EASTHAMPTON — While American Legion Post 224 of Easthampton will continue to survive, the organization recently closed on a deal to sell its headquarters on Pleasant Street to a Williamsburg farm that offers hydroponically grown produce and salvaged and antique wood products.
Pause & Pivot Farm owners Terry and Miana Hoyt Dawson say they will use the building at 190 Pleasant St. as its new “home base.” They bought the building for $750,000 from the Legion, which put its headquarters on the market last fall amid a decline in bar customers and a lack of new members.
While planning is still underway, the Dawsons plan to transform the building into a multiuse space that expands the farm’s mission of connection, creativity and community.
“We’re excited to be calling Easthampton our new, ‘home base,'” Terry Dawson wrote in an email to the Gazette.
Founded in 2021, Pause & Pivot Farm has provided hydroponically grown greens, artisan baked goods and handcrafted woodworks for retail and individual customers from its 19th century farm at 74 South St. Terry Dawson wrote in a statement that the acquisition of the building offers the opportunity to expand the farm’s reach further across the region.
Dawson said while he and his wife continue to envision what the new space will look like, they will be attending a Planning Board meeting in the near future to begin initial conversations with the city.
As for the American Legion, Commander of Post 224 of Easthampton, Charles “Chuck” Duffy says the post as an organization is downsizing but will continue to survive.
“We’re not going away,” Duffy said. “We’ll be a functioning organization, we will help out as much as we can to carry out the programs we have in place.”
Duffy said the legion has a one-year agreement with the Dawson’s to allow members to continue hosting meetings on the second floor of the 190 Pleasant St. building. Additionally, Terry Dawson said they are open to remaining a drop-off location for retired American flags and hosting the handful of veteran-based organizations that have used the space.
Duffy said the Legion will search for a new meeting location in the meantime. He said the Legion, which operates as a nonprofit, has not been able to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Legion bought the Pleasant Street building in 1950 for $1 from a Korean War veteran, and the space has served the group well, Duffy said.
“We’re not really happy to have to do it, but we had to,” Duffy said about closing.
Former commander of the Post and current member Kevin Miller said that the bar, which serves as the Post’s main source of income, has not been making enough to pay the bills. Along with financial hardships, he said there has also been a decline in membership largely due to a lack of younger veterans joining.
“I hope that whatever membership we still have will want to get involved in the community — the parades, military funerals, things like that,” Miller said. “The guys are getting old. We’re not getting any new blood.”
Both Duffy and Miller emphasize that the Legion will still be in the community, hoping to take part in parades, fundraisers and other events, while also connecting with other veterans organizations.
“The legion is not going away, we’re just downsizing,” Miller said. “We’re still going to be in the community and I hope that the community supports the organization.”
Easthampton Veterans Agent and agent for the legion, Thomas Geryk, said Post 224’s decline is nothing out of the ordinary for veterans organizations. He said many of these organizations have been experiencing difficulties finding new members and have had to reevaluate their models.
“Veterans clubs and organizations these days are not thriving as they did in the past,” Geryk said. “Number one, we have a shrinking veterans population and in the past, a lot of these clubs were built in a bar setting.”
Geryk explained that particularly before the 1980s, it was socially acceptable for families to go to bars to drink and smoke while bringing their children, but that is not an acceptable situation anymore.
To survive, he said veterans organizations need to start focusing on family-oriented models through fundraisers and events to turn a profit, moving away from bars to provide their sole funding.
“You can’t get enough clientele into the bars to get people in the doors and keep it profitable,” Geryk said. “I think veterans organizations have to find different ways to be profitable.”
Geryk said the Legion has done well providing cookout fundraisers in the recent past and he hopes to help plan further events.
“It’s sad that we lost the building because of the history of it, but it’s also somewhat of a relief given the overhead that came with it to keep everything open,” Geryk said.