10/29/2017
The fireplace is functional again!!
Keep the Home Fires Burning
The Windham County 4-H Foundation was recently awarded a $2,000 grant from the Last Green Valley’s small grants program for sharing and preserving our heritage. This award joins a $5,325 grant from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation and the 1772 Foundation which we received in March of 2017. These two grants allowed us to go forward with contracting repairs to the historic fireplace on the main floor of the lodge and to the chimney which were originally built in 1954 by famed local masons, the Wilcox brothers. The need for flue, ventilation and other repairs have prevented us in recent years from using the fireplaces for 4-H traditions that go back to the start of the camp program. Don Armstrong and his crew from Armstrong Chimney and Stoves company in Taftville, CT arrived on October 16 to do the necessary repairs. They were completed around noon on the 20th, just in time to welcome 45 teens to the lodge later that afternoon. The saying carved over the mantle says it all: “1954, Dedicated to Youth through the Generosity of Many”. The generosity of these three organizations continues the tradition of generosity that has fueled our foundation for the last 63 years and has helped us to preserve a historic resource that is the focal point of our lodge
