Successful
Actions of Blue Mountain Grange - VT
Blue Mountain Grange is in northeastern Vermont in the town of Ryegate.
“Our town has about 1000 residents. There are three small villages and the rest of the homes and farms are spread out between them,” says Nancy Perkins, Master of Blue Mountain Grange.
“We have about 100 members. I think our average age is between 55 and 60. We have one member who is high school and one who just graduated from college, and we have a couple members who are in their 90’s. But most of us are between 55 and 60. About 18-20 of our members are regulars at our meetings. The rest are still quite proud to be Grangers, but they just can’t come every month,” says Nancy. “We meet twice a month except in the summer when we meet once a month.”
“We became an Action Grange about 5 years ago. We re-wrote the Opening and Closing, but we chose to keep a lot of the ritualistic speeches because we like the language. We do not take up the word, and we no longer have to have people work their way in or out of the meeting. Some of our members are dairy farmers who can’t get to the meetings on time, and we wanted them to feel welcome to come when they can.”
“Our Grange is really an anchor and a cornerstone in our community. People seem to look to us for leadership, service, and a way to get information into our community. We feel really privileged to be the organization that our community turns to,” says Nancy.
“Over the past five years, we have partnered with Cross Vermont Trails. Eventually the trails will cross the width of the state of Vermont. Much of the trail is along old rail beds, but some of it follows along streams. Each year on the first Saturday in June, the Newbury Conservation Commission, from one of our nearby villages, sponsors a work day on the trails. We serve lunch to the workers who make improvements, clear out any damage that might have been done over the winter, and do general maintenance. We’ve also served refreshments at two dedication ceremonies. One time a memorial bench was dedicated, and another time, a new section of the Cross Vermont Trail was opened.”
“We invite the person in charge of the trail section in our area to come speak with us every year. He updates our members on what’s happening and the plans for work in the coming year. We also sometimes take our Grange members right to the Trail for a walk prior to our business meetings. Twice in the winter, we have sponsored a Winter Family Woods Walk and invited a naturalist to come and help us know what we’re seeing. It’s held on a Sunday afternoon and has become a really wonderful intergenerational outing for our members and their extended families.”
“We very respectfully take our Grange oath that says that we are to be non-partisan,” says Jenny Nelson, Legislative Chair for Blue Mountain Grange. “But we are certainly political! My husband is the Agriculture Chair, and between the two of us, we always have a report at meetings.”
“We discussed many topics, including Walmart and the High Cost of Low Price and the Health Care Debate going on in our own Legislature. We hold a legislative night every year where we invite our legislators to talk with us about what’s happening on their committees. In election years, we always supply a forum for candidates so that community members can learn about who they’re voting for and become informed voters,” says Jenny.
“This last year we had a discussion about our local power company who was not providing us with good service. There were power outages and in some cases that was damaging farm equipment. So we invited a representative from the power company in so we could talk about those issues and learn more about the power company too.”
“We have offered a resolution encouraging VT to lead the way on alternative energy, and our Grange will work to educate ourselves and others on energy conservation.”
“As Nancy said, many of our members don’t attend our regular meetings, but when we have a special meeting or we need help, they’re right there,” says Jenny.
“We do a lot of youth outreach in our Grange. We don’t have a Junior Grange,” says Jenny, “because we didn’t want to compete with 4-H which we do support. We had some of the younger 4-H’ers bring their chickens and rabbits and we judged them. There was a young man working a team of steers in a neighboring town and Grangers went to watch so it gave him a chance to have an audience.”
Nancy adds, “One of the 4-H Leaders is a Grange member. She felt that the 4-H’ers were not old enough to take their projects to the fair, but that they’d love to have a chance to display their work. So we walked around to look at their projects and asked questions. Then we gave out some ribbons to them. It was a way we could support these young 4-H’ers.”
Jenny continues, saying, “We support young people in other ways too. We hold a Halloween party for children and their parents. We usually have 40 people crowded into our hall for that.”
“We participate in the Ryegate Santa Party where some of our members give gifts and do wrapping. We do the Dictionary Program where we give dictionaries to the third graders. We collect and bundle Campbell Soup labels for schools, and send soda can tabs to David’s House at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, a place where families of hospitalized children may stay. This is a fund-raiser for them.”
