| DECEMBER 6, 2013 -- Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
Community service is a way of life for most Grangers. We want to make life a little better for others and we are proud of our efforts. And it is important that we show our neighbors what the Grange can do to help them build their communities.
We want to thank those dedicated chairmen who not only saw their Grange’s Community Service Reports were submitted, but in many cases prepared well organized notebooks on their activities. Including photographs and newspaper clippings especially helps the judges in making final decisions, and they were truly impressed. We thank our judges for their hard work.
We received reports from 28 Granges. From these reports we find that 540 Grange members performed 74,678 hours of community service work. Down just a little bit from last year. However, the number of non-Grange members involved nearly doubled to 1,056 and their hours total 5,304. Apparently, more and more community citizens are willing to help the Grange in what they see as quality projects. Friends, here likes our biggest source of new members! They’re already half way there!
Popular ongoing projects this year were Words for Thirds, blood drives, donations to food banks and shelters, baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas and support for veterans. New projects included New Eyes for the Needy, Operation Cold Weather, support for animal shelters and hospitals, help at nature centers and one Grange helped teach children to fish.
This is our second year including the Junior Grange in the program. We received an excellent report from Ekonk Community Junior Grange. They report over 1,200 hours by 22 Junior Grange members assisted by 50 community citizens who gave over 1,400 hours. Their projects include Words for Thirds, adopting a needy family at Christmas, a float in the Memorial Day Parade, donations to local schools, help at the library, and many more. They raised needed funds through a plant and bake sale. Congratulations to them!
The winners for Granges with 50 members and under:
1- Prospect; 2- Colchester; 3- Stonington
And for the Grange with membership of 51 and over:
1- Ekonk (Named 4th Nationally); 2- Cheshire; 3- N. Stonington.
The Best of Show this year, and the one sent to National to represent our state is Ekonk Community Grange.
Their many projects, the number of members and citizens involved and the tremendous number of hours donated convinced the judges that this report was the best example of community service work in Connecticut. Congratulations to them!
Once again, thank you to all for your participation in the Community Service project this year and we look forward to reading your reports next year. |
