Deep in the heart of densely wooded northern Maine, unexpected flashes of neon and shouts of encouragement pierced the quiet gray of December.

Out of nowhere, a guerilla-style half marathon and marathon were crisscrossing the far-flung town of Millinocket, thrown together by some runners who had come to support a community left devastated by the closing of a massive paper mill.

They had come to meet the locals, spend some money in the remaining restaurants and stores, and offer hope for plans to help Millinocket to recover by attracting visitors for recreation. And they’re planning to do it again.

Related: Want to know more about the Millinocket Marathon? A new documentary on YouTube tells the story of this popular free marathon.

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“As a runner and a race director, I don’t think I can fix all the problems,” said Gary Allen, director of the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, who organized the Millinocket race. “But I can certainly brighten things for a day.”

The run has now been scheduled for a second running next December, and 100 people have already signed up for it—twice as many as the 50 who did it the first time, and well on the way to a goal of 500.

It’s an event that’s unique in another way, too: It’s free. And Allen hopes to have it certified in 2016, making it a Boston Marathon qualifier, which is bound to boost the numbers even further.

The only requirement for runners is that they support local businesses and contribute in some way, by bringing food to share, for example. Some are even already planning to make and pay for finishers’ medals.

“This is a people’s race,” said Allen. “It’s a true grassroots run. It’s the holiday time. People want to do for others. It’s just one of those things that’s the perfect alignment of a need and an idea and energy.”

Other than through Facebook, the race did not promote itself. But when the runners arrived in Millinocket, they found signs welcoming them and residents cheering them on, even as the demolition of the smokestacks at the mill at around the same time put an exclamation point on the long demise of the area’s most important employer.

Once the world’s largest paper mill, the Great Northern mill in Millinocket opened in 1900. At its peak, it produced 600 tons per day of newsprint and wood pulp. Other mills opened nearby.

Cheaper foreign labor, successive sales and mergers, and the decline of newspapers conspired to put an end to that business, however, and the mills finally closed, putting their last 450 employees out of work in a town whose most recent recorded population was about 4,500.

Many residents have left, and stores and restaurants have closed, including one run by some of the stars of the Discovery Channel’s American Loggers series that made the town familiar to reality TV viewers. The unemployment rate is double the state average. Liens have been filed against more than 250 families for non-payment of taxes. Even a citizens group set up to revitalize the downtown has disbanded.

Other mills around the state have also closed, laying off more Mainers who worked in the once-lucrative paper industry. Five hundred were left jobless when the Verso mill in Bucksport closed just before Christmas last year. The same company has said it would dismiss 300 workers from a plant it runs in Jay.

“It’s not like a country on the other side of the world. This is in our state, on our doorstop,” Allen said.

He said he had never been to Millinocket, about an hour north of Bangor, before he arrived there for the race. He used software to map out the route in a 13.1-mile loop. Six runners, including Allen, ran the loop twice, and the rest of the field ran it once.

“I just said, ‘Let’s go run,’ and if anyone asked, ‘What are you doing?’ we’d say, ‘We’re just here to help,’” Allen said.

Part of the route turned out to be on a privately owned logging road, but Allen got a permit to use it, and runners raved about that section of the course and the view of Mount Katahdin. The centerpiece of the massive Baxter State Park and Millinocket’s other major asset, Katahdin is the highest mountain in Maine, a summer favorite with hikers, and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Mountain Trail.

“There’s only so many scenes like that in Maine, never mind in the country,” said Jesse Dumais, who manages a restaurant in town and volunteered to play music at the starting line of the marathon and half marathon.

But it was the part of the course through the downtown that caught many runners’ attention.

“It was barren and desolate for the most part,” said one, William McAnirlin, of Newport. “To see everything closed on the downtown strip, as opposed to what it used to be, was a little eye-opening.”

Melissa Ossanna took photos along the race course and got the same impression.

“It’s so very sobering. This is the state where I’ve lived since I was 18 and there are these people whose whole livelihood is gone, and a lot of people in the town have just left because they can’t make a living there any more,” Ossanna said. “A lot of the stores are closed and there’s no one on the streets. But the thing that really struck me is that everyone who was there, they were so welcoming to us. Here we were having this little unofficial thing, and they had signs out, ‘Welcome, runners.’ I think it gave them hope. It was a wonderful thing.”

Ossanna is a member of the running club Allen cofounded in Bar Harbor, Crow Athletics. “As runners around here, we like to do good things,” such as food runs to food pantries, she said. “We do a lot of nutty stuff, and it was great to have something that we felt could do some good. We figured we’ll spend some money and buy some beers and maybe stay overnight and it will be fun.”

People did, in fact, spend money. “A couple of the restaurants we went to, they said it really helped a lot,” Allen said. “The power of an idea and the power of running really can have a big effect. One of the most moving things I heard was a resident came up to me and said we’d given them hope that things would be okay.”

Other townspeople echoed that. “It was generally positive,” said Louie Pelletier, a retired mill worker. “I know a few businesses that are trying to stay open that are certainly grateful.”

Melissa Ossanna

Town Council Chairman Richard Angotti Jr. said the race provided a good chance to draw people to Millinocket who may feel compelled to return. “I’m hoping this kind of thing would bring businesspeople who are runners who can say this is a great place,” Angotti said.

They’ll get another chance next winter.

“We can do more,” said Allen. “We can help this town more, and we’re not going to walk away.”

He said the race will stay free, too. “In this world of ever escalating entry fees, I’m thinking, wow, this could be the beginning of a revolution,” Allen said. “Millinocket might end up being more than just a thing to help a mill town. It might be a little bit of statement” by remaining free of charge.

McAnirlin, a triathlete, likes that idea. “If you look at the controversies that have come up with the for-profit races, to be able to say, ‘Okay, I went to Millinocket, I spent $50, I know the money that I spent went to the restaurants and went to the local gas station or wherever,’ that’s very different than being one of 3,000 people who showed up and spent $50 to do a color run and who knows where it went,” he said.

And if that means the Millinocket race gets much, much bigger, said Dumais, all the better.

“We’ll be ready,” he said. “We’ll be ready.”

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