AUBURN — Waiting in line outside  Walmart at 6:30 a.m. was not how Karen Millard expected to be spending the last few weeks of the school year.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic closed Auburn public schools, the after-school program that she runs had to respond quickly.

Teachers working in-person with students through hands-on learning were out, and buying material for to-go learning kits was in.

“We had no warning,” said Millard, the director of the Auburn School Department’s Community Learning Center program. “We did not get to say goodbye to the kids.”

Before the pandemic closed schools, students in grades 3-12 would stay after school four days a week for CLC, a program designed to extend enrichment and wellness activities through hands-on learning after school and throughout the summer.

“It’s a hands-on enrichment piece with academic support,” Millard said.

The CLC program is funded by grants from the Maine Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Center initiative.

But following Friday, March 13, the last day students attended schools in person, Millard had to figure out how literacy, math, art and science, technology, engineering and math activities would find their way from cafeteria lunch tables to the dining room tables of 150 students from four elementary schools, Auburn Middle School and Edward Little High School.

“I have been here since 2017. This is my first pandemic,” Millard said. “We had nothing. We did not want to pile on more responsibility for the families.”

So, Millard got in line at Walmart to shop for educational supplies that could be sent home with the younger students. “You had to be in line by 6:30 a.m if you wanted to get in with the first 50,” she said.

Harmonicas, LEGO kits, mini greenhouse, card games, origami projects, art supplies all went into the shopping cart. Sometimes two shopping carts.

“I’m trying to get supplies that they would not use during the day,” Millard said. “This week they are getting a book of knock-knock jokes. That along with the harmonica will make parents real happy. Hey, anyway you can get them reading. Even if it’s a bad joke.”

Gathering enough supplies to make 90 take-home kits a week takes up a lot of space. At first, Millard would organize all the educational material at her home. “My house was a disaster. My car was a disaster,” Millard said.

Deliveries of material would arrive daily. “I don’t know what you’re up to lady,” one UPS driver said to Millard following a daily stop to her home.

“It was a very helpless feeling when this all started,” Millard said.

Things did get better.

With no students at school, the Auburn Middle School Library was not being used, so in moved Millard.

Tables across the library are covered with packs of botanic labs, construction paper, glue sticks, root viewers and books about plant life cycles.

“This is my life. Envelopes and boxes,” Millard said while placing one of each item into a kit labeled with a child’s name.

“My goal is that when the student opens their packet, they will be surprised,” Millard said. “It’s rewarding, but a lot of work.”

“CLC is doing a really good job. I was surprised,” Nicole Duchaine, the mother of five children, said.

Duchaine picks up CLC kits once a week for her daughters, Brenna and Carleigh, at Sherwood Heights Elementary School.

Nicole said the material is great for keeping her daughters busy while she tends to her three younger children.

Brenna builds turtles, snakes and frogs out of LEGOs, while Carleigh uses her art supplies to create “Pop-Tart” cats.

Green beans begin to sprout through layers of brown cotton next to card games of Old Maid and Go Fish.

“They work on their projects all by themselves while I take care of the smaller kids,” Nicole said while feeding 16-month-old Lillyana.

Millard said she is unsure how the CLC program will operate in the fall when kids return from summer vacation. “We will still find a way to connect with the kids. There are so many unknowns. Just when you think you have it all planned out … it changes,” Millard said of restrictions surrounding the coronavirus.

But now that piles of corn seeds are off her kitchen table and “there are no more lines at Walmart,” Millard can focus more on feedback from each of the six school’s coordinators.

One on-site coordinator recently sent Millard a video of a student dancing to a jig while playing the harmonica Millard sent home with each elementary student.

“To me, that tells me I did a good thing,” Millard said.

“I hope I’m not getting too comfortable with it,” she said. “I hope it changes back. I would like to get back to in person. It’s hard not to be part of their day-to-day life.”

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