Most of the people who participate in our semester program are not from Maine, and the way of life near the field school is rural and often significantly different than where they’re from. This past fall, during week two of the course, some of the guys were talking about how religious the area was. I joined their conversation because I was curious. It turns out that they had seen a normal number of churches, but they had also seen a bunch of “Redemption Centers”. This got me laughing and I explained to them that in Maine, a redemption center is where you take your empty bottles and cans to recycle them and get a nickel for each one. Once they got it, we all had a good laugh.

So if you come to Maine, redemption centers are about returning bottles and cans, not saving your soul.