| April 1, 2021 -- Apr. 2: Friends of American Legion and Peoples State Forest (FALPS) Board President Ralph Scarpino May 7: Youth & Junior Program
Riverton Grange continues to play a valuable role in the local community despite this horrific pandemic. We meet monthly via Zoom with members attending from as far away as Florida.
For our March 5th meeting, the Legislative Comm. was responsible for the program and Phil Prelli arranged for newly elected State Rep. Mark Anderson (62nd District) from Granby (formerly from Hartland) to speak virtually to our grange members about the current legislative session and proposed legislation of interest to Grange members. On March 8th, the Grange filled a “tote bag with kindness” (food, drinks, candy and games) for the upcoming Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities (ECAD) Client training class to be held in early April in Winchester. Clients come from all over the United States for a 13-day training class during which they are matched with their forever service dog and each client is furnished a tote bag of kindness when they arrive on campus. The Grange was the FIRST group or family to complete filling their tote bag which included a card from the Grange wishing the client well and letting them know that the Grange was rooting for their success. ECAD service dogs are taught skills for supporting individuals with physical or mental challenges, including veterans with PTSD.
On March 17th, our Grange participated in our 8th USDA Farmers to Families Food Box distribution program, collaborating with the Town of Barkhamsted, Barkhamsted Senior Center, Barkhamsted Lions Club, and Northwestern CT Cyber Lions Club. For this event, we delivered over 3,000 pounds of food and milk to 100 local families! Barkhamsted First Selectman Don Stein designated our Grange Community Services Chair as the town POC for food distribution and for the eight events we have distributed over 25,000 pounds of food and milk. Recently, a local couple saw an article on our 7th food distribution event and contacted the Grange to donate a $50 gift card for a local family with food insecurity.
On the third weekend in March, the Grange promoted the Statewide Maple Weekend after State Master George Russell discussed the importance of the maple syrup industry to our local agricultural economy. For this weekend, Grangers were encouraged to visit a local Sugarhouse.
The Grange continues to collect jars of peanut butter (no xylitol) for the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation (Bloomfield, CT) that uses it to train their seeing guide dogs. To date, we have collected over 100 jars. One member from Florida donated cash to the campaign which resulted in the frugal purchase of 32 jars of peanut butter. Collection boxes are located on both the Riverton Grange porch and the Barkhamsted Senior Center porch.
Recently, our Community Services Chair met with the Barkhamsted Community Food Bank and learned that their greatest current need is toilet paper, Kleenex and paper towels. Of course, our Grange family and community sprung into action and donated over 100 rolls of toilet paper, 2 dozen rolls of paper towels and over 1 dozen boxes of Kleenex.
At our next meeting on April 2, the Grange will vote on our 2021 Community Citizen Awards. It will be difficult to pick just two honorees this year.
Plans are underway for our 2021 Riverton Grange Fair in August. Brother Dennis Jasmine will again serve as Chairman of the Fair this year and our very first Chair from many decades ago, Laura Marek, has been chosen to serve as Fair Secretary. Lecturer Raine Pedersen will also greatly support the fair, which we still hope can be held in person at our Grange Hall.
If you would like to “visit” our Grange for an upcoming meeting, just e-mail Community Services Chair Dave Roberts at dave@daveroberts.org or call him at 858- 775-9241 for the Zoom details. We love visitors! Now, go get those COVID-19 vaccines so that we can hopefully get back to “normal” real soon.
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