LEWISTON – The “Love Always Wins” sign that someone placed in front of Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant after last year’s mass shooting there and at Just-In-Time Recreation, was installed Tuesday at Raymond Park at 49 Main St.

“It’s going to look good in front of the calla lilies,” Al Patenaude, Lewiston’s supervisor of parks and open spaces, said.

Miguel Garcia, left, and Cory McCollett of Lewiston Public Works move a section of the “Love Always Wins” sign Tuesday from the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor on Canal Street. The sign was moved to Raymond Park  at 49 Main St. for the month to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 25, 2023, shooting that killed 18 people at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant on Lincoln Street and Just-in-Time Recreation on Mollison Way in Lewiston. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

The sign has been stored at the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor, a history and cultural center at 35 Canal St. that has preserved hundreds of objects left as memorials in the wake of the Oct. 25, 2023, shooting that killed 18 people.

Museum Director Rachel Ferrante said the white, wooden sign will remain at the little park near the Longley Bridge until November.

“It’s nice for there to be a public recognition of what October has come to mean in Lewiston-Auburn,” Ferrante said.

The 3-foot tall sign, with each word contained in its own stand, was placed in a bed of petunias by two public works employees supervised by Patenaude and Ferrante.

The sign fit the flower bed so well that Patenaude proclaimed it was “going to be pretty close to perfect” in terms of its size and length.

Patenaude said the petunias will be removed soon because they’re already beginning to look a bit frayed by the cool nights and strong winds of autumn.

The calla lilies, he said, also have to come out before the ground freezes. He said the city saves bulbs from them to replant in the spring in ever-larger numbers.

Ferrante said the other “Love Always Wins” sign that someone placed in front of the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley at 24 Mollison Way was never taken down because the property owners want it to stay.

Schemengees, at 551 Lincoln St., never reopened and may become a shelter for people with nowhere else to go when the weather turns cold.

Ferrante said people can leave mementoes or other items that help them cope with the aftermath of the shooting at Raymond Park throughout the month.

Maine MILL will collect the items for its permanent collection, she said.

The museum hopes to display many of them regularly when its new $13 million headquarters is finished in a couple of years at the old Camden Yarns mill at 1 Beech St. Construction is slated to begin as soon as December, Ferrante said.

Cory McCollett, left, and Miguel Garcia of Lewiston Public Works place the three sections of the “Love Always Wins” sign together Tuesday at Raymond Park on Main Street. The sign will stay at the park through the month of October. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal