FARMINGTON — One year has passed since the first 350.org gathering to spark community awareness about the high cost of energy and the need to make resources available to those in need.

This year’s hosts, the Sustainable Campus Coalition at the University of Maine at Farmington, highlighted the problems of reducing carbon emissions while staying warm, especially in this region plagued by high unemployment and low incomes.

Participants included UMF student Pam Green, who is part of a group working to retrofit a campus building; Nancy Teel, the Western Maine Community Action program’s volunteer coordinator for weatherization projects; and the Rev. Susan Crane, pastor of Henderson Memorial Church, coordinator of the ECU-Heat ecumenical emergency heating fund.

Teel coordinates the Community Energy Challenge, a project of the United Way of the Tri-Valley Area. Last year, the group made custom-fit panels that sealed older leaky windows.

“We are having a free workshop at the foothills maintenance building on Route 27 on Oct. 16,” she said. “People can see what we’ve done by going to the United Way website (www.uwtva.org) under the volunteers section.”

Mt. Blue Community Access TV has also uploaded the video of the window workshop.

Del Downes, an energy auditor for the community action program, explained the levels of involvement and range of services the agency offers low-income residents in western Maine.

Many low-income senior citizens can’t do the work themselves, but the CAP agency can schedule an audit and arrange for one of their three contractors to button up a home. Many clients live in older homes that are poorly insulated and in need of repairs. They may have heated with wood that was easily and cheaply available. Many families were employed in a thriving logging industry or had neighbors who supplied firewood.

“They could get the wood in when they were younger or had family to help them, but maybe now they have to rely on an oil furnace in that poorly insulated house, and it’s costing a lot more money than it should,” Downes said.

“The economic challenges can be unbelievable.”

One elderly lady, he said, had auditors find the leaks in her home, and after they were sealed, she was overcome with the difference in her heating

“I’ve spent the first winter in my life warm,” she said.

Franklin County’s Ecu-Heat Fund has launched its second Community Heating Challenge. The group’s goal is to get $7,5000 in donations from churches, civic organizations, businesses and individuals to fund fuel assistance.

Those wanting to volunteer or needing help with heating their homes this winter should contact Western Maine Community Action at 645-3764 or 1-800-645-9636. Another option is dialing 2-1-1 to connect to a toll-free statewide hotline, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services.