Maine Legislative Sentimentsย are highly regarded, formal recognitions used by the Maine Legislature to honor significant individual, civic, or organizational accomplishments. These sentiments act as official, bipartisan commendations, often presented on the floor to highlight milestones, such as 30 years of educational leadership or exceptional community service, marking them as sincere expressions of appreciation.ย Often, these sentiments receive unanimous support, reflecting a moment of unity in a sometimes divided political landscape.
For those Granges who celebrate Community Citizens, consider contacting your local Senator or Representative and asking if they might sponsor a Legislative Sentiment for your honoree. Sometimes they will even attend your event to present it–if you invite them!
Reprinted from an e-newsletter by Senator Stacey Guerin, District 4.
State Treasurer Joe Perry has announced over $396 million in unclaimed property is being held by the Office of the Treasurer. This money belongs to Mainers and is waiting to be claimed.
The Unclaimed Property Fund includes money and other financial assets that are considered lost or abandoned when an owner can’t be located after a specified period of inactivity. Mainers are owed totals ranging from $10 to thousands of dollars.
Each year, tens of millions of dollars go unclaimed by Maine residents. These financial assets are turned over by thousands of national and local businesses and organizations. The Treasurerโs Office holds these assets, free of charge, until claimed by the owner or heir.
St. George Grange is located at 32 Wiley’s Corner Road in St George.
The St. George Grange is starting its 2026 Public Supper season! We have a Public Supper on the 2nd Saturday of each month, April through October. The fun always starts at 5 pm. Thank you, and hope to see you at the St. George Grange.
Our April 11 supper will feature a variety of homemade food, fresh-baked bread, desserts, coffee, and cold drinks with neighbors, friends, and family. Adults $10.00 Children $5.00 (under 10 yrs. free)
Cooked food donations for our supper are welcome (casseroles, salads, desserts, etc.) Part of the proceeds will be donated to the First Baptist Church of St. George, ME 04860
Itโs knitting, crocheting, and quilting season at Valley Grange in Guilford! Mary Annis, Joyce Flanders, Pat Engstrom, and Janice Boomsma had fun sorting recent donations at our March Meeting, including a large bag from Linda Kain.
These handcrafted products are distributed through many different local outlets. Hats and mittens go to our local schools, including Piscataquis Elementary, SeDoMoCha, Brownville Elementary, Ridgeview Elementary, and Harmony Elementary. Lap robes are available to local nursing homes, and we supply the Hospice Programโsย Operation Gratitude for Veterans.
Help is always needed and welcomed! If you are interested, contact Mary Annis (564-0820) or Pat Engstrom (564-8290).
The recent website outages we’ve been experiencing appear to be over! We are now fully available on the new servers. We are sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience!
It might be my imagination, but it seems the site now loads faster! We’ll continue to monitor our uptime and keep you informed. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know!
Reprinted from an Enewsletter from UMaine Extension
Participants will learn how to handle tractors and equipment safely, how to identify hazards, and how to minimize the chances of accidents. The course is open to all interested adults and youth. A Federal Certificate of Training will be issued at the end of the course after successful completion of the written test and driving course and with attendance requirements met. This certificate is required for 14 and 15 year olds who plan to operate farm equipment for hire on farms other than their own.
Dates: April 27, May 4, May 11, May 18, May 25 (Exam)
Course Format:
Five weeks of in-person lectures, hands-on demonstrations, and tractor driving.
Additional reading and coursework outside of class time. Note: participants will need access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone to complete some homework assignments.
Reprinted with permission from AARP’s Fraud Watch Network.
If you own a home, youโve probably received a solicitation saying, โWe want to buy your house.โ The offer may sound appealing, but itโs often not in your best interest.
These sellโyourโhome schemes often target older homeowners who are likely to have significant home equity. The bad actors search public records for foreclosure filings, divorces, or recent deaths to identify homeowners who may be under financial or emotional stress.
They frequently rely on highโpressure sales tactics and misleading claimsโincluding misrepresenting the value of your home, exaggerating market conditions to create a false sense of urgency, or even suggesting you may owe back taxes.
Even promises to buy homes โas isโ can be misleading. In some cases, buyers later back out of that pledge and demand repairs before completing the sale, leaving the seller responsible for costly fixes after all.
If youโre thinking about working with a โWe Buy Homesโ company, know the true value of your home, understand what youโre signing, and get legal advice before moving forward.
We are aware that the MSG Website has recently experienced outages lasting from a few minutes to half an hour. Most seem to be happening overnight and early in the morning.
Our website host has announced a scheduled period of server updates between March 20 at 12:00 AM Eastern time and March 20 at 7:00 AM Eastern time. During this time, we may experience a brief loss of connectivity to our website hosting and associated services as our environment is being moved.
Hopefully, this move will resolve these temporary outages. We will continue to monitor the situation and take further action if necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!
By Walter Boomsma, MSG Communications Director 207 343-1842
Communication Shorts are brief (short) but important items posted for your information and use. Please send us your ideas and thoughts!
The Maine State Grange Office is located at 36 Anthony Avenue, Suite 102, Augusta, ME 04330. mainestategrange@gmail.com.
