By Ashley St. Michel
Staff Writer
Great person award recipient Eva Barnfather laughed as she described her life and the reasons why she continues to give back to the community.
    “I’m pushy,” she said. “I don’t see why everyone can’t work as long and as hard as I do. I expect a lot from people and I expect a lot from myself.”
    Barnfather, a Kennebunk resident who is only five years shy of 90 years-old, said her community involvement has been a road she has traveled most her life.
    A Springfield, Mass. native, Barnfather was brought up by her aunt and uncle after her mother died when she was 18-months-old. Barnfather said she was only 4-years-old when the opportunity to live with her aunt and uncle presented itself.
    “Their son got shot in the back at just 17 years-old,” she said. “So I went to live with them in Springfield and I never left. I was their daughter from that day on, and they put me through college. My uncle said to my aunt, ‘She (Barnfather) doesn’t have immediate family and we just lost our son.’ So they took me in.”
    In 1944, at 22-years-old Barnfather graduated college and received her bachelor of arts in education from American International College in Springfield, Mass. Barnfather decided to take a job as an American Airline stewardess on DC3 planes after college.
    “That was a very glamorous lifestyle,” she said. “But people were still anxious of getting on a plane.”
    Barnfather didn’t stay in the business long. While based in Fort Worth, Texas, she said she witnessed segregation and described the conditions as “disgusting.” She said it was then she decided to go back to Springfield in 1946, back with her family and her boyfriend, Charles, who grew up across the street from her.
    After she became a service representative at American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and a personnel associate for American Bosch, Barnfather married long-time boyfriend Charles, and after seven years of marriage had their first child. Four years later, their second followed.
    Barnfather said her aunt came to live with her in the late 1960s, following the death of her uncle.
    “One day my aunt asked me ‘why don’t you become a teacher,’” she said. “Because that’s what I always wanted to do.”
    Since Barnfather already had a bachelors degree in education she decided to pursue her career, and in 1965 she became a full time teacher of social studies and geography at Cowing Junior High School in West Springfield, Mass.
    It was there Barnfather began the school’s first human sexuality educational class. The class was for seventh and eighth graders and focused on feelings rather than science.
    “There were some people who were not happy about what we were doing,” she said. “We didn’t get into all the science stuff about it, instead we concentrated on how the students felt and what they were going through.”
    Faculty members were impressed by Barnfathers ability to educate the students and she was named the social studies department chairperson.
    While on her 11-year tenure as a teacher, Barnfather took three busloads of students to New York City after she discovered most of them didn’t know where the city was located on a map. On two separate occasions she took students to the basketball hall of fame in Toronto and another group to an automobile factory in Detroit, Mich.
    “They were all such great students,” she said. “I still stop and talk with them if I see them.”
    In 1977 West Springfield Junior High School incorporated a program titled Work Opportunity Center, Inc., a vocational program that works with the developmentally disabled. Barnfather said the program, which she was executive director of, only lasted a few years in the school, coming to an end in 1980.
 But Barnfather said she wanted to continue working with students who needed more assistance and after the program was dropped she moved on to become the in house suspension teacher at West Springfield High School.
  “In house suspension was a new thing in schools then,” she said. “I was really able to make it all mine. I told the principal when I became the director of in house suspension that it wasn’t going to be like being in jail if I was going to be running it.”
  Barnfather said she worked endlessly to find those students who thought they could skip out on their suspension time. She got the students working in the classroom so she could search the hallways and classrooms for students  trying to skip out of in house.
  “The kids were so wonderful,” she said. “They just needed love and attention. Some of them started complaining because I would leave to go search for other students.”
  After five years working with students on their homework and helping them get interested in school again Barnfather accepted the position of vice principal, which she said was partly due to her in house position.
  “I became the first female vice principal at West Springfield High School,” she said. “My position as suspension director got me that vice principal job.”
  Barnfather said her discipline and love for the students, even in suspension, helped her succeed in becoming the vice principal. She added her fairness among the students also helped her succeed as an educator.
“With right and wrong, there aren’t very many gray areas for me,” she said. “I was fair. I was just as tough on the ‘A’ students as I was the ‘B’ students.”
    In her eight years as vice principal, Barnfather founded a group called the Breakfast ‘T’ Club, which encouraged students to discuss school issues. The group, which tallied more than 500 students at times, met weekly to discuss school concerns. Teachers also attended the group the first few weeks, but the number of teachers began diminishing Barnfather said, leaving her to think the teachers couldn’t handle criticism from their students.
   In 1993 Barnfather said she decided to retire. Before she left the West Springfield School system she was asked to continue directing the breakfast group, an offer Barnfather turned down.
    “Charles and I had summered in Maine for a few years,” she said. “So we began thinking about moving up here permanently.”
    In 1995, the couple moved into their River’s Edge Drive home for good.
    Barnfather said she found her second calling in 1999 when she read an article about a local soup kitchen. She said she heard about a new group called the Harvest Café group in Kennebunk and decided to attend a meeting.
    “I attended a meeting and the next thing I knew I was chairman of Project Harvest Café,” she said.
    Harvest Café is a sub-group under Community Harvest, a non-profit organization that addresses the needs of local people through a variety of projects. Community Harvest began in 1999 with a handful of volunteers who had the desire to reach out and assist people. Harvest Café, also called Project Harvest, addresses food needs in the community. Harvest Café hosts a dinner on the third Thursday of each month at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Kennebunk.
    “I have remained good friends with all the people at that church,” she said. “Everything they have done for us has been free of charge.”
    A typical day working the monthly Harvest Café dinner for Barnfather consists of rising early to be on road to Wells at 7 a.m. for free bread and desserts from Hannaford. The grocery company donates the food every month for the program. Barnfather arrives at Holy Cross Lutheran Church at 9 a.m., where she and her volunteer staff of 12 or 13 people begin cooking the meal and preparing the food, which is served at 5:30 p.m.
    “I just love all the kids who have continued to volunteer,” she said. “There are so many wonderful kids in the world. We have fun and we work hard at the same time.”
    The program is well attended, according to Barnfather, who added more than 60 people attend Harvest Café on a regular basis. She said 95 people were counted at one event, and more than 20 people attended the very first Harvest Café Community Harvest.
    “There are people who are so generous in their donations,” she said. “And some of those people come every month.”
    Although she said she has a good group of volunteers currently, Barnfather said there is still a volunteer position that needs to be filled. Anyone interested in volunteering for the position can call Community Harvest at 967-1911.
    As for being named this year’s Great Person, Barnfather said she has her family to thank.
    “I have a lot of energy and a wonderful family,” she said. “I have always included my family in everything I do. We all help each other. And that’s why I have stayed in volunteering, to continue helping the community as well.”    
To contact Ashley St. Michel, call 282-4337 ext. 228 or email news@kennebunkpost.com.