Growing rural service organizations topic at Ralston Grange

RALSTON - Service organizations of every stripe seem challenged to keep or grow membership, and when the population of the area is small, finding the necessary bottle of vitamins might be elusive.

Ralston Grange hosted a community night Oct. 15 with an open forum to let rural community organizations brainstorm about getting enough people to commit in sustaining their projects.

"We had a group very much involved with scouts and another representing church organizations." said Ralston Grange President Jerry Snyder. "We had people who are Lion's Club members, Eagles Club members, and another fellow very much involved in four by four racing. Everybody is struggling because I think it's a lot easier, quite frankly, to grab your phone and Google it and be done, than to go and talk with people, although there is no substitute for experience. We had people very much involved in business and they're talking the same thing. They've never been able to fill out all their board members, (because) people just don't want to do it."

Are rural service groups plagued by volunteer burnout?

"That's one of the problems with any organization," Snyder said. "You get a new person in, and a lot of times you want to put them into an office or something. Wrong thing to do. They're good for about two, three years, and then they throw up their hands and quit. They want to be part of something, but they don't necessarily want to head up something."

Snyder said the same problem plagues fire departments and EMTs.

"Nobody wants to head it up," he said.

In this part of the country it's not unusual to see people wear multiple hats as employees or volunteers because it seems the only way to get work done.

"I forgot to mention teachers that are also coaches," Snyder said. "People wear so many hats. My son's a fireman as well as a fire commissioner, as well as having to be secretary of the association, because someone (else) won't take that... Pretty soon you just want to go far, far away, up near the Arctic Circle and just hide in a hole for a while, but if enough people participate, you don't get the burnout."

A significant draw for community organizations is the opportunity for socialization.

"A lot of people don't know their neighbors," Snyder said. "My closest neighbor happens to go here to the Grange. They live about a mile and a half away. And there's another couple that we've invited to do different things, and they won't participate. But if you have a fire, you can guarantee out here on the prairie that your neighbors are going to show up, whether you know them or not, they're going to help you. They're going to be a part of it. It's an agrarian society."

Snyder said the Washington State Grange is actually growing on the west side of the state.

"A lot of the millennials who worked for Microsoft and large companies over there wanted to build their own homesteads," Snyder said, "and they'll have chickens, or they want to raise some sheep, and they bump into the same issues as we farmers and ranchers bump into over here. So they have joined the Grange, I wouldn't say totally, but the Grange takes on all projects."

Snyder said there are a lot of regulations that inhibit agriculture at every level, "and there's a lot of people that we fight to try to keep our things active."

Snyder said most of the Oct. 15 discussion centered on community.

"Our full-time farmer membership would be fairly high, but active members, I would say about six or eight, when it used to be 50," Snyder said.

"There have been projects that we've been part of to fix and help with," Snyder said. "With that in mind, we try to meet the needs of the community, but I'm thinking we're going to have to get more politically motivated. It's not so much who you vote for, but what issues you want to focus on. And (we need to) get more people involved with (environmental) issues, I can't see electric tractors ever being a possibility, but that's being pushed pretty hard."

Snyder said residents are welcome to call him, "especially if they want to become a Grange member."