Volunteers came out to build a yurt Saturday on the playground at the Woodstock School. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

WOODSTOCK — “It’s like a barn raising,” said Woodstock School Principal Beth Clarke, of the dozen or so volunteers who stood inside a yurt holding the sticks of the rafter as they were secured to the dome.

At 8 a.m. Saturday, volunteers turned out to help erect the 25-foot diameter yurt on the playground, about 40 feet from the school’s entrance on Rumford Avenue.

“I think we needed all the people here to get this done, stretching it out, fixing all the little strings,” said parent Sarah LaPointe, who has two children, Gunner a kindergartener at Woodstock, and a pre-school child, who will eventually attend the school. LaPointe said she came to help and to be part of the community. “I love the school, that they incorporate outdoor learning … they go hiking for gym,” she said.

Carpenter and Woodstock School father, Nick Smith, and Brooks Morton, of Newry, had been the school a few weeks earlier, arriving before 8 a.m. in 18-degree temperatures to build the base. The yurt had been donated to the school, but the footings needed to be placed and the wood for the platform, too.

“I just showed up .. I’ve never done it before,” said Morton.

Carl Plassmann, of Woodstock, who volunteers with the Woodstock Conservation Commission, answered the call, too, backing his truck up to the playground and getting right to work.

Clarke had asked for help, “Good morning! We are looking for help building a deck and stairs for a 25-foot yurt that is being donated to our lovely little school,” she had written on Facebook.

Alexander Januszewski, left, Steve Leen, both of Bethel, and Wayne Keith, of Greenwood work to erect the 56-stick yurt Saturday at the Woodstock School. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

‘Barn raising’

At 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Malaki Hanna left Woodstock with his father, Adam and older brother Corbin to drive to Freeport.

“[We drove] to pick up six sticks … [then] they kept falling out in the middle of the road,” said Malaki, who said he was “keeping his distance” from the yurt, since there had been two injuries so far. “Brooks has his eye bleeding,” he said.

Indeed, the yurt project had not been all smooth sailing. Morton had a stick fall from the rafter and land near his eye. “I took a hit for the team,” he said. A few weeks earlier, Clarke suffered an arm fracture when they were loading the yurt to transport it from Milton Township .

Malaki’s brother Corbin, nearly 12, stood closer to the yurt. He said he was the one who had to pick up the sticks that fell out of the truck on their ride from Freeport.

Corbin said while Malaki and another brother both go to the Woodstock School, he attends The Eddy School in Newry. He said soon they will be studying architecture at school. Looking toward the yurt, he observed, “[It’s] crazy how one stick could break and then all of it could lose it’s balance and all fall.”

He said he would like to learn how to build homes someday and added that his brother Ed, a Woodstock kindergartener, builds teepees and will love seeing the new yurt.

Mary Tomassetti of Milton Township donated the yurt and volunteered her time at the Woodstock School. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

Donor

Mary Tomassetti of Milton Township was on a ladder on Saturday, securing sticks on the yurt. She said before she donated the yurt, it had been owned by a West Paris woman who bought the skin but made the rafters and walls, cutting the trees from her property. She marveled as she retold the story of how the woman had cut the 25-foot perfect circle for the floor with a chain saw.

Tomassetti who had owned the yurt for a year, had never assembled it. “My intention with the property was to be mindful of what the land wanted,” she said.  After considering and rejecting several locations on her land, she gave up. By chance, she was buying eggs from Woodstock teacher, Andrea Howe, when Howe mentioned that Principal Clarke was looking for a yurt.

“As soon as I thought about kids being in it. I thought, no wonder it didn’t work at my house. I am just the conduit. It wasn’t meant to be mine,” said Tomassetti.

Handyman and Wildland Firefighter, Alexander Januszewski, of Bethel, spent much of the morning at the top of the ladder by the dome “As you can see it’s tilted right now, we have to go back and readjust, but we’re waiting for bolts,” he said.

Someone had gone home to get scaffolding, too, so Januszewski, could more easily and safely screw the beams into the ring at the top.

Clarke said, over the last two weeks, small groups of fourth and fifth graders had been out to the playground and under the guidance of Morton, helped build the deck. “To have someone like Brooks mentor them means so much. The power of the relationships that our kids have with adults in the community, like Jane Chandler and Wayne Keith, too. It opens a new world for them.”

Clarke said Bethel’s Congo Craftsmen will be designing furniture for inside the yurt. A grant funded 50 portable folding chairs, too.

She said two of her teachers are attending The Ecology School in Saco for an outdoor learning conference. They will be bringing back ideas. For now they will use the yurt for read-alouds, to teach a class, or “it could be for anything,”  said Clarke.