Stelvideo Grange along with their Juniors and Youth are very busy right now getting everything ready for our 3 big Fair Booths at The Great Darke County Fair. Our Fair is 9 days long and we man our Promotional Booth all 9 days, 12 hours each day. We have a Junior / Youth / Young Adult / Deaf Booth and our Stelvideo Subordinate / Family Activities / Pomona / Deaf Booth and the size of 3 booths total to make our Promotional Booth. In our Promotional Booth, not only is someone there at all times, but we have all kinds of Grange information plus we give away Free individual Recipes with Grange info on the back, Free Candy, Free Deaf Activity Sheets, Free Coloring Sheets, Free Activity Sheets and we pass out Free Ear Plugs for the Tractor Pulls and the Demo Derby. We also have extra chairs and lots of fans for people to come in and sit to relax, maybe eat, or to just cool off.  It gives us an opportunity to talk to them about the Grange.  They always bring it up.  It’s a lot of work but work well rewarded!!  

Fraternally Submitted,

Lynne Hinshaw

What a busy year for such a small Grange! From our 142nd Ohio State Convention through Thanksgiving and Christmas with all the Community Service projects we did, like donate nonperishable items and money to FISH, local Food Bank, Adopting a single Father with 2 children to writing out Christmas Cards for Residents at our local Nursing Home; to participating in GRANGE MONTH in April where we had a Grange Month Proclamation signed by Mayor Mike Bowers to hosting an open program for DOGS FOR DEAF where we had 6 non Grange members attend to hosting an Awards Celebration where we honored a local newspaper reporter who has an incredible life story himself to recognizing and honoring WWII Veteran with a National Grange Certificate. He had very meaningful and touching stories to tell which everyone enjoyed very much! We also had a local mens group to entertain us along with donated deserts by Savorie Delights. And now, we are getting ready for our county fair. We are putting in 2 booths this year plus our huge Promotional Booth! We are very proud of our booths and receive lots of compliments! We pass out free candy, have free Grange contest Recipes with information about the Grange on the back that we pass out for free, we also give away free ASL activity sheets, activity papers and coloring pages. We have a great place for people to come in to relax a bit with cool fans and a place for them to eat if they choose. We have just a few weeks to get all our crafts done and everything ready to share with the public “HOW GREAT GRANGE IS!” Then after the Fair is over, we only have a couple months until we have made full circle for the year and we are back to Ohio State Convention…..143rd!!

Stelvideo Grange had 3 members attend all 4 days of our OHIO STATE 142nd GRANGE CONVENTION at The Ramada Plaza in Columbus,OH.  We had one member fly in from Washington DC to attend for 3 days; and a member who came to help with the Hospitality Room and another member who came for Sunday.  It was a great time with our Grange Friends!

We all learned at lot and enjoyed very much our National Grange Master!  Ed Lutrell was a great motivational speaker!!  And very personable!

 We took 5 crafts to be judged, 3 Junior Crafts and 2 Youth Crafts, and brought home 2 First place, 1 Second place, 1 Third place, and 1 Fifth place.

Stelvideo won “GOLD STAR” for our Community Service Report!! And won “MERIT” Award for our Junior Grange Deaf Report.

We have a member on the Fundraising Committee for the Deputies.

And a member who won 2 raffle ticket gifts from the Deaf Activities.

