Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), November 27, 2019

We know this is not what your Thanksgiving Dinner looks like!       

But we all know that no delicious food gets prepared without generating some “leftovers”–even before the kids leave their vegetables on their plates.   For decades, we’ve been able to put food waste in the trash, where it ended up in what used to be “the dump”, and now is a sealed, supervised “sanitary landfill”. 
        In 2015, the Legislature passed Act 148, the “Universal Recycling” law, which has been moving us toward more and more recycling, and toward producing less “waste”.   Starting on July 1st, 2020, residents of Vermont will join the restaurant and institutional kitchens who have become subject to “mandatory composting” of all food waste.
       On Dec. 7th, we’ll help you get prepared by hosting 2 speakers from the Central VT Solid Waste Management District, Theron Lay-Sleeper and Dora Chi.  They will help us learn about options:

• Ways to compost food waste at home–including meat, fish and dairy scraps!
• Finding “haulers” who will pick up food waste–in some areas at least
• Finding drop-off locations for food waste
• How to keep your food waste from smelling up your home!

       There will be opportunities for discussion and question-asking too!
Saturday, Dec. 7th, from 5:00 to 6:00 PM
at the Grange Hall!

Followed by the Community Potluck Dinner at 6:00, bring your favorite dishes and share!

There will be a short, non-ritual “Executive Session” Grange meeting from 4:30 to 5:00, before the Food Waste program–all are invited to that as well.

What’s wrong with these boxes?

They’re not full of food!

You can help–by donating non-perishable food items, or making cash donations, we can fill up these boxes.  As the signs on them say, these are for our annual Holiday Dinners for Local Families food drive.   We’ll be providing a LOT of tasty food for 6 families, selected by Barre Head-Start, who need a helping hand to have a fun holiday season this year. 
     Merry has gotten Shaw’s to reserve 6 turkeys at a sale price already, which they are holding in their freezers, and a couple of donors have already stepped up with some “starter” food items.  Jacinthe, who ran the “Sweet Treats” workshop a couple of weeks ago has donated the honorarium we offered her to the food drive, too.  
      We’re looking for basics and also for fun food items that will be easy to prepare–last year we provided pie crusts and chocolate pudding, for example!   What would YOU like to have in your cupboard to make it easy and fun for the kids? 
      If you want to donate some money, we’ll buy some perishables when we’re getting ready to hand the boxes off to our friends at Head Start.
       So that’s how you can fix the problem we have with our boxes.

Don’t Forget!

Please join us for singing at 4:00 PM for singing, and 5:30 PM for Holiday Potluck, on Dec. 21st!
     Below is a picture from the holiday sing-along last December!  We never planned on a dress code, but note the number of red sweaters!

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), November 14, 2019

Jacinthe teaches us many ways to combine maple syrup, butter, flour, eggs, cream…all those tasty ‘gredients!       

On Saturday afternoon, one of the participants in the previous cooking classes at the Grange Hall stepped forward to lead a workshop herself.  Jacinthe Pellerin (second from the right in the photo above) collected recipes for “Quebecois Sweet Treats”, and showed us how to make them all.  These are all treats from her family and childhood, as part of the large French-Canadian community in central VT.   She was aided by her daughter Becky, and her sister came too, making sure that the family’s tastes were well-represented!
       Below are more photos, showing the 8 people who took part (plus a photographer from the Times Argus–watch for photos in Tuesday’s paper).  Jacinthe had us measuring ingredients, mixing, beating, heating, stirring, rolling out pie doughs–and eventually eating 5 different holiday-season treats.
         Thanks to Jacinthe and the rest of the workshop participants–who also told us to donate the fees for the workshop to the Grange “Holiday Food Boxes”  project!

Are you salivating?  Wishing you had signed up?   Keep your eyes open for future workshops–we’ve been talking about “International Soups” and other tasty options.  We’d love to hear what you would like to learn about–and if there is something you would like to teach others about!

