Makes u feel all good inside. And way to give back!

Lovely

I think she will do a bunch of this kind of thing.

East Millnocket is fortunate to have Ms. MacKenzie looking out for them!

And a brilliant plan from the MacKenzie family. But as soon as I saw "East Millinocket, Me." , I kneww it would be good - If you watched the "American Loggers" reality show, you know why.

Did they get that estimate from someone who knocked on their door? I get those all the time.

Not a shingle & flashing, new roof in a day kind of thing. These are generally rubber membrane, gravel ballasted systems, with roof drains running down through the building.

the school needed a new roof and it was close to that same price...

Has to be engineered for snow and ice load.

I guess this is what they meant.

It's a lovely thing for Ms. MacKenzie to do, it's just sad that it's necessary.

When the question was asked about the chair farce having to hold bake sales to buy bombs and bombers and schools got all they needed few questions asked? I've seen it condensed enough to fit on a bumper sticker but even that didn't seem to penetrate the brains of gung ho right wingers.

Her generosity to various charities and causes is one of the reasons she is well loved by her staff and everyone who knows her. I love hearing stories of the goodness in people.

If I won $500M, I'd keep $2M for myself and set up foundations to give the rest away over time - mostly to women's/children's agencies, education/scholarships for art/music/language and I'd buy a bunch of land to be designated 'parkland/nature preserves'.

Oh, and doggie charities

lottery and buy one of these monster farms in Montana and use all the profits off of the crops to provide FREE dental care to anyone who needs it. Using fresh out of school dentist to help them get started too.

K and R

It was in 2003 the year I graduated and it cost 72 million dollars to build...

I'm happy that someone has it in their heart to donate $2M to fix
a school that really needs it. There are not enough people like this
84 year old in the world, and we sure need them now.

I'm angry because this is a public facility that [Font color=Red]SHOULD[/font] be maintained
by our tax dollars. When I hear righties (and I hear them a lot in
Orange Co. CA.) complain about not getting enough public services,
I just tell them
[Font color=Red]"This is your tax breaks at work. What are you complaining about?"[/font]

People in Maine pay plenty of taxes--and the real estate taxes are going up every year in Northern Maine because the population keeps shrinking. When you head towards potato country, the populations get smaller and smaller, and older, too--it's like Mayberry up that way. I happen to find the area charming, but not everyone agrees. The young, especially, want more excitement in their lives:

Again this is our tax breaks at work.

While communities across the country have to compete against
low paying communities in other countries, the top 1% see fit to
move their manufacturing to those low paying countries, and then
get tax subsidies from [Font color=Red]OUR[/font] taxes to do it.

They don't even see the US as a consumer base any longer when they
have China and India and all of Africa to buy their products.

The problem though is that those countries don't make enough to afford
the products being sold because they're not paid enough to purchase
the product they manufacture.

And since our wages keep falling, we soon will not be able to afford
these same products

In your example, if only half the students exist, then only half the schools
should be used, and the closed schools should be mothballed (for later use,
if needed).

Why should taxes be raised to use double the facilities when only half
are needed?

They've put all grades into it, now, so they are cutting the cloth according to the measure as best they can.

In some parts of northern ME, they are closing schools in small towns and combining their resources with larger towns--Aroostook county went through this process recently in the southern part of the county.

If you don't use a building, you're often better off just tearing it down or selling it. It's hard to "mothball" a school. Maintenance (the roof, the foundation, mowing the lawns and playing fields, heating the place in winter just enough so pipes do not freeze--a must in ME) costs money.

The roof might take some maintenance, but very little.
The lawn could be re-landscaped to still look good, but
remove all the grass so that there is no water bill.
The playing fields should be returned to the city so that it could be
a public park, and we use to drain the water from the the pipes,
and then shutting off the water to the school. Once that's done
no need to worry about the pipes.

The school can always be sold at a later date, but if they were ever
to need it after selling it, it would cost more to buy and build a new
school on a different property, then to re-activate a mothballed school,
in my opinion.

The towns pay the school bills--field maintenance would all come out of the same pot. It also gets VERY cold up that way--you need to keep the heat on, or you risk things heaving and skewing.

I've noticed, in Maine, that they are thrifty, sensible people. They also value a bit of tradition. If this building is in pretty good shape and can be fixed cheaper than building a new facility, that is what they'd prefer to do, I'm sure.

The challenge also would be, who wants to buy a school in East Millinocket? It's a fair drive up there--not as far as Presque Isle, but still...what would it be used for?

They started with wind.

They could do more with the vacation thing, especially in winter--one of the nicest (and cheapest) places to ski in the east is at a place called Mars Hill. Not fancy, but EVERYTHING a skier or snowboarder could want. They even have tubing.

I can't see "redistributing" wealth when other methodologies--like siting light/renewable industry up that way--could go a long way towards solving their woes. They need a governor who isn't a nutbag, though.

Of course, if Maw is that rich, then she won't starve.

towns in Maine where another paper mill closed forcing many to lose their jobs? Good for this very generous lottery winner to think of what needs to be done for the town and then doing something about it.

I would imagine, in Maine you need a good roof!