All hands are on deck, cleaning and renovating Bromfield House to accommodate two Afghan families for at least a year. After securing the property in late June, the Harvard Neighborhood Support Team and many other community members have pitched in to prepare the house for a mid-August move-in.
Their efforts follow a months-long delay in the probate court’s approval of the Select Board’s petition to allow this use of Bromfield House. Team leader Terry Symula admitted that “things always take longer than you hope,” but “everyone’s been very supportive, and every day there’s something to do.”
The group first focused its work on the greatest necessity: a working shower. The Sustainable Property Group—Symula’s son’s company—gutted the upstairs bathroom, preparing it for the installation of a new shower, toilet, and sink. The group will also install an additional oven in the kitchen so each family has its own.
Elsewhere in the house, Harvard resident Michelle Riley is applying her interior design background, spearheading efforts to paint and update much of the interior of the house. The Harvard Lions Club is contributing to efforts as well, installing kitchen cabinets, light fixtures, and a new tile floor last Saturday. They will continue to repaint ceilings this week using supplies donated by Berlin’s National Lumber, and will step in to fix anything else they notice, according to Lions member Bill Johnson. The Garden Club also leapt into the action this week, cleaning the property’s garden areas. Meanwhile, community members—from Harvard residents previously uninvolved in the team’s efforts to a Bromfield alum living in New Hampshire—stop by to paint doors and touch up walls.
Funds from the team’s previous fundraising efforts have supported the remodeling work thus far. State Sen. Jamie Eldridge also secured a $100,000 earmark in the Senate economic development bill to support further renovations. “I have been so proud of the work by the Harvard Neighborhood Support Team (NST) to support and house several Afghan refugee families,” he wrote in a Facebook post announcing the earmark. The bill is currently stalled in the Legislature, which failed to pass it in the regular session; but if approved, the funds will support additional renovations like installing a second shower downstairs.
Symula expressed her gratitude for the support of Eldridge and Harvard as a whole: “It’s been heartwarming.” The eldest daughter of one of the families echoed Symula’s gratitude and excitement—“We can walk to school from the Bromfield House!” she said.
In their efforts to welcome the Afghan families more permanently as their new neighbors, Harvard residents bump into old neighbors as well, strengthening their own sense of community as they come together with enthusiasm and commitment to help out in any way they can.
