Mill Stream Grange members Paul Lavender, Jill Sampson, Kirsten Heck, and her daughter Natalie met at the Franklin Cemetery in Vienna to attach ID stickers to the stones of veterans. The small, unobtrusive stickers were placed low on the back of the stones in an effort to make them easier to find when placing flags for Memorial Day. Permission for this project was given by the Association which oversees the care of the cemetery on Tower Road in Vienna.
Tag: Community
Mental Health Support Resources
Anyone affected by the violence in Lewiston is encouraged to reach out and connect with behavioral health support. Incidents of mass violence can lead to a range of emotional reactions, including anxiety, fear, anger, despair and a sense of helplessness that may begin immediately or in the days or weeks following the event.
Seek help immediately if you or someone you know is talking about suicide, feelings of hopelessness or unbearable pain, or about being a burden to others.
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.
For those in need of immediate support:
Call or text 988: This suicide and behavioral health crisis hotline is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week by trained crisis specialists offering free, confidential support for anyone. Specialists also can respond by chat at 988lifeline.org. (Veterans and their families can press “1” for specific assistance.) Information for the deaf and hard of hearing is available here.
Teens and young adults can text (207) 515-8398: The National Alliance on Mental Illness Teen Text Line connects youth with other youth to help them manage their challenges every day from noon to 10 p.m. (Note this is NOT a crisis line. If the situation is critical, use the Crisis Line. Simply text “home” or “hello” to 741 741.)
Clinicians, educators and first responders can call (800) 769-9819: The FrontLine WarmLine offers free support services to help these professionals manage the stress of responding to disasters from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.
If you’re unsure, contact 211. It provides general information, including how to access behavioral health and social service resources 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Information can also be found at 211maine.org.
All of these resources provide free, confidential support.
The State of Maine has created a dedicated webpage with these and other resources, including online support and resources for children and families.
Important Note!
Communications Director’s Note: *As many of you know, I teach in the Addiction Counseling Program at Beal University, offer Suicide Prevention Workshops, and am a NAMI certified mental health first aid responder. I am not familiar with the “National Alliance on Mental Illness Teen Text Line, but would strongly recommend The Crisis Text Line. Simply text “home” to 741741. (Actually any word will do!) It is data-driven and has an excellent track record. Please share this post freely–especially on Social Media, Grange Pages and Websites! The links below make it quite easy. If I can be of assistance, please contact me!
Valley Grange Gives Words and More!
Third graders at Brownville Elementary School received lots of words recently in the form of brand-new dictionaries from Valley Grange. The students learned a little bit about Valley Grange, farming, and agriculture, not to mention how to use a dictionary. Since there is a lot more than words in their books, we even said “Hello” to each other using sign language.
Valley Grange #144 is located in Guilford, Maine.
The Dictionary Project is designed to aid third-grade teachers with their goal of seeing all their students leave at the end of the year as good writers, active readers, and creative thinkers. The dictionary is for the student to keep, take it into the fourth grade, and use it throughout his or her entire school career. “The kids become really engaged,” Valley Grange Program Director “Mr. Boomsma” notes. “I think they like the idea that people in the community care about them and, as we explain, they own the dictionary and all the words in it.”
“We also get to talk about the staves as farmer’s tools and how the Grange uses them as reminders of the qualities we should strive for in our classrooms and communities.”
The Valley Grange Program extends across four districts and five schools. This is our 24th year and we’ve given out close to 4,000 dictionaries since starting the program. Additional Dictionary Days are being scheduled at SeDoMoCha Elementary in Dover Foxcroft, PCES in Guilford, Harmony Elementary, and Ridgeview Elementary in Dexter.
Judi Olson Receives Jefferson’s Spirit of America Award
Submitted by Laurie McBurnie, Willow Grange
Judi Olson, of Jefferson was honored with the Spirit of America Award on Thursday, July 27 at Willow Grange in Jefferson. Members of the public joined Grange members for a potluck supper and program to honor Olson on her much-deserved award.
Olson heads up the Jefferson Blessings in a Backpack chapter. She started the weekend meals project at Jefferson Village School in 2011 and has managed the program for the past 12 years. Over the years, her family members have helped with the program. When she first started the program, she had lots of volunteers, but now it is pretty much a one-woman show.
Olson fundraises, purchases food, bags it up, and delivers it to the school. The school puts the food in children’s backpacks in their lockers.
During the 2022-2023 school year, she delivered 37 bags of food a week to the school. The previous school year was her biggest, with 47 children served.
