The Granville Historical Society

Oral History Project 2001 - 2002

Welcome Table of Contents Search

Welcome
Top
Project Overview
Granville Timeline
Your Comments
Return to GHS

6) Volunteerism & Community Involvement

Road sign at northern entrance to Granville, 2005.                         William Holloway

Buckets hanging from village maple trees used to be a common sight in
February.  Today Granville Kiwanis only taps woodlot trees in the township
for making its famous maple syrup.          Granville Historical Society Archives.

Kiwanis Club

(Gib Blackstone)

I'm a charter member of the Granville Kiwanis.  We had 25 charter members at that time [ 1962 ].  There’s just four of us left:   Bill Brady, Baird Krueger, Joe McMahon and me.  In fact this year I’ll receive my 40-year regional honor plaque.  

They’re going to start tapping trees next Saturday up here at Carmathen Way and Joe McMahon’s.  I don’t know if whether they’re going to do it at the cemetery this year or not.  They do it different areas every year.  Last year they had pretty good syrup.  The year before they didn’t have anything.  And, of course, Kiwanis does the 4th of July.  I was chairman of that for 14 years.

Broadway is beautiful in the spring, 2004.                                                                    William Holloway

Garden Club

(Dorothy Mann)

I think Granville has an awful lot of going for it.  The Garden Club is doing the plantings in the town and at the Historical Society and at the entrances to the towns.  Somebody has succeeded in getting Granville to be designated as a Tree City.  And we have all the beautiful trees planted along the roadside to fill up the gaps that we had.  I think it’s going to be even more beautiful than it is now.  Certainly there are many dedicated people trying to keep Granville the way it is and the way they feel it should be. 

Granville Garden Club’s annual Daffodil Show is held at the College Town House, 2005.        
William Holloway

Meals on Wheels

(Brenda Mix)

I have volunteered to do Meals on Wheels for maybe twelve years now.  We deliver home cooked meals right out of the basement of the Methodist church, five days a week.  I usually drive on Wednesdays.  I meet a lot of the older citizens that way.  You get to go in and talk to them and some of them will share their life experiences with you.

Foster Wyant was my favorite because he just loved to talk.  He lived on East Broadway across from Mt. Parnassus and he was approaching his a hundredth birthday.  That’s what he wanted to live for.  He told me all about the history and politics of the east side of Newark.   He remembered everything and he was almost a hundred!  His mind was better than mine.  I loved him!

Friends of the Battered Women’s Shelter

(Carol Apacki)

Probably the thing I’m most proud of is when the battered women’s shelter opened, they were struggling financially and so a group of women met in Granville and decided that we would look for a way to financially support the shelter and to make sure that its doors would always be open. 

So we created a fundraising group where we would send out letters to people that we thought would support New Beginnings, the shelter and invited them to become Friends of the Shelter.  And in return, they would get a newsletter about the needs of the shelter.  So as it turns out we’re now almost fifteen, twenty years old and we have raised about $10-15,000 each year for the shelter.  And it’s turned out to be very critical for them because it’s uncommitted funds.  They can use the money in any way that they want.  And I’m still involved in doing the newsletter and keeping it going.

<- Back  /  Forward ->

        If you have website technical questions or corrections email Bill Holloway, at wehollo@gmail.com
        Copyright © 2008 Granville Historical Society
        Last modified: 02/07/08