“We often judge high school seniors’ exit projects. We encouraged families to participate in our Winter Walks and in Early Morning Bird Walks. One of our Grangers developed a program called the BLUE Team which is a conservation program for children. We often invite children in to our Grange so they can present what they’re learning to a real audience. One of the more interesting presentations was about working with the Fish and Wildlife Commission, helping to stock Salmon in a nearby river.” Learn more about BLUE (Boltonville Land Use Exploration) at
http://www.crossvermont.org/BLUE/index.htm.
“We involved kids in developing our float and walking with us in a local community parade this year. It turned out to be a fundraiser for us because we won a prize of $200 this year and $300 last year!”
“Nancy does a wonderful job of keeping us connected with a newsletter that is sent out either by snail mail or email. It’s an important link to remind us what’s going on and to help us inform members, do outreach, and pass information into the community,” says Jenny.
“I still wonder if we aren’t one of the world’s best-kept secrets. Our members are always willing to donate even if they can’t always get to meetings. But they’re there to help whenever we ask. We try hard to have something really of value for the people who do come to meetings. We encourage people to take responsibility as members because Grange is only as strong as those people who come and take part,” says Jenny. “I’ve been a member for 34 years, and I hope I’ve given Grange as much as Grange has given me.”
“You sure have Jenny,” says Gerry Brooks. “My wife and I are co-Lecturer’s at Blue Mountain Grange. We try and focus on our programs that are about our community. Of course, when I say community, I mean a lot of small towns that are in our area. We’re located in the Northeast Kingdom very close to the Connecticut River so a number of the people nearby live in New Hampshire. We enjoy a wonderful rapport with those folks. So we try and put the emphasis on this community and getting people involved.”
“For programs, we’ve brought in people who have small businesses like beekeepers, map makers, or this one person who was gathering information on the cultural heritage of the Northeast Kingdom area. We bring in people who have special talents too. We even had one person come in and talk to us about bats which we certainly have up here in our part of the world. We have young people who have traveled – maybe they’ve been an exchange student – come in and tell us about their experiences.”
“We did a program on radon – which can be a big problem if you’re trying to sell a house. And we offered free radon detectors for anyone who attended the program.”
“There’s a pond in our area that is called – and I’m not kidding – Ticklenaked Pond. So we had an historian come in to tell us more about the history and ecology of Tickle Naked Pond,” says Gerry.
“We also had a naturalist come in and talk about the Wells River which has a watershed that covers a large area. He gave us a history of the area with photographs and records and there were lots of questions and answers.”
“We do give a Community Service Award every year. This year it went to a couple who live in a neighboring town to us, and where we have some members.”
“There’s a new health care facility in our area so we had some of the doctors visit us to help people know what services they could offer.”
“This year we’re partnering with the public library in the town next to us, participating in a program called ‘Vermont Reads’, sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council. We will be hosting a forum called ‘Farms of the Future’, a program to showcase some local diversified farms and to explore future trends in agriculture (e.g. organic production, national animal identification) and how they will affect VT farms and consumers.”
“There’s a Heritage Day in the village where the Grange Hall is and we make a point to open up the Hall and have photographs and exhibits for people to look at.”
“We have some big projects to tackle,” says Gerry. “Our building is not in good shape. It needs painting and new windows. We have one member who has been very active in applying for assistance. We’ve gone to Home Depot and other businesses, and so far we have all the paint we need donated free of charge.”
“We have a good relationship with our local newspapers too,” says Gerry. “After a meeting, we type up what has happened and send it in. They never fail to print it for us. We try to notify the papers of special events, and they’ll sometimes try to get a photographer out to us.”
“We’ll have a new opportunity soon,” says Jenny. “A free paper that’s supplemented with advertising and will be distributed to every household is starting up. So we’re hoping to extend our coverage there too.”
“At the Caledonia County Fair, we share a booth with another Grange, and this is really where our members come out to help us. It’s all volunteer, so someone might bake up a big pan of lasagna or baked beans, or come to work a shift. There are all kinds of ways to support Grange,” says Gerry.
“People are so busy these days. We’ve taken the approach that we want people to be a member of our Grange even if they can’t often come to meetings,” says Nancy. We tell them that we’ll be glad to see them whenever they can come.”
“And that’s more people out there able to talk positively about Grange! Anytime we can talk Grange it’s all to the good!”
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