FREEPORT — For decades, Tom and Catherine Wilbur built something sweet.

From their first dip into the chocolate making world in the mid-1980s to a bustling chocolate factory on Lower Main Street, Wilbur’s of Maine became a small-town success story.

However, when the couple retired for good in 2018 and their son, Andy, and his wife bought the business, they thought they’d finally slow down.

Not a chance.

Tom found another kind of work to keep his hands busy and his purpose clear: home repair through the Freeport Rotary Club. 

Wilbur, a Rotarian since the late 1980s, has, over time, found that the service side of the club is what keeps him most grounded. 

“It’s always good to help a vet,” he said of one recent project, building a ramp for a man recovering from a serious fall.

Instead of days on the golf course, Wilbur’s retirement turned into more time in the hall of the Rotary Club and, through club programming, in people’s homes.

While his success in chocolate wasn’t an overnight thing, Wilbur said, the home repair program kicked off fairly quickly. Spurred on by a presentation from Harpswell’s Aging at Home initiative in May 2023, Wilbur and other Rotarians agreed “it just really sounded like something we needed in Freeport.” 

“I’ve always been a do-it-yourselfer,” Wilbur said, adding that others in the group identified the same way.

The group took on its first project in September 2023, gathering over 20 volunteers from the club and community at large. The project, a new set of stairs, was for a widow in Pownal who was having issues exiting and entering her home.

It was a wonderful experience to help someone in need, Wilbur said.

Since then, the group has taken on over a dozen small but meaningful projects — steps, ramps, doors, siding, railings and more. They are repairs that can make the difference between independence and isolation, hard living and comfort, he said.

Over the years, the program has recruited countless man-hours of volunteer time, business grants and donations, and a variety of other contributions.

“One of the goals is to bring in other people, other volunteers,” Wilbur said. “And hopefully, other organizations, because we will only be able to do this so long. And I think it’s something that really should be carried on.

“I have found that people, when they find out what you’re doing and that no one is making any money at it, and they understand the purpose.”

At 80, Wilbur is less interested in recognition than in continuity, in seeing something take root that will inevitably outlast the current group of members.

The home repair group’s most recent and largest project, for an older woman in Freeport, involved mitigating foundation issues, demolishing an addition that wasn’t up to code, and installing new siding and windows. 

Wilbur speaks about the work the same way he once spoke about his chocolate making: it needs to be focused on people. It’s a thread that runs through the many turns his life has taken before his days as a chocolatier.

A veteran of the Marine Corps, Wilbur left the service after the Vietnam War with a desire to keep learning and see more of the world. He and Catherine taught for a time in Germany while he earned his master’s degree in education remotely.

They spent several years abroad and on the West Coast, teaching next in the desert of Southern California and later in San Jose before coming to Maine in 1979 to put down roots. He taught at Brunswick High School while she taught special education and mainstream education in Freeport. 

Three years later, the Wilburs were making chocolate, and a few years after that, they were moving into the Tontine Mall basement. Eventually, the business moved to Lower Main Street, where it remains today. 

Also over that time, family would join the business setting the couple up to retire it into good hands. The Wilburs still return to the factory on holidays to help out and for special projects.

Now, in this latest chapter, far from the factory floor and the classroom, Tom Wilbur said the work that keeps him showing up is simpler.

“I think of us Rotarians as dedicated do-gooders and if I were joining for any other reason, I’d be sorely disappointed,” he said.

It’s the work and its results that keep him coming back.

“If I can think of a better reason than that, I’ll let you know.”