NORWAY — Several local nonprofits are issuing a call to the community to help provide housing for seasonal interns and AmeriCorps employees.

Western Foothills Land Trust, Alan Day Community Garden and Lights Out Gallery are in need of suitable accommodations for their volunteers.

Joan Beal, a local woman with plenty of room in her house, is already committed to the missions of Lights Out and the Land Trust. For a few months during the summer, she provides an invaluable service.

This will be her third year providing a spare bedroom to Land Trust interns.

Last year, she offered a room to Ben Troutman, a student from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, who was hired to work at Lights Out to complete his senior internship.

Beal lives downtown close to its nonprofits so interns have a short walk to work. She said she finds it a meaningful way to support organizations she cares about.

“I have always had people live at my house on and off,” Beal said, “including when my husband was alive. Just for various reasons.”

It’s rewarding “to have an intern come in, young people doing interesting things who have their own lives,” she said. “When our paths cross we interact, and we may share a meal once in a while. It’s a pretty independent arrangement.

“They get a roof over their heads, and I have company. I think of it as temporary co-housing. Only, I own the house,” she said.

Sol Carpenter, AmeriCorps coordinator with Goodwill of Northern New England, said there are numerous benefits to the arrangement.

“It’s a wonderful way for people to get involved in their own community,” he said. “We get recent college graduates looking for experience, but also people new to an area. We see it as community building.”

The Land Trust has hired summer interns for the past few years, Kelli Wade, community engagement director, said.

“Our program is a two- to three-month internship program,” she said. “We work with Maine Coast Heritage Trust located in Topsham. They vet and provide applicants for summer stewardship interns; people who help survey properties, and other work on our lands in the area. The internships are paid through Maine Coast Heritage Trust by grants. We just have to provide housing.”

Wade said as the Land Trust acquires more properties for public access, the need to survey them and carry out stewardship duties increases.

“We can hire more interns,” she said. “We’d love to hire help through other programs, like AmeriCorps Vista. We just don’t have the ability to house them. It’s the missing piece. It’s a shame we don’t have the ability to give people a great place to stay, right where they will work.”

Without a local resident willing to support Lights Out by providing shelter, Troutman said he would not have been able to accept the AmeriCorps job with them.

“This was a great opportunity for me,” he said. “But I spent a couple of months trying to find housing. I was looking at Craig’s List, at Facebook, all over. I just couldn’t find it.”

The stipend Troutman earned was enough to pay for his transportation and groceries but little else. Any summer rental opportunity in Oxford Hills comes with vacation-priced rates.

“It would have been impossible to find any type of housing for just 10 weeks, the time of my internship,” he said. “Living at Joan’s was huge. She was an awesome host. And I was able to help her out around the house, doing things like carrying in bags of pellet wood for her stove.”

“We think about Joan throughout our interview process,” Wade said. “We communicate that to our applicants and it’s important that they know the full scope of what to expect. They may have never been to this area of the state, or Maine at all.”

“I trust the organizations that they are hiring decent people,” Beal said. “They do the hiring, and vetting is part of their interview process.”

“I wouldn’t want anyone at Joan’s house that she wouldn’t want,” Daniel Sipe, director of Lights Out, said. “I want to make sure she’s happy with the arrangement. It could be a long-term relationship so it’s important they are respectful.”

To learn more about short-term housing needs, go online to Lights Out Gallery, Alan Day Community Garden and Western Foothills Land Trust.

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