Turn this:

Into This:

Helping those who need it–a Grange tradition       

For the past few years, the Capital City Grange community has collected donations–of non-perishable food items and also money–to overfill 6 large boxes.   Each of those sets of donations has gone to a family with kids, who might otherwise not have the special holiday meals that many of us take for granted.   Our partners at Washington County Head Start have found it all too easy to find 6 families in need, each year.
       This year, we’re doing it again.  Thanks to a generous donation from the “Sweet Treats” workshop (see above), and contributions from “Kids Trade & Play” attendees, we are well-started on the financial side.  We will have a large, decorated box at the Grange by this weekend, where you can bring boxes and cans of non-perishable food items, as well as donation containers for this specific project.   We will use financial donations to purchase perishable items–like the 6 turkeys which Merry got Shaw’s to reserve for us (at a sale price), and fruits and vegetables–as we get close to delivery time.
         The feedback we have gotten from our Head Start partners is that the families really enjoy getting these boxes.   You can share the warm feelings we get by donating a food item, or even a buck or two.  Every donation will make a difference!

Yet another holiday tradition at the Grange:   a holiday sing-along!      

We’re planning another participatory project, one that has been popular every time–a holiday sing-along!   Grange Musician Matt Nunnelly (yes, one of the Grange offices is “Musician”) and singer/Rental Agent/Treasurer Merry Shernock (yes, we have many multi-talented folks in the Grange, who wear many hats!) have scheduled Dec. 21st (winter solstice!) for this year’s version of our annual tradition.   We will combine it with a potluck dinner this year, and ask for food/financial donations..for the holiday boxes!  
       As we have in years past, Matt will take requests, doing his best to comply with the wide-ranging list of favorites which the group will contain.  We’ll have some song-books, and will likely project some lyrics with our digital projector, too. 
     Please join us for singing at 4:00 PM for singing, and 5:30 PM for Holiday Potluck, on Dec. 21st!
     Below is a picture from the holiday sing-along last December!  We never planned on a dress code, but note the number of red sweaters!

SHHH!         

I’m pleased to report that on Sunday, Oct. 27th, working with Sam Planck (above) and Merry Shernock, we were able to complete our planned acoustic panel installation!
        Sam is shown, below, completing installation of the 10 panels we filled with acoustic insulation, wrapped with fire-resistant acoustic fabric, and hung above the rest of the windows.   Farther below is a panorama showing one long wall, with all panels in place.  Please ignore the distortion of the wall, we didn’t bend it!
        At this point, we are getting kudos on the improvement this has made in the sound from a number of Grange users, including Grange members at our most recent meeting, participants in “Dance, Sing & Jump Around”, sound-people at the contra dance events, and others, and we don’t plan to install any more panels. 
        Please continue to let us know what you think about the acoustic environment!

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), October 21, 2019

Thanks for the help:  We’ve almost met the Challenge with our Fun-raiser, plus some ice cream!     

We thank the contra-dance community for supporting the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall, at the Oct. 5th dance, and then some more on Oct. 19th!   The first dance in October was billed as the finale of this year’s “Challenge” fundraiser to raise money for improvements to the Grange Hall.  Contributions at that dance brought the “matching contributions” up to $1,600, just a bit short of the $2,000 amount raised from generous early donors.   Then, generous folks at the dance last Saturday contributed or pledged another $200, so we are just $200 short of our goal!  We served most of the rest of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which they donated to the Friends for the fund-raising campaign at the break in the dance!
      Thankfully, none of our “Challenge” donors  has asked for the return of their contributions–so the Friends have been able to raise a total $3,800 to support the major renovation projects they organize in conjunction with the Grange.  With your help we can get the rest of the way! 
     Besides Ben & Jerry’s we especially want to thank Rob Nichols for the beautiful potted plants given away for donations, folks who donated the pot-luck dessert sweets and savories, and a small crew of decorating volunteers that included my son Marty Swartz, plus Patty Giavara.  But most of all, thank you! to everyone who donated.  We’ll have donation containers available at future dances, in case you missed the chance at the last couple of dances–you can drop off cash or checks, or you canalwaysdonate online, with your credit card or Paypal account–we try to make it easy!
     See below for preliminary schedule info for our next big Hall project, starting in December!
     Future projectsfor the FCCGH will include more hall improvements–for both sets of entry doors, even better acoustics, a wheelchair lift to the basement and stage, heating system upgrades and more. 
       The Grange and the Friends keep improving with everyone’s help!  Learn more at the Grange Website.

