Senator Craig Hickman celebrates Community Action Grants awarded to Gardiner, Hallowell, Wayne and Winthrop

Posted: May 15, 2025 | Senator Hickman

The funds awarded will support storm recovery and resilience projects that protect Maine’s cities and towns protect people, businesses and infrastructure.

AUGUSTA — Senator Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, is pleased to announce that Gardiner, Hallowell, Wayne and his hometown of Winthrop in Senate District 14 are recipients of a Community Action Grant award from the Community Resilience Partnership. The partnership is administered by the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future to help Maine communities reduce emissions and prepare for the effects of extreme weather events brought on by climate change.

Details of the individual grants are as follows:

  • Gardiner: $75,000
    • Funding to install heat pumps at the municipal building
  • Hallowell: $74,736
    • Funding for community engagement and design to develop and implement a plan for nature-based stabilization of Hallowell’s Kennebec River shoreline
  • Wayne: $75,000
    • Funding for a climate impact infrastructure and population vulnerability assessment
  • Winthrop: $75,000
    • Funding to install heat pumps at the Fire and Ambulance Station

“Our district is full of water: tidal and non-tidal rivers, streams, lakes and ponds,” said Sen. Hickman. “All of these bodies of water, as well as the homes and infrastructure that surround them, are vulnerable as our weather becomes more and more unpredictable. Our municipalities and their residents will be better prepared and protected because of these grants.”

Funding for the grants came from several sources, including measures passed by the Maine Legislature with Sen. Hickman’s support:

  • The Supplemental Budget passed by the Legislature in 2024 to increase community resilience and preparedness in the wake of the December 2023 and January 2024 storms, which Sen. Hickman signed as President Pro Tempore of the Senate. This budget also incorporated Sen. Hickman’s bill to provide financial relief to local businesses that were impacted by those storms, LD 2191, “An Act to Provide Relief to Small Businesses, Landowners and Logging Contractors Affected by Severe Weather-related Events.”
  • Funds from the biennial budget authorized by the Legislature in 2023
  • A federal grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The grants in District 14 are part of a historic $8 million in funding for Community Resilience Partnership grants announced by Governor Janet Mills on May 1, 2025. This round of funding will support projects in 166 communities across Maine. For a full list of grant awardees, click here.

Sen. Hickman represents District 14, which includes Chelsea, Farmingdale, Gardiner, Hallowell, Manchester, Monmouth, Pittston, Randolph, Readfield, Wayne, West Gardiner and Winthrop in Kennebec County.

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