps military kids go to camps and connect with other children like themselves.

“Are we reaching all the kids we need to reach?” Chase said, who also works at the University of Maine at Farmington. “No, but we hope to do better.”

Jean Kay, director of University College at Rumford/Mexico, attended Thursday’s kickoff in hope of learning to help a growing number of students who have returned from the war.

“We have several right now,” she said. “They seem absolutely fine. But this is a growing trend and they may have struggles.”

Part of Thursday’s session was devoted to highlighting some of the special circumstances faced by soldiers’ families.

Gov. John Baldacci, who opened the conference, said he had heard too many stories about soldiers – many outside the ranks of the National Guard – who got tangled in bureaucracy when they sought help.

“It’s not going to happen in our state,” Baldacci said. “We don’t want people to slip through the cracks.”

The first local meeting of the Maine Military & Community Network is tentatively scheduled for July 15 at an undetermined location in Lewiston. Other meetings are planned for Caribou, Houlton, Bangor, Ellsworth, Belfast, Augusta and Portland.

To volunteer for the Maine Military & Community Network, call the Maine National Guard’s Family Assistance Center at 1-888-365-9287.