Greater Gardiner Community Council

Our mission is to unite the diverse and passionate civic interests of the Gardiner community to forward infrastructure projects, amenities, forums, and programs to enhance the quality of life for residents.

While we work on a diversity of projects in the Greater Gardiner area, we are currently focused on keeping the Gardiner Community Center standing and restoring it to its former glory. Built in 1910 as the Gardiner Opera House, the Community Center now serves as Gardiner's largest gathering space outside of the school, and it needs our help to continue being a functional and treasured meeting place.

We took over ownership of this historic building in January 2015. In May 2021, we received a time-limited $500,000 historic preservation grant to focus on stabilizing the structure and replacing the roof to preserve the building for the next century. We closed the building in January of this year, and we have finished demolition of the interior and are starting to reinforce the exterior walls. We hope to raise another $500,000 to completely finish the project and open the building to the community as soon as possible.

We have already directed over $310,000 towards updating the building and have raised approximately $1,100,000 for this phase of construction. While this is not insignificant, now is the time to stabilize and upgrade this important building. Gifts of every size have an impact.