Your dollars will be hard at work–starting in December!   

We now have a schedule for the start of the major renovation of the basement:   Following Kids Trade & Play on Dec. 14th, we’ll start to clear space along the walls, cut-back the suspended ceiling support frame, and get ready for the major contracted work.
      Northern Basements will be working during Christmas week (starting Dec. 23)  to:

• Jackhammer a drainage trough on the East wall, and under the stair landing, to catch the foundation leaks that happen periodically.
• Install drainage channel in the trough, leading to a new sump and sump pump, which will drain to the outside.  It will be covered with new concrete.
• Install foam insulating panels on the cold, poured concrete walls everywhere except the kitchen.
• Foam the rim joists above the dropped ceiling, around the entire exterior (except the “new” bathrooms, where it was already done!).
• The Hall will be kept vacant for 24 hours after the foaming to allow any fumes to dissipate.
• Northern Basements will also provide a dehumidifier, to drain into the same sump.  We’ll install that after the sheetrock and painting are done on the walls.

Following that, other contractors install new electrical outlets, sheetrock over the foam panels, install wainscot or full-height fiberglass reinforced panels, trim out the panels, and install carpet tiles in the basement–except the kitchen and bathrooms, as you might imagine!
     We are counting on getting some volunteer help to keep our costs down–just like monetary donations, it all counts as “in-kind” matching for the grant money we will be receiving.   If you can help with prep-work, clean-up work, putting in ceiling tiles, painting, or any other way, please email Tim Swartz to get on the list.
     This whole project is being financed by a major grant from the VT Arts Council, which will cover half the cost–but we won’t receive that until after the project is done.   We are very grateful to the Vermont State Grange, which is providing us with a no-interest construction loan–we’ll pay them back (with many thanks) as soon as we receive the grant money.    The remaining half of the cost is covered thanks to donations from Grange users and supporters–people like you who want to keep improving our community Hall.   We couldn’t do it without you!

Equal Exchange–taking the next steps beyond selling coffee, chocolate & tea!

Our October 5th presentation, the first in our bimonthly format of longer “programs”alternating with full Grange meetings, was, shall I say, a delicious experience.
      Danielle Robidoux, an organizer with the co-operative, worker-owned company that is Equal Exchange, brought samples of chocolate varieties and nuts, a 5 pound bag of coffee, and interesting information about this Fair-Trade company, and their developing focus on ways to combat the consolidation of the food industry.
      Equal Exchange was one of the founding organizations of the Fair Trade movement, which prioritizes fair pricing and cooperative relationships with small farmers and producer co-ops.  They were founded over 30 years ago as a way to connect American consumers with food producers in developing countries.  You can read more about their “Standards and Practices” for Fair Trade business here.
     Since their founding in 1986, importing “Cafe Nica” from Nicaragua (then in the throes of throwing off a right-wing dictator, and subject to U.S. government intervention), Equal Exchange has become a major player in the importation of coffee, chocolate, teas, and most recently nuts and dried fruit–some of which we got to try out, thanks to Danielle’s samples!  Throughout their growth and evolution, they have pushed themselves to adhere to their own standards:  democratic involvement, fair and nurturing relationships with farmers, protection of farmworkers and their rights to organize, paying prices above the commercial market prices, and promotion of safe and sustainable farming practices.   Equal Exchange formally became a worker-owned cooperative soon after its founding, so the people who work there are also the ones who make decisions about the organization’s policies, as well as being the ones to do better if the co-op prospers.   This fits their principles that those doing the work should control the results of their hard work.
      Danielle also talked about the next stages of activism being promoted by Equal Exchange, and offered ways for anyone interested to be become involved.   In addition to supporting “authentic Free Trade”–more committed to purchasing from small farmers than plantation owners, and involving small farmers in the governance of trade–the organization is working to reduce monopolistic ownership of the food system, and its impact on farmworkers, small producers and consumers.   Danielle shared information about the vast number of seemingly independent “small brands” that are actually part of large, multi-national corporations, and how this concentration of ownership is “sucking the oxygen” out of the independent food economy, including EE.
      Among the immediate initiatives to counteract and reverse this trend, they are supporting the ” Food and Agribusiness Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2019″.  This legislation (S.1596/H.R. 2933) is designed to temporarily stop mergers and take-overs of food businesses, while carrying out a review of the impact of this trend on our food system, on the viability of small agriculture, small food distribution companies and consumer choice.  For more information, and for ways to get involved, check out their Anti-Trust Review Act page.  Danielle said that people can also email her for more info.  She also sent a link to her presentation, with the slides about all of these issues.
      On the Equal Exchange website, you can also find out much more about their history, their products–and how to get involved in any way you choose.   As a Grange, we support people getting actively involved in public policy discussions, local, regional and federal government–this is just that sort of opportunity.
      Our extended “program time” allowed a good amount of time for discussion, questions and more information; Danielle welcomed the chance to focus on the specific issues people wanted to know about.  We were happy to have her stay for our Community Potluck Dinner afterward, at which discussions continued.  She even stayed for a few contra-dances as well!
       Keep posted for information on our next community-involvement program at our December 7th meeting!

