Toby’s Dream has come true.
Toby “Stuart” Pennels, the late financial adviser, Iraq War veteran and Windham Veterans Association president, had hoped to pave the Windham Veterans Center’s bumpy dirt access road and parking lot behind the Windham Mall in order to increase hall rental income and help the veterans organization keep up with its bills.
Upon assuming the association’s presidency in summer 2012, Pennels established a paving account for the project. But Pennels, 55, died last September after suffering severe injuries from a motorcycle accident near Rangeley.
This year, the “Toby’s Dream” campaign, a fundraiser championed by former association president Don Swander, grew the paving account Pennels started from $4,000 to more than $60,000. Last week, the campaign came to fruition, as workers from Dayton Sand & Gravel and R.J. Grondin & Sons paved the access road and parking lot. The workers were scheduled to stripe the new pavement on Friday, Oct. 2, weather permitting. Ninety parking spaces are planned.
Swander said he was “terribly excited” that the project had come full circle.
“They won’t be turning away weddings any more because they’re afraid of the bride being afraid it would rain that day and she’d have everybody walking through the mud to get to the hall,” Swander said. “That was a thing that actually happened many, many times. We lost a lot of weddings because of that.”
Pennels’ wife, Brenda, said the project would never have happened without Swander, and encouraged Lakes Region residents to take advantage of the veterans center and its new environs.
“I am so pleased that the Toby’s Dream project is complete,” Pennels said. “It was a great community effort and the paved driveway and parking lot will enhance the ability of the veterans (association) to generate revenue and be self-supporting. I encourage everyone to consider using the veterans center for their next event.”
Dick Small, who became president of the veterans association after Pennels died, said he will ask several volunteers to promote the veterans center and its newly paved access road and parking lot. Since rentals generally slacken in the winter, Small said, it won’t be clear whether the paving has generated increased levels of revenue until next summer.
“It improves the looks considerably,” Small said. “Of course spring and fall, the parking lot was nothing but mud. I think that’s really going to help rentals there. The people that come in and look at the parking lot – that will change their mind right quick.”
Swander, the association’s president from 2005 to 2012, said he had his fingers crossed that the paving project will eventually generate new revenue.
“I sure hope so,” Swander said. “That’s the plan.”
Swander said the public will be invited to an event yet to be scheduled to mark the completion of the campaign.
Kurt Campbell, right, and other employees of Dayton Sand & Gravel pave the parking lot at the Windham Veterans Center in North Windham Friday. The project is the culmination of Toby’s Dream, a fundraising campaign commemorating Toby Pennels, a former Windham Veterans Association president who died as a result of a motorcycle crash a year ago. Staff photo by Ezra Silk
Zach Hamlin, an employee of Dayton Sand & Gravel, paves the parking lot at the Windham Veterans Center.
With a Toby’s Dream sign in the foreground, workers from Dayton Sand & Gravel pave the parking lot and entrance road to the Windham Veterans Center on Friday. Staff photo by Ezra Silk
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