Her food bags contain two breakfast items, like cereal or granola bars, and two entrees, such as soup, canned spaghetti, mac and cheese, canned chicken, tuna or ham, peanut butter, or Vienna sausage. She also includes a couple of snacks like fresh or canned fruit, applesauce, crackers and cheese or peanut butter, and snack bars.
Olson keeps her inventory in a room in her basement. She has accounts at Walmart and Sam’s Club. All the money she raises goes into the Jefferson Village School Blessings in a Backpack account at the two businesses.
“It is quite convenient,” she said.
She raises $3,500 annually for the Blessings in a Backpack program at JVS.
During the program, Worthy Master Ed Worthley presented Olson with a plaque noting her award. Lecturer Paula Roberts gave her $238 raised from a pie auction, lecturer’s march receipts, and donations.
The Blessings in a Backpack program is a nationwide project that feeds children throughout the United States. The program started in 2005, and there are now 1,000 programs throughout the United States. Since 2009, Blessings in a Backpack has grown from feeding 9,022 to 89,579 kids a year.
Olson said the most rewarding part of Blessings in a Backpack is feeding hungry children.
“When they go back to school on Monday, their brains will be working, and they will do well in school and go on to college and get a nice job,” Olson said.
Back to School…
As students, parents, and teachers are all gearing up for the start of another school year, it is a good time to remember to keep an eye out for students walking to and from school and students getting on and off school buses.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the school bus is one of the safest vehicles on the road; however, the risk is greatest when children are approaching or leaving a school bus.
Keep in mind these simple rules:
- Yellow flashing lights on a school bus mean slow down because the bus is preparing to stop.
- Red flashing lights mean stop. Students are getting on or off the school bus. Stay stopped until the red lights stop flashing, the extended stop arm is withdrawn, and the bus begins moving.
- Be ready to stop for a school bus as they make frequent stops.
- Watch and stop for children who cross in front of the bus when the bus is stopped.
- Be prepared for school buses stopping at all railroad crossings.
Best wishes for a great school year!
Why a Printed Dictionary?
By Mary French, Director of the Dictionary Project
Communication Director’s Note: Now is the time to start planning your Words for Thirds Project–or, if you’ve never done one, consider starting it! If you need some help or information, just let me know!
The Dictionary Project is about giving people value in their lives. We are helping children build their lives one word at a time. The purpose of an organization is to help people have lives. Giving people lives refers to many characteristics that
are the result of education, support, work, and relationships.
This year the Dictionary Project has confronted the reality that hundreds of thousands of children in schools are discouraged and prevented from using a paperback dictionary because school administrators do not think they are beneficial in this age of technology. It is a disservice to the clubs that want to improve literacy in their communities by providing dictionaries to the students
and letting them know what a civic organization does and looks like. Presenting the dictionaries in the classroom lets the students know that they are valued and supported and that the club members want to see them succeed by giving them an essential tool for a quality education.
We often hear that children don’t need dictionaries because they are tech savvy and they won’t use a dictionary because it is old fashioned. Nothing has been created to replace a printed dictionary. Children who do not have a dictionary
will not understand the “world they live in. They will feel confused and angry because they cannot comprehend their surroundings and describe what they see. It is putting children at a disadvantage in the world when educators leave them in front of a screen eight hours each day. Children cannot learn how to approach and solve problems without using their five senses. They need to learn what their five senses are telling them and how to use this information to live a better life.
A dictionary is the fastest, easiest and most cost effective way to learn new words. lt teaches children sequential learning; there are steps to take to reach a goal. It is important to know the meaning of words and that most words have more than one meaning. Children are curious how our world works. To collaborate with people to solve problems they need to learn new words to contribute solutions to improve the world we live in.
Everyone comes from a different place and they see things from where they stand. This diversity of thinking enriches our country and expands our ability to create new tools and make the best possible use of our resources. It is disappointing that lead educators are not encouraging children to learn new words by using a printed dictionary to expand their frame of reference; this is the most beneficial way to grow and live. By not giving children a dictionary, they are deprived of fulfilling their potential by teaching themselves new words. Giving children a dictionary is giving them their lives, because their lives depend on their ability to express themselves with words. The thoughts of children are important and they need to know that they are innate gifts to be shared because they are unique.
Albert Einstein said, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign?” An electronic device cannot replace the activity and knowledge that a mind can develop by using it to solve a problem. If we do not teach children to approach a problem with words they will approach it with a weapon. If children do not have a dictionary they will not feel empowered by words. They will not have the words to defend themselves.
