Earlier this year, Dottie Perham-Whittier asked people on Facebook to name their favorite place or thing in Lewiston, and a pretty amazing thing happened.

They offered 98 different favorites, creating an eclectic list that mixes the popular and obscure.

“When people say, ‘Oh, there’s nothing here,’ or ‘What can we do?’ Yes, there’s a lot here and there’s a lot to do,” said Perham-Whittier, the city of Lewiston’s community relations coordinator. “It looks like people put some thought into it. That’s what people need to see in their own community. If we’re not our own cheerleaders, who’s going to be?”

With nearly 100 faves to cheer, the Sun Journal organized the responses around seven themes and decided to visit one favorite in each theme.

Think of it as a getting-to-know Lewiston guide, whether you’ve been here a little or a lot.

People: “The people who work & volunteer at the library”

Pam Frank spent her working life in shoe shops, a fish factory in Eastport, in medical billing and in banking.

The 67-year-old has volunteered at the Lewiston Public Library for 20 hours a week for just over a year,

after a program at her Auburn housing complex connected her with the opportunity. She’s a big reader, and she’s organized. It’s been a great fit.

“It’s the atmosphere — there’s so many nice people around here,” Frank said.

The library has about five regular volunteers, according to Director Marcela Peres. (In the summer, teen volunteers also run the children’s Summer Reading program table.)

In the morning, Frank helps set up computers for the public, pulls books people have requested and organizes large sections of the stacks, emptying an area and then reshelving it to make sure the public hasn’t put books back in the wrong spot.

“I hate leaving, it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something,” Frank said. “I’m not sitting on my tuchus and waiting for my Social Security check to come in.”

Recreation: “Wildlife around Garcelon Bog”

Garcelon Bog can be accessed at the eastern end of Warren Avenue or the end of Russell Street Extension, after navigating a serpentine series of city streets.

But do navigate — you won’t be disappointed. The bog is more than 100 protected acres with a carpet of rusty brown pine needles underfoot and a raised boardwalk replaced in the last few years for cutting through the wetlands. It’s a serene spot that feels like you’re at nature camp, except just five minutes from Lisbon Street.

Bob Kleckner, one of two bog stewards and a board member of the Androscoggin Land Trust, said deer, red and gray squirrels, and lots of birds can be spotted there. He’s also seen signs of raccoon, fisher and turkeys.

“It is a very specific kind of wetland,” Kleckner said.

More than 100 years ago, he said there was a small-scale operation in the area that cut and dried out the sphagnum moss. (People use it in gardens.)

Back in the day, “the bottom of that bog, the deepest place they measured it, it was 19 feet,” he said.

Over time, plants have died and the bog has built up and dried up a little. Up until very recently, Kleckner could find pitcher plants there, a carnivorous plant often found in bogs that traps insects and digests them.

Community resources: “Lewiston Adult Education”

Learn English. Learn how to spin and weave. Spend time with Professor Slime.*

*An actual thing! It’s free and happening Tuesday.

Lewiston’s adult education program has three locations as well as regular classes at the Androscoggin

County Jail.

Director Bill Grant said to think of their work as three-pronged: enrichment, academics and workforce.

Its reach is large. During the last school yer, 780 different students took courses such as cooking and dance, 375 people from 35-plus countries worked on English skills and 80 people pursued workforce training.

“We do a lot of work readiness, and that’s the soft skills — what people need to know to be successful at a job,” Grant said.

LAE collaborates frequently with Auburn Adult Education (he’s director of both) and lots of community partners.

“We’re always trying to get the word out,” Grant said. “It is the community’s program.”

Events: “Bates Dance Festival”

On Wednesday, as an oppressive 88-degree heat blazed outside, a dozen dancers inside Alumni Gym at Bates College with long pants, taped toes and serious faces paid the temperature no mind.

They kicked, spun and turned with an effortless fluidity, strangers brought together at the Bates Dance Festival.

Now in its 36th year, the six-week-long festival will hold its last public event of 2019 on Sunday, Aug. 4.

Called “How Was the Show,” it’s free and at noon at Bear Bones Brewery downtown.

Director Shoshona Currier said the festival this year drew more than 300 students age 6 to 75 from around the world. There were 21 free events, 18 performances, nine community partners between Lewiston, Portland and South Paris, and 5,000 audience members.

According to the festival’s website, choreographer Gabe Masson, who later became festival faculty, first arrived as a student in 1983: “It was my first time out of the South. I came up here and spent three weeks in this place and it was amazing. For some reason, it just felt safe.”

Beauty: “Stunning, beautiful architecture”

So you’ve walked by the gorgeous Kora Temple and wondered a time or two just what style that building is.

Or you’re new to Lewiston and have asked, “What’s up with this amazing Peck Building where seemingly everyone in the city had their picture taken with Santa?”

Read, learn and admire: The city’s Historic Preservation Review Board back in 2001 created a self-guided tour of history, architecture and culture, complete with a map and details on 131 sites, mills and historic homes.

You’ll find Peck’s was “the first and largest department store in Maine,” and where to spot some of its original facade.

That the Kora Temple was built in a Moorish style. That the present-day Gendron Franco Center is in a Norman gothic style made from Maine granite. The Dominican Block a few stones throws away? Queen Anne style.

I could keep going but I don’t want to spoil the fun of discovery.

Arts: “Local artists”

Nine years ago, Grayling Cunningham co-founded Art Walk LA, a Twin Cities monthly public art event, and five years ago founded The Studio, an artist’s co-op on Lisbon Street. He’s also co-chair of the Lewiston-Auburn chapter of the Union of Maine Visual Artists.

He’s seeing art everywhere.

On the city’s crosswalks and fire hydrants, in space at the Pepperell Mill, at the Hive co-op, at the soon-to-open The Curio Art & Alehouse downtown, and in both cities’ libraries.

Looking ahead, he thinks the Kennedy Park gazebo or Dufresne Plaza could be perfect for theater in the park or spoken word poetry events.

“I feel like the arts is definitely growing, and I feel like it’s growing beyond just downtown, but I love that there are little pockets downtown that you can enjoy,” said Cunningham, who works in oil and acrylic paint.

Painter Gretchen Arsenault of Auburn joined Cunningham’s co-op in April. She’s been glad to be part of the growing arts scene and gotten a lot of great feedback.

“I came for a nude sketch night and I’ve been coming here ever since,” she said.

Restaurants/businesses: “Getting a snack at the Mogadishu Store”

After arriving in Lewiston in 2002, Shukri Abasheikh found work as a high school janitor. She later picked orders at L.L.Bean and ran the register as a clerk at the Salvation Army, putting all of that experience into opening the Mogadishu Store on Lisbon Street in 2006.

For more than a decade, she’s patiently explained what sambusa is (a deep-fried pastry usually filled with meat and spices) and how it’s best enjoyed with bur (bread).

“A lot of Americans, they like it,” Abasheikh said.

Her most common sambusa contains beef and mixed vegetables with hot sauce, onion, garlic, curry and green beans.

“I teach them, ‘The inside (of the bread) is empty? Open and put some sambusa in together like a sandwich,'” she said. “They said, ‘Oh, I like it, give me one and one.'”

Both the sambusa and bread cost $1 each, as does a cup of chaahi, a chai-like hot tea with cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, milk and sugar.

As more immigrants and refugees have arrived to Lewiston, she’s expanded her offerings, learning recipes from natives of Angola and the Congo so she can recreate their dishes, too.

“They call me now Mama Africa, not only (Mama) Somali,” said Abasheikh. “I say, call me International Mama, not only Africa.”

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