Tag: Community

Starling Hall Update

Loyal website visitors and subscribers with a great memory will perhaps remember a post a while ago regarding Starling Hall located in Fayette, Maine. That post told the “wonderful story of a former Grange Hall because of a group of dedicated volunteers.” In summary, the hall was acquired by the town and a group of volunteers in 2015 formed “Friends of Starling Hall” (FOSH) as a 501(3)C. Their efforts are described as “uniting history and purpose–restoring a treasured former Grange hall for use as a community center.”Since then, much progress has been made toward restoring the hall to its former glory.

You can read about some of the improvements and ongoing work on the Starling Grange Hall Website. These have not been easy tasks! A 2021 news article in the Kennebec Journal details much of the history and costs to date.

In order to keep the project moving forward, FOSH is currently seeking federal funding to supplement their local fundraising efforts. Certainly, Grangers understand the importance of “uniting history and purpose” and appreciate the value of maintaining heritage and history. You will enjoy the video below!

Mill Stream Grange Makes Record

Well, if you’ll forgive a play on words, we mean that Mill Stream Grane was featured in the April-May Issue of the Vienna Record. The Record is published by the Town of Vienna and includes all sorts of town business such as selectmen and town department minutes and news of town events. Mill Stream Dictionary Day was the lead article and a second article listed upcoming Mill Stream Grange events.

Notice the mention of Grange Month and the Open House on Saturday, April 23, 2022. Bring your old flags! What a great example of community relevance and publicity!

Valley Grange Makes Fabric Hugs

Valley Grange of Guilford is sponsoring a blanket-making event on Saturday, May 14, 2022,  from 9:00 a.m. until noon and volunteers are needed! Organizer Pat Engstrom notes “no sewing skills are needed. If you can measure, cut a straight line with scissors and tie a simple knot you can become a ‘blanketeer’ and help support Project Linus.”

Project Linus, a non-profit organization, provides homemade blankets to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need. Similar events have resulted in dozens of blankets being made by a diverse group of volunteers. Engstrom hopes to see the number of blankets made increase.

“We have a great time doing this and truly just about anyone can help. We created quite a production line, and it sometimes gets competitive! It’s exciting to realize we’re providing love in the form of ‘blankies’ representing love, security, warmth, and comfort to kids.”

Light refreshments will be served.

Parkman Grange Mother’s Day Tea

white ceramic teacup
Photo by George Dolgikh @ Giftpundits.com on Pexels.com

Parkman Grange is pleased to announce the return of a favorite springtime tradition, their popular Mother’s Day Tea.  This twentieth anniversary will celebrate Tylene Kimball as the guest of honor.  In 2000 she came up with the idea of a Tea and it continued to grow with a pause in the last two years.  The Tea will be on Saturday, May 7, 2022, from 10 AM to noon.  Entertainment will be provided by Bobby Kimball, and Julie Harrington will lead fun sing-along songs.  There will be a lot of door prizes to win and a 50/50 raffle. Included will be time to chat and catch up with family and friends.  Tea sandwiches, sweet treats, and coffee, tea, or lemonade will be served.  The Grange is located at State Highway 150 and North Dexter Road.  Admission is $5, and children under five are free.  Seating is limited. Reservations are necessary and can be made by calling Sue Manchester at 207 277-3942.

Lowe’s Hometown Grants Program

It was recently announced Lowe’s is looking for nominations for this year’s “Lowe’s Hometowns Grants Program”. 100 projects across the nation will be selected to receive funding. Projects must benefit the community as a whole and not just a single group. Projects must be able to be completed on or before November 15, 2022 and be located within a reasonable distance of a Lowe’s store. Full rules can be found at https://lowes-hometowns.com/en-us/Rules.

Individuals can nominate up to two projects through the Lowe’s Hometowns Grant Program online portal.

The nomination period runs from March 1st, 2022 – March 28, 2022 at 11:59:59 PM ET.

Projects must fall into at least one of the following categories:

  • Community Resources/Space (e.g. park, senior citizen center, youth center, etc.);
  • Safe Affordable Housing (e.g. critical repairs, block of homes, accessible home needs, etc.);
  • Cultural Preservation (e.g. theatre, memorial renovation, sustainability, etc.);
  • Area Revitalization (e.g. a new playground at a community park, small business renovations/repairs, renovations to downtown areas, etc.); and/or
  • Skilled Trades Education initiatives (e.g. mobile training programs, high school vocational, etc.).

