Community Service

Message from Pete Pompper, National Grange Community Service Coordinator.

I feel community service work is very important not only for Grange growth but also personal growth.  Over the years I have coached youth basketball, served on a Juvenile Conference Committee, a member of my local Municipal Alliance on drug abuse and served as a trustee of the Salem County Woman’s Services Board.

I have spent many hours as all of you have working in a Grange kitchen cooking, serving and cleaning up after a Grange breakfast or dinner.  Working with my home Grange on our Families in Need project and helping the Junior Grangers with roadside pickups.

I look forward to not only learning new community service ideas from you but more importantly sharing them with you and the Grangers throughout the country.

 


Learn More About What Other's Are Doing:

 
Grange hosts a “Dial 811” program for their local community.   I belong to Indian Trail Grange in Lowell, Indiana. This is our second year for the “811” presentation.  Last year an “811” representative from Indianapolis came up to give the information.

“811 Call Before You Dig” program has very important lifesaving and cost saving information and many do not know it is the law to call “811”.

Respectfully,
Sandy Linden
Indian Trail Grange


Grange splits wood for the Historic Ramsey House.   My Grange, Sunbeam Grange, splits wood for the Historic Ramsey House in St Paul. They use the wood in their kitchen stove where their interpreters bake cookies for their holiday tours. We also deliver it and stack it for them. We send one or two pick up loads to them each fall/winter.

Donna Champion
Minnesota State Grange President


Hosts a combined event with the local library.   Florissant Grange (CO) - This year we combined with the Florissant Library Drama Club play “Cowgirl Cookie and the Mysterious Disappearance of Grandma Cookie”. On Friday night parents, relatives and community members crowded the Grange Hall to see the performance and on Saturday 67 community members purchased dinner tickets for the first ever Dinner Theater at Florissant Grange.

Florissant Grange also works with the local Rotary Club to purchase and deliver dictionaries to local elementary schools for the “Words for Thirds” project. The Grange lets the local VFW use the Grange Hall for meetings at no charge and in return the VFW maintains the flag flying outside the hall.

Their Grange works with several other volunteer organizations in the community throughout the year such as the 4H, volunteer Fire Department. The open their doors to the community by having western music nights at the hall on many nights during the year.

Renee and Alan Caldwell
Colorado State Grange
Community Service Directors



Washington State Grange   Every successful Grange completes at least two community service projects each year. Here is a list of projects being completed by Granges across our state:

Potential Projects
1. Assist with the local Veteran’s Museum (provide coffee, cookies, supplies, etc)
2. Laying a wreath at a local cemetery
3. Place flags throughout the community on Memorial Day and other holidays
4. Swags on Veteran’s Graves for Christmas
5. Words for Thirds Dictionary Project
6. Food Collection for Food Bank and Feeding Programs (monthly or quarterly)
7. Collect school supplies
8. Educational Garden for 2nd and 3rd graders
9. Community Gardens
10. Public Access Computers in the Grange Hall
11. Candidate Forums
12. Collect eyeglasses, aluminum can tops, stamps
13. Linus Blankets
14. Quilts for the Brave
15. Stockings for Veterans
16. Washcloths and soap for the homeless
17. Support Ag in the Classroom
18. Child ID Program
19. Camp Volunteers
20. Rest Area Coffee Stops
21. Grounds Maintenance at Local Cemeteries
22. Reading Volunteers at Schools
23. Make a Difference Day – clean up your town
24. Baby Items for Care Centers
25. Cancer Care Items – scarves, caps, etc
26. Volunteer Services – seniors, food bank, schools, youth clubs
27. Open Hall for Non-Profit Afternoon Programs
28. Visit the Elderly
29. Knitted Items for At-Risk Pregnancies
30. Roadside Clean Up
31. Christmas Breakfast with Santa’s workshop
32. Community Forums
33. Resource Information Night
34. Farm City Dinner – rural people and city people come together
35. Compost Project – bag it and sell it
36. Fair Booths
37. Sponsor a Local Festival – bluegrass, jazz, local interest
38. Adopt a Family for a Year (through school, churches, DSHS)
39. Collect gently used items – coats, blankets, etc
40. Support the USO – toothbrushes, care cloths, food items, etc
41. Donate socks to homeless shelter
42. Socks for the local elementary school
43. Rehabilitate bicycles for elementary schools
44. Sponsor a car care clinic
45. Give ham radio classes
46. Food baskets for needy families at the holidays
47. Lap quilts for retirement homes
48. Love quilts for homeless shelters – made of old jeans
49. Sponsor a Junior Grange

Tom Gwin,
State Lecturer



Kansas State Grange   I'm sure others do this, but just wanted to pass on what we are doing here in Kansas. In addition to each Grange's community service activities (and there are many, many great ones), I implemented a state wide community service C.A.R.D.S. project three years ago wherein Grangers were encouraged to decorate the fronts of greeting cards for servicepersons all over the world. This project is in conjunction with the United Methodist Church in Augusta. Each month, approx. 1,000 handmade cards are made by persons, including Grangers all over our state, collected at the church, tucked in envelopes, put on transport planes out of Wichita or mailed directly to contact soldiers in the field. These contact soldiers then share cards with others in their platoons to use in writing family and friends back home.

As director of KS State Community Service, I am proud to say Kansas Grangers made over 1,000 cards last year in support of this large overall project. I send the Grangers kits containing pieces, along with samples, and they put them together. I make a big push for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas cards, but some work on cards all year around. They also color, stamp, fold paper, tuck envelopes. They make these in small groups in homes with friends, at family functions, and/or at Grange meetings. New Grange members have been realized through this project. The support of this project has truly been grasped by KS Grangers and I am totally overwhelmed.

A thank you was recently sent back to the Church by a wife who received a Valentines card made by someone in Kansas from her husband stationed overseas. She said of all the care packages received at his post, the most favorite was the homemade cards to send home to family and friends. She thanked C.A.R.D.S. for the working hands, thoughts, and prayers behind the card she received, made by someone she would never know. While it isn't known, of course, if it was a card by a Granger specifically, it is a reminder of how our efforts as Grangers are touching others....we are making a difference.

Randee Farmer
Community Service Director