PARIS — The effort to build Beth Coffin a new home is continuing Saturday night with a Valentines dance, buffet and auction.

The Feb. 13 event is being held from 6 to 11 p.m. at Tuscany Hall on Route 26 in Paris. DJ Greg Allen from WOXO radio station will be providing a mix of romantic music for the event.

Coffin, a 24-year-old West Paris woman who wasn’t supposed to live beyond two years, suffers from spinal muscular atrophy type II, two blood diseases and scoliosis that has left her wheelchair bound.
She lives on High Street with her mom, Bonnie Coffin, stepfather, Gary Waterhouse, and her 12-year-old black and white cat, Booger.

A committee of people from communities across Oxford Hills formed Beth’s House Committee last year to try to raise enough money to build Coffin a home. The family lives in old trailer with a stick-built addition and it is falling apart. With her parents unable to work because Coffin needs full-time care and because of medical issues, repairs to the house have been limited. But the committee has made sure the family is safe and warm for the winter.

“I’m proud to say we’re slowly but surely climbing the progress ladder,” reported Coffin in a recent e-mail to the Sun Journal. While the house plans have been drawn up, Coffin said raising the money to get to the construction stage has been “slow hard work.” The committee hopes to start construction of the house in the spring.

The committee has raised about $28,000 so far, Paul Thornfeldt said.

The Valentine Dance and benefit is one of series of fundraising events the committee has held over the past year, such as the Musical Hammer concert last fall, to raise money to build the house. Coffin said the committee is selling T-shirts that state “I Helped Build Beth’s House,” at local businesses including the Norway Lake Store and West Paris General Store.

Committee member Jamie Verrill is taking orders for the T-shirts at (207) 240-9167.

Tickets for Saturday’s event are $12.50 per person and are available at the Lake Store on Route 118 in Norway and the Sideline Variety Store on Alpine Street in Paris, or from Pastor Tom Myhre and Kim Marie at Trinity Lutheran Church on Buckfield Road.

All donations for Beth’s House are accepted at any Norway Savings Bank.

Tax-deductible donations may be mailed to Community Concepts Inc., Attn; Jim Wilkens, 79 Main St., Auburn, ME 04210.

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