Note that recipients must be capable of being sponsored by a nonprofit entity recognized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (“Nonprofit”) or a government entity.

Sweet Jonesboro Grange!

Jonesboro Grange Creates Candyland

On February 12, 2022, Jonesboro Grange #357 hosted the first Candyland event at the Grange. For $5, guests were given a box to fill with sweet Valentine’s Day treats. 

The hall was decorated with candy decorations and transformed into a candy land. We had eight tables filled with Needhams, cookies, fudge, homemade chocolates, dessert bars, peanut butter balls, and more! 

$1,200 was raised for the 2022 Grange budget. Grange members have been working hard to bring new and exciting opportunities to the community while raising funds to restore the historic building. 

A table full of Valentine’s Day baskets was raffled off and two Candyland games were offered as door prizes.

The Twelve Days of…

By Marilyn Stinson, Enterprise Grange

As the Community Service Coordinator for Enterprise Grange #48, I’m challenging ALL Granges, Grangers, and Friends to consider their local food pantries for the 12 Days of Christmas which starts on Christmas Day, using the song as a guideline. Let’s see what innovative items people can come up with. Let’s fill Community Service Reports with pictures of what they came up with.

For a previous year, the reasoning was:

Day 1. Pear Tree = can of pears.

Day 2. Turtle Doves = ??? turtles are in the sea and so is tuna, so Chicken of the Sea Tuna.

Day 3. French Hens = French cut green beans. (add a can of mushroom soup for a casserole)

Day 4. Calling Birds = oatmeal or dry cereal to call them with?? Birds like uncooked cereals.

Day 5, Five Gold Rings = rings of canned pineapple. Or spaghetti-O’s.

Day 6, Geese-a-laying = I had hens laying eggs so I shared. This year, I’ll use cans of corn to feed the geese.

Day 7, Swans a-swimming = chicken soup (swans taste like chicken??).

Day 8, Maids a-milking = cans of milk (put with the corn for corn chowder). Or the boxed regular milk.

Day 9, Ladies Dancing = Swiss Miss hot chocolate mix would be Swiss ladies dancing, I think.

Day 10, Lords-a-leaping is another challenge. I used baby wipes because once you open the package, the rest leap out at you. Tissues would do that, too. Maybe corn to pop??

Day 11, Pipers Piping = elbow macaroni looks like little elbow pipes and food pantries sometimes ask for pasta.

Day 12, Drummers Drumming = dry spaghetti for drumsticks, or frozen chicken drumsticks. Or isn’t there a snack cracker that is drumsticks?

(Donations of can openers would also be an extra item.)

The Twelve Days of Christmas start with Christmas Day and end with the eve of Epiphany on January 5th. The Twelve Days of Christmas dates back to English origins in the sixteenth century although the music is reputed to be French. The first publication date for The Twelve Days of Christmas (The 12 Days of Christmas) was 1780.

Why Every Community Needs a Grange Today

The following article was written by Walter Boomsma in the spring of 2009 as part of a National Grange Essay Contest… and it won second place!

One of my greater pleasures in life is attempting to explain the origins and purpose of this organization called “the Grange” to excited third graders as part of our “Words for Thirds” program. I start by attempting to determine what they already know and I’ll always remember the young girl who waved her hand enthusiastically and announced “I was born there.”

It took a little thinking to realize she’d heard me say “LaGrange” – one of the small, rural communities here in Maine. Her answer was certainly amusing, but it was also insightful and telling. Like the organization she was learning about she was proud of her roots and heritage. She announced her connection and kinship to LaGrange just as enthusiastically as I announce my connection to the Grange.

That sense of connection attracts people to rural small-town America. But even small towns are experiencing a “social disconnect” as things like regional school systems and “social networking” using the Internet change the traditional model of community. We now have cell phones, PDAs and computers to stay “connected” with people – in many cases people we only rarely see and certainly can’t touch.

But beneath all the communicating, we still want

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