A farmers market does not just appear on Main Street. Someone has to find the vendors, spread the word and organize it.
Neither does an Easter egg hunt, pool party, town festival or soap box derby. Even something as simple as a community calendar requires someone to gather the information and make sure residents know what is happening.
Across Clay County, many of the people doing that work belong to community clubs.
Harvard has one. Clay Center has one. So do Edgar, Deweese, Fairfield and even Ong, one of the smallest communities in the county.
What those clubs actually do looks a little different in every town.
Community clubs are generally volunteer organizations made up of residents who work together to promote their town, organize activities, support community projects and create opportunities for people to come together. Perhaps the easiest way to understand what they do is simply to look around Clay County.
In Harvard, the Community Club helps create opportunities for residents to gather while bringing activity into the community. The club has organized a downtown farmers market, providing a place for vendors to offer fresh produce, baked goods and handmade crafts. It also coordinates visits from food trucks.
Those activities give residents another reason to stay local, see their neighbors and spend time in their own community.
Clay Center’s Community Club fills some different roles. The club recognizes residents through its Yard of the Week program, has hosted an end-of-the-year pool party and produces a community calendar.
The calendar gathers information about school activities, Legion meals, city and fire department meetings, recycling events and local business activities, helping residents keep track of what is happening around town.
In Deweese, the Community Club helps organize some of the events and traditions that give the village its personality. Activities have included Fourth of July fun such as a soap box derby and Duck Derby as well as the annual Deweese Festival, which has featured a color run or walk, antique tractor pull and demolition derby.
Community activities in Deweese have also been used to help others. The Jim Sykora Memorial miniature golf tournament has raised money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and area cancer patients.
Fairfield’s Community Club helps bring different parts of the town together. The Triple F Festival has included citywide garage sales, sand volleyball, a car show, food trucks, live music and family activities.
Other organizations and businesses participate as well, including Fairfield Fire and Rescue, Friends of the Fairfield Library and the local baseball program. One activity, “Quackin’ Through Fairfield,” turns a family scavenger hunt into an opportunity to discover stories about the town’s history.
In Edgar, the Community Club helps provide activities throughout the year. The club has sponsored an Easter egg hunt as well as a Midnight Splash at the Edgar pool during Edgarfest.
The annual Edgarfest celebration also demonstrates how community events can bring many organizations together, with local businesses, churches, civic groups and the fire department all contributing activities.
Even in Ong, one of Clay County’s smallest communities, the Community Club plays a role. The organization shares community news, announcements and updates, helping residents stay connected to what is happening in their village.
The examples are different, and that may be exactly the point.
A community club does not come with a required list of duties. It becomes what its town needs it to be.
What about Sutton? Sutton does not have an organization called a community club, but many of the same functions are handled through the Sutton Chamber of Commerce.
Traditionally, a Chamber of Commerce has a stronger focus on businesses and economic vitality, while a community club may have a broader civic focus. In small towns, however, those lines often overlap.
The name on the organization may matter far less than the work being done.
Whether the group is called a Community Club or a Chamber of Commerce, the common denominator is people willing to give their time to their town.
A farmers market, pool party or community festival may look like entertainment, but those activities also give people a reason to gather. They create memories for children, opportunities for new residents to meet neighbors and another reason for people to spend time in their own community.
Perhaps most importantly, these organizations provide somewhere for an idea to go.
Someone can say, “Wouldn’t it be fun if we...” and there are other people around the table who might answer, “Let’s do it.”
Residents may enjoy the farmers market without knowing who made the phone calls. Children hunt Easter eggs without thinking about who filled them. Families arrive at a festival without seeing the meetings, fundraising and planning that happened beforehand.
But someone did it. Across Clay County, community clubs, the Chamber and countless other volunteers provide some of those “someones.”
Sometimes making a small town a better place does not take hundreds of people.
It just takes a few people willing to show up.
