GARDINER — An advisory team from an organization that gave the city $100,000 for community planning met with officials and residents last week to begin plotting the city’s future.

Officials learned in December that the city had been selected for a Orton Family Foundation Heart & Soul $100,000 planning grant. Now, the city has embarked on a two-year community planning process with the help of Heart & Soul staff who will work with project leaders, volunteers and officials to provide tools, training, resources and other technical assistance.

Communication was the focus of a series of meetings the city hosted on Thursday and Friday between residents, the advisory team and key leaders.

John Barstow, spokesman for the foundation, said the Heart & Soul community planning approach begins by asking as many residents as possible what makes their town special, why they want to live here and what makes their community stand out from all the others.

Barstow said all too often citizen engagement gets put on the back burner because of limitations of town budgets and professional expertise.

“That’s what this is about, creating a foundation for community involvement and engagement,” Barstow said.

“It’s a step many places don’t take. But if you take the time to do this, more positive things happen.”

Fran Stoddard, another member of the visiting team, said the site visit was the first since the grant was awarded.

“The specific purpose of this visit is we want to get to know the town,” Stoddard said. “Our main focus was communication, how to reach out to the community so they understand they’re all invited to be part of this and feel welcome.”

Jarita Sadler, assistant community planner for the city, said updating the city’s comprehensive plan is one goal of the planning process.

“We don’t want to do it for the sake of doing it,” Sadler said. “We want residents to take the helm and work together to meet their needs. We want this grant to go hand-in-hand with the comprehensive plan to reflect what Gardiner residents really want.”

She said the next step, which has to be done as soon as possible, is the development of a request for proposal to hire a city planner.

Advisory teams and committees also need to be in place and begin meeting so they can be clear about their roles and responsibilities, she said.

“We need to reach out and give people clarity — what they can be doing. Now’s the time to decide and make commitments,” Sadler said. “People will move in and out of the process, but the structure will be in place so we can move forward and get out into the community. A critical component of that is the planner who will work closely with the Heart and Soul committees.”

She said ways to engage people so their voices can be heard is through school-based events and block parties highlighting different areas of the community.

A public event to officially launch the project will take place within the next two months, she said.

“We haven’t set a date,” Sadler said, “but as we move from laying the groundwork and engaging the community that’s when we’ll be having a much larger, public kickoff.”

Mechele Cooper — 621-5663

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