BETHEL — Youngsters and adults worked side-by-side Friday at the Bethel Inn, brainstorming ideas that could benefit nearly everyone in the community.

It was the Bethel Area Nonprofit Collaborative’s second year of getting together to undertake projects. This year, however, about 30 middle and high school students, most from the Telstar school complex, joined with the adults to come up with projects for the community and help make them happen.

One is to hold an open mic night for anyone who wants to display their talent on Friday, April 22, at Mill Hill Inn. A Facebook page was set up.

Jessie Perkins, facilitator for the collaborative, said one of the advantages of getting the two age groups together are their very different strengths: The youngsters know their technology and the adults have the life experience.

Another project aims to help change Oxford County’s recent designation as the unhealthiest county in Maine to the healthiest. That group wants to start a pilot program that would provide breakfast and lunch food boxes for children during the summer who qualify for free or reduced price lunches during the school year.

Several high school boys devoted their time to listing both short- and long-term projects for improvements to the school’s athletic fields.

A group of students and adults, including several sixth-graders, identified a need to visit older adults, young children, or anyone else who is shut-in. Other ideas included organizing a local Make A Wish program, creating a dog park with some of the money raised by pet memorial stones, and ways to make the Telstar complex more energy efficient or build a new school.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm for this,” Telstar High School Principal Dan Hart said. “The focus of the nonprofits is to get youth involved.”

The Telstar Regional High School curriculum includes a community service requirement, which is the major reason Lake Region High School teachers Joanne Eaton and Mark O’Connor in Naples attended the day’s events.

“We want to bring back to SAD 61 student-driven ideas,” Eaton said.

Perkins said the collaborative members will collect all the data from adults and students, create a task force and set priorities for projects that could be done in the coming year.

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