It’s time to complete the acoustic panels!  Join us on Sunday afternoon for a work party!       

We had 26 panels to complete–now we have only 10 left to fill with acoustic batts, wrap with fabric and hang in the Grange Hall.  
      The panels we have already hung have made a noticeable difference–appreciated by Grange meeting attendees, and by the sound-people at contra dances.  We’ll mount the last 10 panels above the windows, and expect a little more improvement.  
       We will supply staplers, cutting tools for the fabric, and hanging hardware.   We’ll start at 1:00 PM, and work until 4:00 if it takes that long.  Come and enjoy some shared work that will help us all!  Next Sunday, Oct. 27th is the date.

Next Grange meeting:  Nov. 2nd, 4:30 PM–with a Community Potluck at 6:00!

Our next meeting will be a full Grange meeting, with discussion of standard reports on the building, legislative affairs, agriculture, health concerns, etc.   We’ll be getting some longer-term financial reports as well, looking at rental trends, utility costs (has our new water heater saved us money?), heating costs, and more.   Part of having a Grange and a Hall is running a small business, and we need to look at our income and outgo to see how we are doing.  
      Happily, the Grange tradition also includes some sing-along opportunities during our meetings, so it’s not all poring over the ledgers; in face we do our best to have a bit of fun along the way.
       I will also be reporting on the VT State Grange session, just concluded on Oct. 19th, and the fate of the resolutions which were proposed–you can see the proposed ones here. 
       We’ll be going over the schedule for the basement renovation (see above) in more detail, and making sure we have minimal impact on our regular Hall users in the process.
        And we’ll be talking about plans for the next Program meeting on Dec. 7th.

     And–as noted in the title, it will be time for another excellent Community Potluck dinner at 6:00–always a good variety of tasty food options.  Bring your own contribution, be it a casserole or a jug of cider or a loaf of bread, it will be welcomed.   There is always interesting conversation to be had, and friendly people to meet.   You now you gotta eat anyway, come and join us!

Coming up:  Holiday Food Box donations!  
or, Merry got turkeys!

In 2018, we collected a great assemblage of holiday foods for donation to 6 needy families identified by Washington County Head Start, to help them enjoy the holiday season.   We plan to do the same this year; Merry has already gotten Shaw’s to promise to sell us 6 frozen turkeys and hold them for us in their freezers! 
       Now all we need to do is collect more donations, of non-perishable food items, and also money so we can purchase more of the “fixings” that will go with the turkeys.   Watch for donation boxes soon, and donation cans for this community service project too!

Sweet treats from Quebec on Nov. 9th–still time to sign up for the next baking workshop!

