Losing a home

This is the story of my Grange.
If you don’t know what that is, here is a definition:
It’s a fraternal organization in the U.S. that consists of families coming together to promote economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture.
Or more simply:
We do things to help our community.
I have many fond memories of that place.
I met some of my first friends there.
I’ve done so many activities as a kid there.
I was a part of the Junior Grange.
I remember when my Grange still had that.
One of the biggest memories I have is going to Grange camp.
I’m still friends with some of the people I met there.
They were from other towns and other Granges.
Then I turned 14 and was old enough to join my sister and parents in the Subordinate Grange.
Being with the adults somehow made it all more real.
I started noticing just how few members there are.
I was a part of all the important discussions that the Grange talked about.
My family started a tradition of building a haunted house every Halloween at the Grange for kids to go through.
I have so much fun designing and creating it.
It has become sort of a legend around here.
Everyone who comes loves it as much as we do.
I just wish we would get that many people for the other things we do.
My Grange used to do a free community dinner followed by bingo once every month.
We used to get a lot of community members to come to these.
It was really nice doing this for my town.
I’ve done it so many times that once the numbers began to dwindle, it shocked me.
Not many people were coming anymore, and we were not gaining any new people from the community.
We used to do a lot of fundraisers to raise money and have fun with the town.
We needed to if we wanted to pay the bills.
But now, no one wants to support us anymore.
We try to do so much in this community to help and have fun.
Yet no one shows up.
It makes me want to cry.
I just don’t know what happened.
Everyone just lost interest.
And with that, I’ve lost a home.

Marina2020

VT

YWP Alumni

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