enlarge
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
enlarge
Gregory Rec/Staff PhotographerNEWFIELD — They don't have time to wait for the federal stimulus package to trickle its way into their tiny town on the western Maine border. So this afternoon they'll try to put together one of their own.
"When that store closes – if it closes – there will be no more cohesiveness in this town," local resident Joe Cause said Friday. "Where am I going to get my newspaper? What's left?"
He's talking about the West Newfield General Store, also known as West Newfield's only store. And while owner Tina Crowley-Colwell prepares to close it down this week after months of hanging by a financial thread, there's one last ray of hope.
From 3 to 7 p.m. today at the Old Town Hall, members of this community will donate whatever they can – items for a raffle, food, their time and even their hard-earned money – to try to keep their store afloat.
It's enough to make the owner cry – and yes, she's been doing her share of that lately.
"I'm beside myself that people care this much," she said, blinking back the tears as her morning regulars came and went. "It's very touching and ... I don't know ... I can't really explain it."
It's actually quite simple.
As far back as the late 1800s, one store or another has operated at the intersection of Wakefield, Garland and Maplewood roads in this village just 3 miles from the New Hampshire border.
The current West Newfield General Store, where you can eat breakfast, buy groceries, pick up a new sweat shirt or hand-knit scarf and even tag a freshly shot deer or moose, goes all the way back to 1954.
The store's cluttered bulletin board, a collage of business cards and fliers promoting everything from landscaping and wood cutting to hairdressing and butchering, is the nerve center of the local economy.
The small dining area is more than just a place to grab a hot meal – it's where you find out who just had a baby, who broke a leg and, these days, who was the latest to get laid off.
In short, the general store is the heart and soul of West Newfield. And when it goes, its loyal customers fear, so will go their sense of community.
Crowley-Colwell moved here from Massachusetts just over eight years ago to be with her mother, who lived in nearby Shapleigh.
The first thing she did was get a job at the general store – and not just to support herself.
"I came to work here to get to know people," she said.
She loved it so much that when the owners decided to sell the business and retire in 2001, Tina took a deep breath, printed out her business plan and headed for the Sanford Institution for Savings to buy the place.
She married Paul Colwell, whom she met after moving here. They have two kids, 3 and 13, and Paul, like so many Mainers these days, is looking for work after being laid off from a chimney cleaning company.
Before long, people in this town of 1,300 came to know Crowley-Colwell as someone you could count on in a pinch.
If you needed milk but weren't getting paid until Friday, she'd say, "It's OK, pay me then."
If your kid was sick and needed cold medicine late at night, you could call her at home and she'd come down and open the store – saving you an hour-long round trip to Sanford.
If you bagged a deer on Thanksgiving Day, she'd drop what she was doing at home and drive down to tag it.
"If people need me, I'm there for them," she said. "And they know that."
She never made a lot of money – many a week she's gone without a paycheck. But last summer, when gas prices shot skyward and the summer folks stopped driving up from Massachusetts, Crowley-Colwell started getting nervous and went to the bank to see if she could establish some kind of financial cushion.
"They told me just to sit tight and see what happens," she said.
Right. Last fall, when...
Reader comments
Click here to view or add comments on this story
Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form