SKOWHEGAN —A National Guard unit from Maine has been hard at work making improvements at Lake George Regional Park for the third year in a row.

Through the National Guard’s Innovation Readiness Training Program, a platoon of 21 from the Sanford-based 262nd Engineer Construction Company spent the first two weeks of the month working on the social hall in the park’s west side, a facility that park leadership hopes will draw more people to the park year-round.

The IRT program identifies projects that both benefit communities and provide opportunities for its members to train on certain skills, said 1st Lt. Anthony Kilgallon, who was overseeing this year’s work at Lake George.

“It needs to align with what we want to train our soldiers on,” Kilgallon said during a tour of the work site Tuesday. “And this one is a very good fit.”

Upgrades that were priorities this time around included ceiling insulation, drywall, siding and a new entrance, Kilgallon said. Guardsmen on site included carpenters, electricians and plumbers, he said.

The social hall project is part of a slate of ongoing improvements at Lake George, a 320-acre park off U.S. Route 2 in Skowhegan and Canaan that is leased to the two towns and operated by the nonprofit Lake George Corp. The state bought the park — once the home of Camp Modin, one of the oldest Jewish summer camps in the country — in 1992.

Park Director Darryll White said the improvements are aimed at accomplishing several goals.

For most of the year, White envisions the social hall being used as an outdoor recreation center for programming organized by other local groups or just to provide an indoor gathering space.

“I especially see the opportunity to build winter use of the park, which has been a goal for us,” White said. “This, culturally, has been a summer destination.”

White said the building will also be used as a venue for events in hopes of bringing in much-needed revenue. Entrance fees alone don’t provide sufficient funding; the park relies on various fundraising efforts to break even each year.

“The idea being, you know, we’ve got these potential jewels, let’s find a way to monetize those and put the park in a position to be more self-sufficient,” White said. “My modest goal is to generate enough revenue … that we at least break even. Optimistic goal would be to actually put some money in the tank that would pay for maintenance and for programming, potentially.”

In recent years, the approximately 3,000-square-foot social hall fell into rough condition, with an end-to-end crack in the floor that made White deem the building unsafe.

In 2023, the first year partnering with the park, the National Guard unit fixed the floor, White said.

Last year, with more than 100 soldiers onsite, work also included the construction of a new access road and improvements to cabins also on the west side of the park.

The work has been funded by a $500,000 matching grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund awarded in 2021, White said. The park has provided the materials and engineering; the National Guard has provided the labor.

After the park received the grant, several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, made its initial budget for the overall project obsolete, White said.

Around that time, the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, which had been renting space at Lake George while it constructed a new trails center in Skowhegan, connected White with the National Guard program, he said. The savings in labor costs meant Lake George did not have to do any more significant fundraising for the project, White said.

Each year he has had to apply again for the crew to return to the park. This year, it was initially looking like they could not help, but plans fortunately changed, White said.

White said both the park and the National Guard share the common goal of working to benefit the community.

“There’s just a natural bond there,” he said. “I can see working with them in perpetuity. There are so many things to do here.”

The Guard’s Kilgallon said working with Lake George staff has been easy. It was rewarding, too, he said, that this year he and his platoon slept in the same cabins they renovated last year.

“It’s really the best time of year when you’re in the Guard … getting out here for two weeks to work on a project together,” Kilgallon said. “You have a lot more time to connect with each other.”