141 South 3rd Street, Hamburg, PA 19526
(610) 562-5933
Email: mjadams141@gmail.com
Meetings: 2nd Saturday, 4th Thursday
At the Hamburg Municipal Center
Hamburg Grange Newsletter May 2024
What is the Grange? The Grange is a family fraternal organization dedicated to the betterment of rural America through community service, education, legislation, and fellowship.
The Hamburg Grange #2103 was chartered on November 5, 2005, with 20 members. We currently have 27 members. We meet twice a month – generally the 2nd Saturday of the month at 4PM and the 4th Thursday of the month at 7PM in the Civics room of the Hamburg Municipal Center, located at 61 North Third Street, Hamburg, PA.
We are one of 10 Community Granges within Berks County Grange, and we are also associated with the Pennsylvania State Grange and the National Grange. We participate with the Berks County Grange by attending the quarterly meetings, Berks Heim visitations, the Oley Fair, and the County Chicken BBQ which is held the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the County Lottery calendar for the months of March and April, and County Junior camp. We participate at State Grange functions by attending the annual State Convention, Young Adults Weekend, Family Festival, and State Junior Camp. We have two members currently holding the office of Pomona and the Executive Committee for the Pennsylvania State Grange. We had one youth member participate in the 2012 National Grange session in Oklahoma and two youth members who were selected as Outstanding Young Patrons at the 2015 National Grange session in Nebraska.
We have sponsored bus trips to the PA Farm Show in January on opening day, since 2016. We have participated in the Hamburg Family Festival, the Hamburg Sidewalk Sale, the Reading Fair, and we used to hold a free movie at the Hamburg Strand on Mother’s Day weekend. We donate to various activities in the Hamburg area, such as the King Frost Parade and fire victims in the Hamburg borough. We donate to several causes, such as Berks Enduring Freedom, Berks Women in Crisis, the Wernersville State Hospital Christmas gifts, the Salvation Army Angel Tree gifts, different animal shelters, Veterans groups, etc. Some of our community service projects have included painting the flag pole at the Hamburg Public Library, building and maintaining the flower beds at the Our Town Foundation “Welcome to Historic Hamburg” signs. Starting with the 2014 November pot pie dinner, we have been giving a free meal to all veterans and active military with proper ID at one of our pot pie dinners every year.
We donated $3,500 to the Muscular Dystrophy Association in memory of Roy Heffner in February 2009. He was a very active member of the Hamburg Community and he was our charter vice president. In 2010, we provided a meal to all the soldiers and families from the Hamburg Armory at our February pot pie dinner. Proceeds from the February pot pie dinners are donated to various local organizations: the Hamburg Food Pantry and the Public Library (donated 25% to each in 2011), Berks County Crime Alert (donated $1,000 in 2012), the “One Wish Foundation”, an organization that grants a wish for an outdoor event for children with disabilities (donated $1,000 in 2013), Red Creek Wildlife (donated $1,000 in 2014). We donated $5,000 to the “Save Our Strand Campaign”, $3,000 of which came from the 2015 February pot pie dinner. In 2016, we donated all the proceeds to the Hamburg Public Library, which totaled $2,000. At the March 2017, we donated $2270, to Shanda Mengel, a local woman who is battling cancer, and a local girl scout troop will receive the proceeds from the bake sale for a trip to England to meet girl scouts from around the world. During May of 2018, we donated $2800 from our March pot pie dinner to Bonnie Henry, who battled Aplastic Anemia, she is a Hamburg Grad and was Army veteran, who served in the Middle East. In June of 2019, we donated $2600 to the Hamburg Salvation Army, because they did a lot to help citizens of Hamburg that had flooding issues in August 2018. In 2020, we started having Drive Thru Trunk or Treats at the Hamburg Field House with different vendors and that have provided many children a Happy Halloween. March of 2022, we donated $2449.75 to Keith Danenhower and Susan Behm, 2 individuals from the Hamburg Community that have been battling cancer. March of 2023, we donated $3,300 to the Hamburg Historical Society for their New Building Capital Campaign Fund. March of 2023, we donated $4,000 to Hamburg Fire Company Union #1.
Two of our newest projects involves donating books to the kindergarten students at the Perry and Tilden schools in the Hamburg School District. The book for 2022 was “Click Clack Moo Cows” and 2023 was “Dragons Love Tacos”. We started working with the TREX company to produce benches made from recycled plastics by collecting 1,000 pounds of plastics/bench, which will be placed around the Hamburg Borough for anyone to take a break.
We are the newest civic organization to the Hamburg Community and we are the only organization that includes all members of the family in our activities. As you can see, we are a small group with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We are always looking for new members, new ideas, and suggestions to make Hamburg a better place to live.
