Let's Help Ike Rebuild — The Hubbard Rake Co.

In the early hours of June 29th, fire took The Hubbard Rake Co. — Ike's shop on Mason Bay Road in Jonesport, Maine.

By daylight, with pockets of flame still burning and smoke billowing over Mason Bay Road, 38 years of Ike's work stood in ashes. The machines he'd modified and refined over decades to create work no catalog machine could. The tools. His welding stations. The aluminum stock, and the finished rakes and components ready to ship for this season's harvest.

Ike is safe. The shop is gone. Unfortunately, there was no insurance coverage for the shop loss, which means rebuilding will have to happen piece by piece, with help.

If you've seen a hand raker in Downeast Maine and beyond — or used one yourself — there's a good chance you've held Ike's work in your hands. The Hubbard Rake Co. makes aluminum blueberry rakes and harvesting tools, the equipment at the center of Maine's wild blueberry harvest and heritage — and it's one of the last shops of its kind anywhere. Ike's designs reach well past the barrens, too: seed bed rollers, hoop house frames, small hand rakes for herbal plants — tools built to solve real problems for the people who grow things.

This isn't a factory. It's Ike and a team of three who weld, drill, bend, build, ship, and deliver rakes and tools to customers across the country — and who run the office, the accounts, and the business side of the operation. Their livelihoods burned with the shop.

And the timing couldn't be harder. Nearly $8,000 in orders sat finished and ready to ship for the harvest season and beyond. Rakers across the region depend on Ike's rakes — and on their repairs, with a shop door that's always been open.

Ike wants to rebuild. We want to help him do it.

Where Your Money Goes

Our first goal is to stabilize the immediate situation and create a clear rebuilding path.

Phase 1 funds will help cover emergency wage support, cleanup, salvage, equipment assessment, and immediate fire-related losses, including destroyed orders, materials, and production stock.

Phase 1 also supports the planning work needed to price and prepare the rebuild, including sourcing machines, tools, replacement stock, a prefab metal shop building, permitting, and construction planning.

Some Phase 1 costs are still being confirmed because Ike and Deb are actively taking stock, getting quotes, and determining what can be salvaged.

If Phase 1 costs come in lower than expected, remaining funds will be applied to the next stated phases of rebuilding needs.

Phase 2 — Rebuild the shop (costs being determined): A new building on the same ground — concrete slab, prefab metal structure, electrical, heating and cooling, and everything needed to make it a working shop again. As well as a replacement delivery truck.

Phase 3 — Tools and machines (roughly $35,000–$40,000, estimated): Replacing the core equipment. The preliminary list, while Ike and Deb are still taking stock: a welding machine and water-cooled welding system, a Bridgeport milling machine, two cutoff machines and blades, two drill presses, a set of rolls for rolling material, a radial arm saw and blades, work tables, the everyday hand tools — hammers, wrenches, and the rest — and aluminum stock and sheet metal in a range of sizes to get production running again.

Our first goal of $25,000 covers Phase 1.

As quotes come in, we'll update the numbers here — and post every milestone along the way, so you can watch the shop come back piece by piece.

Who's Behind This

We're Deb Salisbury and Brody Hartman. Deb has worked alongside Ike for 25+ years — first on the raking crew for various blueberry fields Ike harvested, and now as his treasurer, running the accounts and working with customers to keep the business side moving. Brody is a documentary photographer whose in-laws’ blueberry fields were managed by Ike for over 25 years on land in Jonesport, where Brody now lives with his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. Over the past six months, Brody has been documenting Ike and his work, which is why these photographs show both Hubbard Rake Co. as it was and what the fire left behind.

Ike has authorized this fundraiser, and all funds go to The Hubbard Rake Co. directly.

Other Ways to Help

Can't give right now? Share this page. Tell a raker, a farmer, a neighbor, anyone who knows what a Hubbard rake means up here. If you have a lead on used equipment from the list above, we'd love to hear from you — reach out through the contact on this page.

Thank you — from Ike, and from all of us in Jonesport who know what a giving and important member of this community he is.