LEWISTON — Arthur Pleau gathered the Trinity Jubilee Center staff together this month for an important lesson: how to use the newly donated snowblower.

The retired military veteran has luckily had a few weeks of wiggle room without snowstorms to make sure the staff is up to speed. He said the key is learning how to start it.

“I do believe I got my message across,” he said. “As far as starting it, I think after the first couple of tries it’ll fall into place.”

Since finding Trinity, Pleau has become one of the organization’s most reliable volunteers, lovingly known as the center’s volunteer handyman.

While Pleau is technically retired, you’d never know it. He works part time for Roopers in Lewiston and spends the rest of his free time at Trinity, taking care of odd jobs like mowing and building maintenance. He built coat racks last month and last week fixed a sink. Before receiving the snowblower this year, he’d show up and help them shovel during storms.

“When they need something fixed or built they usually call me,” he said.

Pleau, a Lewiston native, spent several years in the Army in the 1970s. He thought about making a career out of it, but ultimately decided against it, and moved back to Lewiston. Here he found a job manufacturing electric water heater timers and baseboard heaters at the Continental Mill.

He’s also more than Mr. Fix-it. He’s donated bicycles for kids, and gives clients rides to job interviews or appointments. He’s formed connections with two disabled veterans who have frequented the Jubilee Center. He said he keeps an eye on them, or runs errands for them.

Erin Reed, executive director of the center, said Pleau “has been a godsend.”

“He saw how much we have going on and he stepped up,” she said. “Our clients may be hungry and homeless but we still want to give them a space that is warm and welcoming. Arthur makes that possible.”

Reed said with how busy the center has become, there’s no way she could mow the lawn or complete other maintenance tasks without being pulled away by people in need of “help with a job application or a pair of socks or diapers for their baby.”

“It would take me all day!” she said. “These seem like little things but they make a big difference.”

She said when the new snowblower was donated, Pleau “came right over to help unload it, make sure it worked, and show us how to use it. Volunteers come and go, but Arthur has been so reliable.”

The jubilee center, which has been in the basement of Trinity Episcopal Church since 1991, announced last week that it is in the process of securing a new home. The aging church building has limited the center’s ability to grow its programs that serve more than 1,000 people a week, and a previous plan to renovate and expand there fell through.

Still, Pleau knows it’ll be awhile before the new location is built, and there will be plenty of work in the meantime.

“They’re going to need the help,” he said.

While Pleau lives in New Auburn, the house he lives in is being sold, so he’ll be moving sometime next year. He said it’s another reason he’s continued to work part time.

At 64, he said he sees himself working and volunteering “until I can’t anymore.”

“Especially with the economy the way it is,” he said.

Know someone with a deep well of unlimited public spirit? Someone who gives of their time to make their community a better place? Then nominate them for Kudos. Send their name and the place where they do their good deeds to reporter Andrew Rice at arice@sunjournal.com and we’ll do the rest.

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