On an overcast October day in 1973, I stood on the side of the road on Chicopee Street. I was a 9-year-old boy taking a breather on the nine-mile “Hike for Dufresne Park.” Accompanied by Father Shea, the parish priest at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 30 of us had stopped at the second of four rest stops for lemonade and a snack.

Two hundred and fifty-two of us completed the trek that began and ended at the Granby Town Common. The few who dropped out were in kindergarten and first grade. The hike was made possible through the hard work, organization, and enduring sense of purpose of Granby’s PM Club — the evening division of the Women’s Club — we raised a total of $2,479 that day, the equivalent of $17,500 today.

The PM Club had taken the initiative to raise money for a playground at Dufresne Park, recently acquired through the generosity of the Dufresne family and a federal grant. The hike was truly a community effort. The schools distributed the pledge forms. McDonald’s and Burger King donated refreshments. The Granby Credit Union accepted the deposits of the money we collected.

But none of it would have happened without the PM Club.

The PM Club, which formed in 1950 with 22 members, was sponsored by the Granby Women’s Club, an affiliate of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) founded in 1890. “The object of the club,” according to its bylaws, was “to secure all possible social and intellectual advantages for its members; to consider vital community problems in a practical way; and to help in community projects.” By 1973, more than 40 women belonged to the club.

Gathering evenings (the PM) in each other’s homes, they elected officers, and
planned fundraisers, mostly for local, but some state and national, causes. Occasionally, they hosted guest speakers. In the late 1960s and 1970s, they produced a cookbook so popular it went into a second printing. The club raised money for the Willie Ross School for the Deaf and funded the construction of tennis courts at the high school. They were a civic powerhouse.

The PM Club wasn’t the last group of women to realize big projects.

At the end of the 1980s, one group raised tens of thousands of dollars, organized dozens of volunteers, and constructed a wooden playscape that lasted a generation at Dufresne Park. When the wooden playscape was superseded by safety regulations and its toxic building materials, another ad hoc group, again of women, organized and constructed the current playground at Dufresne Park. They raised over $100,000, received a $50,000 grant from the town, and again coordinated dozens of skilled and unskilled volunteers to put it all together.

The accomplishments of these women were impressive, particularly given the
lack of an existing organization. Nonetheless, they proved that when members of our community organize, we get things done, big things.

Waiting for leaders to emerge on the spur of an opportune moment, however, is not a strategy for continuously improving our lives and our community. Granby, and I’m sure, other towns have no shortage of volunteers today. What we lack is the organization once provided by civic associations like the PM Club.

Conversations that lead to consequential projects are less likely to happen without groups of interested people regularly conversing, identifying problems, and planning solutions. The “social and intellectual advantages” necessary for ongoing progress just aren’t there.

I’m now in my fourth term as a selectman, privy to the everyday successes and missteps of town government. I know how much we get done, how much we do not get done, and how much we can never get done. We just don’t have the resources.

In fact, we never did.

Government, good government, is crucial to community progress.

But government is never enough.

And ad hoc groups, even with their enthusiasm and effectiveness, are not enough. We need volunteer organizations that don’t dematerialize after projects are completed or issues are resolved. We need ongoing organizations like the PM Club, dedicated to the continuous improvement of our communities. Building and rebuilding will not be easy. Membership in existing civic organizations has been in decline for 50 years. Like the PM Club, some have ceased to exist altogether.

There are no simple solutions to civic reconstruction. Progress begins with people coming together, discussing their communities, and identifying problems. Progress happens when we organize.

Mark L. Bail chairs the Granby Select Board. He is in his fourth term. After 32 years teaching high school, he retired in June.