What do you do with about a hundred bricks from Wiscasset’s old sidewalks? Friends of Wiscasset Village isn’t sure yet, but members floated some ideas at Sarah’s Cafe Friday morning and had optimism for other projects and potential ones they and other entities have eyed for this fall.

Friends facilitator Mary Ellen Barnes said Maine Department of Transportation gave the group the OK to take the bricks. Most are already cleaned for the group, Barnes said. Members discussed whose yard or yards could hold them for now. The bricks might be sold, and possibly engraved, to raise funds, members said. 

Barnes told members some groups hire a business to engrave bricks. Or the group could buy the tool and she might learn it as a new art skill, she said.

Where bricks and roadway once were, the paved and widened sidewalks were “really kind of thrilling,” Carriage House Gardens’ Lucia Droby said about the August Wiscasset Art Walk.

BIRCH’s Brad Sevaldson concurred. It was wonderful seeing participants set up there, he said. “And it was so nice to see people en masse on the sidewalks.”

The town common, uphill from downtown, also drew some members’ praise as the town’s choice for “Scarecrowfest” Oct. 12-19, a new week of activities including businesses’ scarecrow display contest, Haunted Storytime at Wiscasset Public Library, a chili and chowder challenge, and the annual scarecrow festival day, formerly at the town office, with scarecrow-building, music and more, according to a flyer. 

“That is the best news,” Sevaldson said about the choice of the common.

“It’s a nice expansion to the downtown. It just flows up there,” Barnes said. Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce is also taking part, according to the flyer. “If we can pull together and help this be a strong event, that’d be great,” Barnes said.

About 15 Friends members attended. Terry Heller said Garden Club of Wiscasset would like to put hanging baskets downtown. Some members said the light posts won’t be tall enough for baskets and people might bump into them. A Friends committee will look at that and other items to possibly approach the town about, including ordinance work about snow removal responsibilities.

Members continued talking about an orange barrel festival, possibly in November when Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens’ Gardens Aglow is under way. Heller favored emphasizing a harvest theme, because with the state’s downtown project ending, the barrels will be removed, or harvested, she said. Droby said it might also be fun for some barrels to be made into scarecrows for Scarecrowfest.

WACC’s Wiscasset Holiday Marketfest is Dec. 6 to 8, Droby said.

“We’re just going to have non-stop fun here,” Barnes said about upcoming events.