March Bulletin
The March Bulletin is now available! Recent issues of the Bulletin are available on the Program Books and Information Page in the communications section.
Grangers Helping Grangers
As you help us by submitting your news and events, the energy grows! Grange members are contacting other members with questions and suggestions. That’s one of the objectives we have for the MSG website. “We’re Grangers. We help each other.”
Seeking Someone?
Do you, your child, or your grandchild have some knowledge of WordPress? (For those unfamiliar, WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that allows users to create, manage, and customize websites without needing advanced coding knowledge. The Maine State Grange Website uses it.) If so, let’s connect and explore some opportunities. I could use a few hours of volunteer help occasionally.
Rapid Resource
We’re always seeking resources of potential interest to Grangers and Friends that are not necessarily specific to the Grange. These will be short and easy to digest. As an example, the first concerns finding and tracking scholarships. You can help! Let me know what you think and, by all means, submit ideas and suggestions.
What’s Going On?
Last call for Grange Month Events!
Don’t forget to submit your special events and programs for our event calendar! We want people to know the Grange is thriving! Surely, there are lots of Grange things happening in Maine.
To Ponder…
โYou help people when they need help, not when you are ready to help them.โ
James Clear
An Idea for Your Grange
How about a clothing swap offering childrenโs clothing, work attire, sports wear, seasonal wear, and gently worn shoes? Offer participants a sustainable way to repurpose their clothing within the community.
Subscribe!
Remember, we don’t share your email address with anyone, and you get a weekly summary of what’s been posted. Subscribe here! Share that link with your members and Grange friends!
Online Directories Available 24-7
Thanks to those who help us keep these directories current by letting us know of changes!
The Directory of Granges features all Granges in the state with a contact person. Please make sure your listing is correct! Visitors to the site frequently consult these directories.
The ODD Directory features all state officers, directors, and deputies, along with their contact information. Updated January 16, 2026.
As we approach what have become annual degree days, thereโs an opportunity to give some thought to our heritage and tradition. If itโs not obvious, I admit to having a bias that moving away from the things that made the Grange successful and strong is not always in our best interest. But Iโm also not unreasonable. As you may know, the degrees are no longer considered the only path to membership. Iโm okay with that.
But it might be a mistake to imply that those degrees no longer have value. One potential challenge we have is the vocabulary weโve fallen into when talking about them. We often ask questions like โHave you had the four degrees?โ or โHave you taken the degrees?โ That creates a somewhat passive approach that potentially limits our engagement in the degree work.
It doesn’t work this way!
The degrees are not a product; they are a process. That process was created to help members learn the โlessons of the Grange.โ One could rightly question whether or not the process is as effective as it was in the early years of the Grange, but the expression โdonโt throw out the baby with the bath waterโ comes to mind. In recent years, the Grange has approved of alternative paths to membership, including an obligation ceremony. Iโm not aware of any hard data, but I suspect the vast majority of new members are not experiencing (my preferred term) the traditional degree work.
If youโre among them, Iโd ask you to wonder if you have missed something.
But I would quickly add that even if you experienced the degrees, you probably have missed something. I know I did! It is only after repeated exposure and study that the lessons of the Grange became clearer and more meaningful. We may think the degrees are no longer relevant, but the lessons they contain are perhaps more relevant and important than they were in the early days of the Grange. I have lobbied in the past for finding creative ways to offer those lessonsโor even to reinforce them. (Imagine an online self-paced class!) That desire is actually the basis for โExploring Traditionsโ columns. 150 years ago, oral instruction and symbolism were state-of-the-art teaching techniques. They are still valid, certainly. The key is to remember that those lessons are a process, not a product to hand out.
So, while opportunities to experience the lessons of the degrees are infrequent, they are no less valid or important. You might be surprised at what you can learn by participating or observing. One of the moments I remember from my first time participating happened in the Second Degree.
โWe are now to teach you how to plant the seed. Behold these inanimate kernels of corn! But the germ has lifeโthe future plant is there. We loosen the soilโwe bury the seed; and in so doing impress upon our minds the truth of the immortality of the soul. There is no object in which, to appearance, life and death border so closely together as in the grains of seed buried in the earth; but when life seems extinct a fuller and richer existence begins anew.
From this little seed we have, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. So with the mind, when duly nourished with Faith and Hope. But be not deceived! Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Therefore sow such seeds, and so cultivate them, that at the Harvest the ripened grain may meet our Heavenly Fatherโs approval and be garnered in the Paradise above.โ
In my mindโs eye, I can still see those seeds as the Master completing the motions and saying those words. โWhen life seems extinct, a fuller and richer existence begins anew.โ How can I not like thinking about that?! Every end is a beginning.
Find a way to engage with the lessons of the degrees. You wonโt regret it.
Any degree or ritual quotations are from the forty-seventh edition of the 2023 Subordinate Grange Manual or the most recent edition of the Pomona Grange Manual. The views and opinions expressed in “Exploring Traditions” are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine and policy of the Grange. Information about the book “Exploring TraditionsโCelebrating the Grange Way of Life” can be found at http://abbotvillagepress.com,on Mr. Boomsma’s Amazon Author Page, or by contacting the author.
