![geneva pa. ioff grange hall geneva pa. ioff grange hall](http://chazzcreations.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Felton_Caswell_Waters.18193041_std.jpg)
If these halls are successful in beating back the Grange, it would be a first. They resist it because they don’t want to be Grangers, but they also don’t want to lose their halls. One hall leader said the organization feels cultish. They resist it because they believe the Grange no longer represents their communities’ interests, and because it honors traditions and rituals that locals find off-putting. They resist it because the California Grange didn’t buy and hasn’t maintained the properties - local communities did. The same conflict has risen at community halls across the state, and Freshwater Community Guild, as well as three other halls in Humboldt - Bayside Community Hall, Van Duzen River Guild and Fieldbrook Community Hall - continue to resist the Grange. So the State Grange sued for their property. The California State Grange chapter wants Freshwater’s hall to become a Grange once again, and they want its volunteers to become Grange members, or Grangers.īut locals don’t want to. Until several years ago, Freshwater Community Guild was part of the Grange, a nationwide organization founded in 1867 to advocate for farmers and rural communities. “It’s very much a part of my reality, my world.”īut Freshwater Community Guild - formerly known as the Freshwater Grange - might close its doors. “I just can’t imagine it not being there,” she told the Outpost. And for generations, folks have known that missing the monthly pancake breakfast means missing the latest local gossip, Myers’ mother, Mary Myers, who has been the organization’s secretary for more than 30 years, told the Outpost.Īnd so for Myers, it’s hard to talk about the Freshwater community without talking about the hall. Every Halloween, the hall is a warm, festive refuge for families taking a break from Freshwater’s epic trick-or-treating scene. Thousands have do-si-doed on the hall’s wood floors over decades of dances. | Photos by Jacquelyn OpalachĪnd then there’s the fact that the hall is the only public space Freshwater has for neighbors to connect.
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Kiddos have been graffitiing backstage at Freshwater Community Guild since the 1910s.