| MAY 12, 2013 -- Wolcott Grange No. 173 was honored for its renovation efforts with a Chamber of Commerce Beautification Award presented recently at the 54th annual awards dinner at Mahan’s Lakeview.
The Master of the Grange Joe Ouimet accepted the award and spoke briefly about the history of the Wolcott Grange Hall at 313 Bound Line Road, which was built in 1921.
Ouimet credited his volunteers and donors for the award. D’Amato Construction Co. of Bristol helped enhance the renovation by donating the new railings along the handicapped access way where broken inaccessible ones once were, he said.
“They totally overhauled the whole outside staircase,” he said. “The Wolcott Grange is an historic building. The original woodworking was beautiful and it matched the building, so they had to remodel it exactly to its original form. There was a lot of detail work that was done.”
Tony D’Amato, Lecturer of the Grange, whose family owns D’Amato Construction, is a real go-getter, with big ideas on improving the building inside and out, Ouimet said.
Bristol resident Makendra Mowad helped to build the “Justice for Desmond” memory garden. The small stone garden was recently dedicated to the memory of Desmond, a rescue dog that was killed by his adopter in the New Haven area, and to all animal victims of abuse.
At age 5, Makendra is the Grange’s youngest volunteer. She has pledged to help build a community garden to grow food to be donated to the local food banks.
Ouimet praised all the Grange members who helped to clear brush, cut trees, paint, clean, plant flowers and move rocks. The work cleared space to showcase the stone wall that has surrounded the property for centuries so it can now be seen.
“We have a great team and we are always looking for new members from local towns that would love to be part of it” said Ouimet. “We have many exciting events and projects coming up in the near future.”
“We service the Bristol and Waterbury areas, and a good chunk of our officers are from Bristol,” Ouimet added. “In the future, as Master of the Grange, I’m going to start looking into working with Bristol charities, since our mission is to help animals and local charities.”
The chamber also gave out beautification awards to Lyman Oaks and Attorney William Tynan, as well as the Sandy Marino Sr. Distinguished Service Award went to Judge Wilson Trombley and the Erma Costa Community Service Award to the Wolcott Food Pantry.
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