A Community Heart

A Community Heart

by

Jayse Bickel

(age 12)

On April 3, 2020, Greg Grotton, chariman of the board of selectmen in Union, Maine, accepted a community project to install a giant lighted heart to thank the essential workers. 

Greg said that the heart was really a community effort, because the land is owned by Brian Powers, Dan Beasly loaned him a generator, and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the owner of Four Corner Variety Store, rented a truck for him. 

Greg got the idea when his daughter, Kimberly Wickenden, who teaches Camden Rockport elementary school gave her students an at-home assignment to draw a poster to thank the essential workers. Greg said the parents sent pictures of the thank-you posters to his daughter. He then was inspired to build a 25 ft. x 35 ft. heart out of wood and Christmas lights by the blueberry fields of Clarry Hill Rd. , where he has displayed a lighted star at Christmas time for the last three years.   

Greg said that he asked his daughter, Kimberly, to invite her students and their parents to come to the Union Methodist Church in Union for a surprise party, where he told the families about the heart. "The kids loved it," Greg said.

(Assignment for Lesson # 18 - Journalism)

If you are between the ages of 4-12,

(or know someone who likes to write stories)

I would like to post your story here.

Send me an email. I'd love to read your story!

Signed,

Wiggles the Polliwog