Founding Stories: John Paynter, An Original Board Member And Long-Lasting Supporter
The campaign to raise funding for our River Bend Farm project brings forth the opportunity for special people to be honored by family and friends through gifts in their name. Founding Stories is a series that spotlights the heartfelt stories of people and businesses whose life’s mission or business promise is to preserve our natural resources and promote conservation through educational programming. In several instances, our supporters have been inspired to raise funds from friends and family in honor of someone they hold dear. We look forward to this opportunity to share the intimate and inspired purpose of many gifts with our community!
““The littlest thing—going to The Ecology School for a week—can change a life. It’s so important. That’s why I’m so dedicated to the school.””
As a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, John Paynter spent five summers attending a nature camp in Massachusetts, called Wildwood. His experiences there inspired him to get involved in a nature center in his hometown in Connecticut and, as an adult, led him to attend nature conferences at the Ferry Beach Park Association in Saco. His ongoing interest in nature led him to become a passionate supporter of The Ecology School — a commitment he traces back to those summers at nature camp.
“It was Wildwood that shaped my whole interest in the environment and nature,” he says.
John Paynter (pictured far left) with U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree and The Ecology School’s CEO & President, Drew Dumsch, at River Bend Farm’s Groundbreaking Ceremony in July 2019.
John learned of The Ecology School when Drew and the other founders were just starting to get it off the ground in the late 1990s. They were friendly with John from his summers spent attending nature conferences in Saco, and reached out asking if he would consider offering the school a loan to help get it started. John agreed. “That loan was paid off ahead of time,” he recalls. “That’s how great the start was for the school.”
Beyond this loan, John became more deeply involved with the budding school by joining the original board and staying on for six years. At the end of his second term, he continued fostering his relationship with the school by volunteering his time and skills as a carpenter, building structures around the campus like a shed for the garden.
Later on, he began asking friends and family not to buy him gifts during the holidays but to donate to The Ecology School instead. “I felt it was more important to help the school than to buy each other a bunch of presents,” he says.
This tradition inspired several of his family members to broaden their commitment to the school. John’s niece, Abigail Coit, is now a current Board Member, and Abigail’s father, Steve Humphrey, decided to distribute a substantial donation of $250,000 from the Daniel E. Offutt, III Charitable Trust to help build the dining facility at River Bend Farm.
John’s commitment to and passion for the school continues to grow at River Bend Farm. He’s especially excited for the opportunity the new location presents to offer more forest, river, and sustainable farming programming, and the opportunity it presents to educate youth and the public about sustainable building design. “We’re showing and teaching young people how humans impact the environment,” he says, “and what we can do long-term to preserve the environment.”
He feels that the more students who receive these messages, the better. “It’s all about education,” he says. “We just don’t know who is going to be our leadership in the future, so we need to be reaching out across the board.”
And just as Wildwood left him with a lifelong love of the natural world, The Ecology School has the potential to do the same for the students who spend time there.
“The littlest thing — going to The Ecology School for a week — can change a life,” he says. “It’s so important. That’s why I’m so dedicated to the school.”
If you would like to learn more about the Capital Campaign and naming opportunities at River Bend Farm, please contact Development Director, Bryan Matluk at (207) 283-9951 or bryan@theecologyschool.org.