Hope Garden at Hospice Volunteers of Somerset County in Skowhegan in 2023. Photo courtesy of Hospice Volunteers

SKOWHEGAN — Those already gearing up to decorate for the holiday season can also support a local organization this weekend.

Central Maine Wreath is donating 25% of its sales on Saturday to Skowhegan-based Hospice Volunteers of Somerset County. Festivities that day will also include hayrides from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., prizes, hot chocolate and other goodies, said Tom McCarthy, who owns the business at 228 North Ave.

The fundraiser will go from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., he said.

“We probably have the largest selection of bows and decorations in Maine, or one of the largest in Maine, where you can walk in and get what you want,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy, who has been in the wreath business for 45 years, said he approached a group of local residents working to raise money for Hospice Volunteers, offering to donate a portion of the sales.

“We were all over it,” said Lynda Quinn, a Hospice Volunteers board member who organized the fundraiser along with former Skowhegan town manager Pat Dickey and other volunteers.

McCarthy said in an interview this week that he had personally donated to Hospice Volunteers in the past, but he was motivated to do something more after the nonprofit’s former director left it in a precarious financial situation by embezzling thousands.

Jason Gayne, who was executive director of the Hospice Volunteers from 2014 to 2022 and executive director of the Skowhegan Regional Chamber of Commerce from 2016 to 2022, stole more than $200,000 from the two organizations, prosecutors said.

Gayne entered a plea agreement in January in which he technically maintained his innocence through what is known as an Alford plea.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison, with all but nine months suspended, which he served this year, and four years of probation. Gayne was also ordered to pay $70,000 in restitution to the two organizations, $50,000 of which he paid at the time of the agreement; 40% of the total restitution was ordered to be paid to the Hospice Volunteers.

Hospice board members were hesitant to talk about the full impact of the embezzlement earlier this year, though federal tax filings suggested some financial challenges. Quinn, who has been on the board for about two years, acknowledged Thursday what happened affected the nonprofit.

“It upended us. There’s no doubt about it — it slowed us down for a little bit,” Quinn said. “And hearts were broken. I will say that right out, hearts were broken. But to turn it around and know that we’re still standing and we’re still alive and we’re still supplying services and things for the people that need us, that makes me very proud.”

Quinn, chair of the Maine School Administrative District 54 board of directors and a former Skowhegan selectwoman and Somerset County commissioner, said her family has benefited directly from the services the organization provides.

“I know what an important organization that is and why it needs to be supported,” Quinn said, “especially in a small town like Skowhegan.”