Marble Valley Grange recruiting youth members
Toolbox
By Gordon Dritschilo Herald Staff - Published: December 3, 2008
PITTSFORD — The Marble Valley Grange needs 10 more kids.
The Grange is looking to start a youth Grange.
More fully known as The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, the grange is an agricultural organization founded shortly after the Civil War that boasts 300,000 members nationally and has chapters in many Vermont towns.
"It's a rural, family organization, fraternal organization, interested in agriculture," said Marsha Johnson, who is organizing the youth Grange in Pittsford. "You don't have to be a farmer to belong. People grow a garden, that's agriculture. If they have chickens, that's agriculture. If they tap trees, that's agriculture. But you do not have to do any of this to join."
Granges run contests in crafts such as photography, needlework and cooking. The Marble Valley Grange gives dictionaries each year to every third-grader in Pittsford.
"We do community service things, things for the food pantry," member Ellen Garneau said. "We concentrate on buying local. It's very down-to-earth."
Granges also craft resolutions forwarded to the state Grange, Johnson said, which uses them to try to help shape legislation in either the state capitol or in Washington, D.C.
"The Grange is one of the groups that pushed through local mail delivery (in rural areas)," Garneau said. "There's a lot of things like that the Grange was involved in historically."
Chapters are headquartered in a particular town, but Johnson said anyone from any town can join any Grange.
Johnson said her parents were founding members of the Marble Valley Grange in 1955. She said the organization succeeded four previous failed Granges in Pittsford, but it has never had a youth chapter.
"The junior Grange is a model, on a child's level, of an adult Grange," she said. "They have the same officers, the same ritualistic work."
Three youths have signed up, and Johnson said she expects a fourth and has two more prospects.
The group needs 13 members to get a charter, though Johnson said state headquarters might give special permission if the effort falls short by a few participants.
"The kids that signed up are talking with their friends to get them interested," she said.
Johnson said she hopes to have an organizational meeting late next month.
After that, the organization will try to meet once a month at the Maclure Library, where the parent organization meets, with extra meetings as needed. Youth Granges have their own contests and a merit badge program similar to the one in the Boy Scouts.
"It gets the kids involved in different community events and also in the organization," Garneau said.
They can also attend the state Junior Grange Camp in Brookfield.
"The kids absolutely love camp," Johnson said. "They don't want to go home. My daughter was in Junior Grange from five to 14 and camp was the centerpiece of her summer."
Rutland County has at least eight granges, but no junior Granges — all the chapters that once had junior granges closed due to lack of membership
"Kids have so much going on these days," she said.
Johnson said she had heard the Grange in South Wallingford was looking to reactivate its defunct youth chapter and that the Grange is pushing to establish more youth chapters nationwide.
"That's the lifeblood of the Grange," she said. "That's our future."
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.
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