Our sign-up sheet is half-full, so contact us now to sign up to take part.   Our previous kitchen workshops on bread-baking and Indian cooking have sold out, as well as being much enjoyed.  Nov. 9th from 1:00 to 4:30 will be your chance to learn the arts of Quebecois holiday treats.
      Jacinthe Pellerin, who learned from her mother and grandmother, will be our guide to learning how to make:

• Pouding Chomeur (Poor Man’s Pudding)
• Tarte au Sucre (Sugar Pie)
• Grandpere (Dumplings in Maple Syrup)
• Pete de Soeur (Nun’s Farts, we kid you not)
• Sucre a la Creme (Cream Fudge)

      Space will be limited to 12 people!  Suggested donation of $20.00, to cover the costs of the workshop.  This is a hands-on workshop, bring an apron (we’ll supply a few too), and you will get to eat the treats too!
     To reserve your place, please email rentals@capitalcitygrange.org, or leave a message with name, phone number & email address on the Grange phone voicemail:  802-229-9425.    

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), October 3, 2019

Equal Exchange–bringing some of their coffee and tea to drink, and chocolates to sample!

We’re pretty sure all of you who read these Grange Notes eat; the popularity of our monthly potluck dinners reinforces that.   So we are especially pleased to present a program about food, and the food system, and how it can be improved.  This is the first of our alternate month longer programs, and we think the extra time for discussion this will allow is a good fit.   Because we know that people not only like to eat, they have opinions about food, how it is grown, how it is distributed, how much it costs, and its impact on everyone’s life.   Come to the Grange for a presentation and discussion, from 5:00 to 6:00 PM, on Saturday, Oct. 5th!

Many of us will have recognized the logo above, which is on quite a few packages of coffee, bulk bins of coffee, packages of chocolate and tea in local co-ops and food stores.   You may know, in general, what “Fairly Traded” means on that label–that the farmers who grew the crops are getting a reasonable return on their labor.  That is because Equal Exchange is set up to guarantee that by dealing directly with the farmers.

What you probably don’t know is the dedicated people behind that label, who jointly own Equal Exchange as a co-operative.  We’re luck to have one of them coming to visit us:

Danielle Robidoux has been an organizer at Equal Exchange for the past 3 years. A long-time food activist with a Masters in International Relations and Economic Development at Umass Boston, Danielle manages a community of 4,000 food activists across the US as part of Equal Exchange’s network. She is co-host of the Equal Exchange podcast The Stories Behind Our Food. Danielle has been one of the main organizers of Equal Exchange’s yearly Summits bringing together producer partners internationally, citizen-consumers, and worker-owners of Equal Exchange to sit around one table and grapple with issues plaguing our food system.

Danielle will be talking to us about the history of Equal Exchange and what they have been doing in the over 30 years they have been in business.  
She will also talk about their wider goals of making changes in the food system.   As part of their mission to improve the lives of farmers around the world, they see the current system as dominated by large corporations–from seeds to fertilizers to agricultural chemicals to marketing and transporting agricultural products to market.  What should change about this sort of dominance?   What can be done to change it?   Come on Saturday and let’s talk about it with someone who is directly involved in making changes.

Fun fact:  one of the major campaigns of the Grange, after its founding in 1867 was using the power of rural people united in the Grange to challenge the power of the railroads in transporting their harvests and controlling prices for transport and sale.   We’re going back to our roots with this issue!   Equal Exchange:  This organization was founded 30 years ago, to make “a closer connection between people and the farmers we all rely on”.   The 3 founders wanted to provide “fairness to farmers” by removing many of the middlemen, providing fair, direct payment to the people who produce the food, rather than profits to those who just pass it on. They work with democratically run farmer co-ops, purchasing coffee beans, cocoa and tea directly.  Equal Exchange, a cooperatively run, worker owned business itself, processes, packages and distributes the fairly-traded products to food co-0ps and other customers in the United States. Equal Exchange U.S. partners with Equal Exhange U.K., La Siembre (Canada), and Oke USA, which imports fair-trade bananas. For more information about all of these organizations, visit equalexchange.coop. Come to the presentation by Danielle Robidoux to ask questions and learn more!

