DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Greenford Ruritans are improving their corner of the world

The busy, rain-washed streets of Boardman disappeared, replaced by the long and lonely roads leading to Green Township. Where minutes earlier, bustling strip stores and crowded parking lots had been the rule, now cornstalks and weatherworn barns marked the landscape.
As I parked behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church, I saw a man leading a camel -- the first camel I'd ever seen not on a television or movie screen.
"You're not in the city anymore," said Paul Kane, an old friend, as he gave me a hug.
He led me inside the church to a crowded meeting room that smelled of Easter dinner.
Togetherness
The Greenford Ruritans, men who, if they had not chosen to work the farmlands, had at least chosen to live on them, sat shoulder to shoulder. Ladies of the church, volunteers for the evening, bustled between two long tables, carrying bowls of scalloped potatoes, coleslaw, carrots and plates of sliced ham to the some 60 present.
Among them were about a dozen guests -- including men and women of the Green Township Volunteer Fire Department who were there to receive a donation check. The evening was planned for that purpose: to distribute some of the money contributed and collected by the Greenford Ruritan Club.
"All the money from our Ruritan goes back into our community," Kane explained.
Angels for Animals, Boy Scout Troop 116, scholarship-seeking South Range High School seniors, local churches, local DARE programs, athletic boosters, music boosters, Future Teachers of America and the Greenford Public Library are on a much longer list of people and groups who benefit from the Greenford Ruritans.
They sponsor a student from their community to attend Buckeye Boys State and another to attend Buckeye Girls State each year -- a statewide program designed to teach citizenship to our youth. Bibles and dictionaries are purchased for high school seniors, and the football and basketball programs benefit as well.
It is surprising how wide their charitable hand stretches.
"We built a wheelchair ramp for someone last year," Kane said. "Members bring in ideas, like a boy in one of the schools who needed glasses. Things like that I enjoy the most."
The Ruritans raise funds by selling food at the Canfield Fair and dog show. Their fair net was $15,700 this year, "down from last year, but more than our community had before," Kane said.
Kane, who works as a lab technician at V & amp;M Star Steel, enjoys another aspect of the fellowship. "We all donate time, too, taking tickets at the sporting events," he said. This, in turn, saves the athletic program money.
"It's nice to put something back into the community," Kane said.
Ruritan clubs form in small towns and rural communities throughout the United States. The organization's purpose is to improve communities and build a better America through service.
While Ruritan is a national organization, each Ruritan club sets its own agenda. Therefore, Greenford's choices are its own.
Ambitions
The group's slogan is "Fellowship, Goodwill and Community Service."
Such ambitions were infectious the particular day I came to their meeting. Home-baked apple, cherry, and blueberry pies sat before the Ruritans, placed there by the Lutheran church women. And the Band Boosters, Boy Scouts and volunteer firefighters took home checks.
When the meeting ended, Kane and I headed out to the parking lot, where the camel had disappeared, and the volunteer firefighters' vehicle took its place. He hugged me goodbye.
"Give Joanne and the kids my love," I said.
"Do you think it's a story worth putting in the paper?" he asked.
Like the scores of neighborly acts that occur in our rural areas and small towns every day, the Greenford Ruritans' acts of kindness often go unheralded. But not this time.
murphy@vindy.com