Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) December 20, 2023
We really appreciate your support!
The Grange has benefited greatly from the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall, which has enabled us to make major improvements in the Hall, since their founding in 2012.
We’ve gotten a really good start on this year’s “end of year” fundraising campaign for the Friends–but we still want to encourage you to give, if you can. We’ve heard back from about 2/3 of the normal responses so far. Like many other non-profit charities, we rely on contributions at this time of year. We know many people are writing checks to help others now, in tune with the “season of giving”. We sent out fundraising letters to a list of previous donors in early November, asking for help “refilling our bank account” after a couple of years that have really depleted our funds. It’s been for the best of reasons–we’ve been able to get a lot of big projects done in that time!
Where has the money gone? Just in the past 2 years, we’ve invested over $103,000 in major projects, which have the Grange Hall looking really good, more economical to operate and with a reduced carbon footprint. We were also able to raise over $2,700, mostly from the contra dance community, to provide at least a little relief for the 39 families who lost their manufactured homes in 2 mobile home parks in Berlin, as part of our Fall fundraiser. We’re proud to have made all of these investments in our Hall, and to have helped the people of our local community.
You can find the full list of the Grange Hall improvements that the Friends have helped to make, on the Donate page of the Grange website. We’d be happy to send you a copy of the fundraising appeal letter, if you didn’t get one–but on that page you’ll also see the “Donate Button”, conveniently located at the bottom of the page, which allows you to do just that, via Paypal! Questions? Send an email to me, Tim: swartztim15@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to answer them–and to put you on the list to get the appeal letter if you want, either in your mailbox, or via email.
In the fundraising letter, we also ask for your input on the next projects we will be taking on to improve our Grange Hall. We’d love to hear from you!