And after the discussion…a potluck dinner!

In keeping with our theme of food, we encourage you to join us after the presentation by Danielle, for a Community Potluck dinner.  Our post-Grange meeting potlucks have drawn a lot of people to share a lot of food over the years.   Bring a dish to share (you can heat it up in our microwave or ovens in the kitchen downstairs), or a salad, beverage, chips, bread, cheese, dips, or whatever you’d like to–we generally have a good variety for all parts of the meal, and it’s all delicious.
Since you need to eat dinner anyway, make it a social occasion with your friends, neighbors and people you haven’t met yet.   We have all the plates, bowls and utensils we need–we wash the dishes together afterwards too.  Hope to see you there!

And starting a little later….the Fun-Raiser!  see more info (and more food) below.

Reminder:  Challenge Fun-raiser:  finishing up on Oct. 5th!     

This Saturday evening, we hope you will join the CDU and the dance community to support the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall.  The Oct. 5th dance will be the finale of this year’s “Challenge” fundraiser to raise money for improvements to the Grange Hall.  The Friends have gotten some very dedicated contributors to pledge  $2,000 this year, for the Grange and dance communities to match.
     If you don’t know the Friends, you should know at least the initials which you can put on your donation check:  FCCGH.  You should know that your contributions are tax-deductible, since it’s a 501(c)(3) organization.  And you should know that the Friends is not only non-profit, it’s all-volunteer–and all-dedicated to helping the Grange to renovate and improve the Grange Hall, which so many community members and organizations enjoy.
     The work of the FCCGH has brought us a new dance floor in 2012, new windows, new fire exits and bathrooms in 2014 & 2015, all through grants which the Friends have gotten.   This year, a grant from the VT Arts Council will finance a major renovation of the lower level, with water-leak remediation, wall and rim-joist insulation, a dehumidifier, new walls, ceiling panels and carpet tiles.   The Friends have to match the grant funding, though!
     Every dollar the Fun-Raiser brings in will go to renovation projects like these, that make the Grange stronger, more attractive, more sustainable and less expensive to maintain.
     We try to make donating a fun experience–without raising the price for the dance, this especially festive Fun-Raiser Finale at the Oct. 5th dance will feature holiday lights, a tote-board to watch the donations mount, and a great “dessert potluck” at the break.  The treats will feature Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and lots of tasty home-made sweet and savory snacks–contact Dana Dwinell-Yardley if you want to bring in a dessert, or just bring it in…and drop off a few bucks as you sample from the spread.  There are a couple of pictures from last year below, showing the hunger and enthusiasm of the crowd!

     Also, Rob Nichols, who has been a very dedicated supporter, will bring in even more of the lovely house-plants he has raised at his home.   He raises them just to give them away to donors at this fund-raiser finale!    I’ve put a picture of some examples from last year below as well.  Feel free to donate even more than Rob’s suggested contribution levels!
     Future projectsfor the FCCGH will include more hall improvements–for both sets of entry doors, even better acoustics, a wheelchair lift to the basement and stage, heating system upgrades and more.  You can bring cash or checks to the dances, or donate online, with your credit card or Paypal account–we try to make it easy!
The Grange and the Friends keep improving with everyone’s help!  Learn more at the Grange Website.

Baking workshop coming in November:  Sweet Treats the Quebecois way      

You can find out  how to make Poor Man’s Pudding without being poor, and Nun’s Farts, even if you don’t have a nun handy, at the next Grange kitchen workshop.
Mark your calendars, and sign up soon–Nov. 9th from 1:00 to 4:30 will be your chance to learn the arts of Quebecois holiday treats, and to enjoy eating them too!  Jacinthe Pellerin, who came to our previous Indian Cooking workshops will be the teacher, and everyone gets to pitch in.  Space will be limited to 12 people!  Suggested donation of $20.00, to cover the costs of the workshop.
     To reserve your place, please email rentals@capitalcitygrange.org, or leave a message with name, phone number & email address on the Grange phone voicemail:  802-229-9425.