The idea for the Dictionary Project came from Annie Plummer. At the time she was looking for people to expand her initiative by giving everyone a dictionary in 1995. A middle school student in Charleston, South Carolina shot and killed his classmate in front of the school. Everyone was shocked that this would happen in our community and we never wanted it to happen again. School leaders said that mentoring would help the teenagers in the school. I was handed a young man who was I5 years old who was in the sixth grade. He had recently been released from the Columbia detention center where he spent six months after being arrested for pointing a 357 magnum at a woman in an embroidery shop to rob her of $20. I went with him to his home and met his mother who was illiterate and recently widowed. She supported her family by cleaning bathrooms at night in the mall across the highway. She walked to work in the dark every night. When I entered the cafeteria to meet Tyrone for our mentoring session, I saw him slapping girls who were talking to him, he hid in the bathroom when he saw me. I asked him several times in our meetings to apologize to the woman he had assaulted. He refused to acknowledge that he did something wrong. I told the principal that I could not help him because he had not learned to respect women. He wasn’t avoiding me he was avoiding the humiliation of being illiterate.
When I saw a letter to the editor asking readers to expand the Dictionary Project in Savannah, Georgia, I jumped at the chance to put a dictionary into the hands of children where I live because I knew that it is the antidote for illiteracy. It has been for hundreds of years. Reading is still the only way out of poverty.
Election Day – June 13, 2023
Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country and this world.
Sharon Salzberg
For many Maine cities and towns, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, is an election day to decide municipal races, school budgets, and other local matters. Please exercise your right to vote! Your vote matters!
Valley Grange Wants Five Minutes
(Click the arrow on the bottom left to begin the video.)
During their recent celebration of community, Valley Grange named Roger Ricker Community Citizen of the Year. Roger passed away last December but left behind a legacy of constant and lifelong support for his community.
After honoring Roger, Valley Grange Program Director Walter Boomsma challenged attendees to consider the impact of spending just five minutes a day in support of their communities. A five-minute video provided examples of the Guilford Grange’s programs and supporters. Boomsma noted, “If you buy a raffle ticket from us, you’re also buying a dictionary for a third grader.”
“We are restarting some of our programs suspended due to COVID. You don’t have to be a member to help and support us. When we asked people to ‘Sock it to us’ with donations to help provide socks to kids throughout the county, we received support from as far away as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.”
He also pointed out that five minutes a day isn’t much. “But it adds up. If there are 2,000 people in your community and just half (we’ll excuse young kids and people over 80) of them give five minutes per day, that equates to having nearly thirteen people working full time, making your community stronger. Based on the average salary in Maine, that’s worth over $700,000 to your community. Just five minutes every day. Of course, the ultimate value is not in dollars and cents. It’s in the difference you will make in individual’s lives.”
Just Five Minutes.
Quick Tip – Stop Summer Slide!
submitted by Walter Boomsma
As most know, Valley Grange is very much involved with our schools in regard to literacy and reading. Studies have validated what is called the “summer slide.” Children who don’t read or who read rarely over the summer encounter stagnation or decline in their reading skills. At least one estimate suggests this can be overcome by children reading just five grade-level appropriate books over summer vacation.
Can your Grange encourage this? Absolutely! You might consider partnering with your local library–many have summer reading programs and events. Or how about a community potluck supper with a side order of reading? This could have all sorts of variations: kids who bring a book they are reading eat free… or maybe there’s a “book exchange” where you invite kids to bring books they’ve read to exchange with others. At Valley Grange, we keep a milk crate of children’s books in the dining hall… whenever a child visits us for a supper or a program they are invited to take a book home as long as they promise to read it.
Don’t just think about reading to children–a key component of Valley Grange’s bookworm program is that we have the kids reading to us! Several months ago a second grader started a book with me that we didn’t have time to finish. When her turn came up again recently, she brought the same book and remembered exactly where we’d left off. This is a kid for whom reading is important. It’s nice to feel our program is contributing.
Just get something started–it doesn’t have to be massive and complicated.
“You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read with a child.”
― Dr. Seuss
Quick tips from Granges and Grangers are always welcome… on any topic that might improve or make things easier for other Granges. Use the submission form or email yours to the webmaster for consideration!
Franklin Grange Reorganization Meeting
Saturday, May 6, 2023 — 1:00 PM
A group of folks interested in reorganizing the Grange in Franklin Grange is meeting at the Franklin Library! Anyone in the area who is curious or interested is invited! For more information or to express your interest, email FranklinMEGrange@gmail.com!