SURRY, Maine — Work songs and sea shanties lifted spirits as volunteers joined to stack cords of firewood for the DownEast Wood Bank, a not-for-profit aiming to assist Maine households struggling with wintertime fuel costs by providing wood free of charge.
But this year, there's a new challenge — a surging demand and an inventory that can’t keep up.
“I hope it doesn’t happen, but I’d anticipate we’ll run out of wood before the winter is over,” Tom Matthews, one of the organizers of the “stack and sing” event, said Saturday.
He said he estimates the organization gave away more wood in the month of November than during the whole of last year at a rate that has forced some difficult decisions.
“We're already having to say come once a month, not come as often as you need to,” Matthews said.
With no shortage of clients—one man loaded a month's supply of wood into his truck as volunteers stacked Saturday morning—the question then goes to “why now?”
Though energy prices remain higher than a decade ago, they’ve dipped considerably from last winter.
According to the governor’s energy office, the price of a cord of wood has remained the same from this November to last. And for other fuels, whose high prices could send Mainers back to their wood stoves, things are even more optimistic. On Nov. 27, the price of heating oil was just under $4 per gallon, with kerosene just under $5 per gallon.
Most notably perhaps, the Maine Public Utilities Commission announced Wednesday that standard-offer rates for electricity will decrease by 35 percent for Central Maine Power customers and 24 percent for Versant customers.
Despite this, the fact remains that Hancock County’s largest wood bank is seeing a surge in interest for free wood — a last resort for households struggling with the cost of energy.
As Matthews stated it plainly: “The requests have grown exponentially.”