Everyone really liked and enjoyed the Hospitality Room we as Stelvideo Grange did.  We had 27 dozen cookies from Stelvideo members, 26 dozen from Stark County, Brownies and Cookies from Miami County Deputy.  We had chips donated and Cheeseball and Crackers from Miami County Deputy.  We had individual variety of chips (60), 2 big bags of veg straw chips ( used 3/4 bag), celery (1 gal ziplock – used 3/4), carrots (2 gal ziplock – used 1)ranch dressing, salsa (3 jars – 3/4 of large one used) chips, hot Nacho Cheese (med crock pot – used 1/2) Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip (big crock pot – used 3/4)  Cold Nacho Dip (4 pans – used 2) Apples (1/2 bushel – used 1/2) 4 gallon Apple Cidar, 2 gallon Unsweetened Iced Tea (ran out of drink —  plus someone brought a gal or 2 – and no water from hotel)and Coffee.    We got compliments all through out the day and some the whole weekend.  We donated extras to YOUTH.   Stelvideo donated $50 with 4 of our members donating 4 dozen cookies each, a member who donated the 4 cold nacho dip and the buffalo dip, and Darke Deputies donating 4 gal apple cider, 2 gal iced tea, 4 dozen sugar free cookies, the plates, napkins, coffee cups, and drink cups, the ranch, and half of the ind chips And the mini pumpkins and gourds for decorations.  Drownings donated the apples.

Grange Conventions are so great!! They are the Heart of the Grange!!  Can’t wait til National Grange Convention.

Stelvideo Grange has put in Fair Booths for as long as I can remember, and that’s been at least since 1982.  At that time, the week before the fair, our Grange Hall Building at the fair was filled with all our Darke County Granges putting in booths, 8 booths.  Lots and Lots of Laughter!!  Grangers helping Grangers!  It was great! Now, we put in 2 booths.  One is filled with Youth, Juniors, Pomona, Family Activities, Stelvideo; the other is our Promotional Booth, which is a huge great booth!  We sell our county’s cookbooks, give out free recipes with Grange Trivia on the back, free candy, free coloring pages, free sign language & deaf activities, free Grange Comic books, plus Grange applications and information flyers.  We have a table and chairs for fairgoers to sit and relax, to eat, take a break and to cool off with fans available. And on Tractor Pull nights, we pass out free earplugs.  We sit in the booth all 9 days of the fair from 10 AM to 10 PM.  We are there to answer any questions or just talk about the Grange.  It’s a great way to show our enthusiasm about all the great things the Grange has to offer and what the Grange means to each of us!  

Stelvideo Grange met on April 8th at their normal meeting place and time to celebrate GRANGE MONTH by having Guest Speakers sharing and educating us on Deaf Awareness.  We brought snacks and had a really good time!  We all learned a lot!

Next meeting, May 13th @ 7:30.  This is our Memorial Service Program which will be presented by Ron and Lynne.

Harvey & Lynne will work on getting newspaper articles and pictures in the local newspapers.  They will also try to get with Mayor Mike Bowers to make a GRANGE MONTH PROCLAMATION.

OHIO STATE GRANGE 141st  BIRTHDAY — APRIL 9, 1873

MARCH 22            DEAF & FAMILY ACTIVITES CONF @ FRIENDLY HILLS

 APRIL      “GRANGE MONTH”       “GRANGE MONTH”      “GRANGE MONTH”

APRIL 8TH            STELVIDEO MEETING — GRANGE MONTH (LYNNE)             This will be a Special Community Service / Grange Deaf Awareness 

APRIL 9TH                                  OSG  141ST BIRTHDAY 1873

APRIL 12         COMMUNITY SERVICE/LECTURER CONF @ FRIENDLY HILLS

APRIL IS GRANGE MONTH!  Stelvideo Grange is planning events to celebrate Grange and to make others aware of all the Good Grange Fellowship, Family, & Fun can be!  

April 8th, our next meeting, we will have guest speakers for GRANGE MONTH on DEAF AWARENESS.  Bring snacks and be at normal meeting place at 7:30.  We will discuss a few business things then turn the evening over to Linda Crawford and Jared A.    Bring  family and friends.  

There will also be articles in the newspapers explaining about Grange, giving information, sharing Darke County’s involvement which includes the Youth and the Junior Grange.  

Stelvideo has 3 going to Eastern Regional Youth/Junior Conference in Washington DC during April, Grange Month.  April 4 – 6.  

If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know.  

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The Grange is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in more than 2,100 hometowns across America. We have nearly 150 years of history, a spirit of grassroots advocacy, and a fraternal spirit that we’re happy to share with you.

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