Home on the Grange

ROUND BUTTE — If you’ve been somewhere in Lake County, whether it be an extended care center, elementary school or the Museum of the Rockies, there’s a good chance that the Round Butte Grange has been there as well and made it a better place. This weekend, they continued that trend.

On Saturday, Feb. 25, seven individuals cramped into Zippers and Patches, the small shop owned by Darlene, Ray and Larry Salomon, and spent about seven hours putting together bibs and ditty bags for some area organizations and extended care centers.

The workers received donated hand and body towels from the KwaTuqNuk Resort and Casino, then cut and sewed black ribbon onto the towels, making about 50 bibs for St. Luke’s Extended Care and 40 for Mountain View. They also made 40 ditty bags for DOVES and Safe Harbor, donated with a hygiene packet including a washcloth, toothpaste, soap and shampoo, as well as toys for kids.

“It’s a need that needs to be done,” said Larry Salmon, member of the Round Butte Grange.

The Round Butte Grange is the organization behind this community service, as well as many more. In existence since 1938, the grange is devoted to helping their community any chance they get.

“We’re always looking for stuff the community needs and members to help us,” Larry said.

The individuals working on Saturday included members and volunteers looking to make a difference in Lake County. Bibs, which have been donated to multiple extended care facilities on more than one occasion, are obviously bigger than a baby’s counterpart, but serve the same purpose: to help keep clothes clean for the elderly while eating.

The grange goes beyond just bibs and ditty bags, of course. They have also made hats for Camp Mak-a-Dream, a Missoula-based camp for individuals affected by cancer. They’ve donated dictionaries to all the third-grade students in Lake County, as well as Dixon. And they’ve made sizeable monetary donations, including $500 to the Boys and Girls Club to boost funding for a new building, $100 per year to the 4-H Club for awards at the fair for over three decades and $5,000 to the Museum of the Rockies in Ronan to help with various issues.

Oh, and if that isn’t enough, they were instrumental in the water system in Round Butte, as well as the paving of Round Butte Road.

They also offer a scholarship to high school seniors and college students. The first time an individual applies, they need not be a grange member, though if they decide to re-apply, must be a part of the group.

“The big thing is you have to have good community work,” Larry Salomon said. “You don’t have to be a straight-A student. It helps, but the biggest thing we look at is need.”

The scholarship is another way the grange has reached out to non-members. With declining numbers and an increasingly older group of members, the grange is hoping to get new blood to join.

“We really, really need to get new members because we’re all getting too old,” Darlene Salomon said.

Saturday was about the construction of items for local organizations, however. The get-together was the second time the group had congregated to help out their fellow neighbors this year.

Those members are still going fairly strong, as evidenced by their contributions not just over the weekend, but throughout the years. Wherever you go in Lake County, it seems like the Round Butte Grange has been there already and done something to make it better.