FREEPORT – Closed January through March, Harraseeket Grange No. 9 comes alive again on April 26 with the Grange’s signature public event, the homemade bean supper.

Homemade is the operative word here, as the women of the Grange make everything from scratch. Though the price has gone up to $8, the Grange isn’t compromising on quality – they still serve Jordan’s all-beef hot dogs. They did try something else – one of those brands that contains something with chicken in it – and quickly discarded the idea.

“We thought we might try something different to hold the costs down, and we tried some and they didn’t even boil correctly,” said Nancy Randall Clark, the Grange master. “But you don’t have to leave a tip, or do the dishes.”

Clark said that the Grange closed during the winter months because it couldn’t afford to heat the building, located on Elm Street.

Custard pies are Clark’s specialty, but she has a hand in most everything the Grange serves at its suppers, including something you can’t find in many places, homemade brown bread. Clark, 75, and a Grange member for four decades, usually makes two custard pies, but will bake four for the April 26 supper because longtime member Jennie Profenno, who also made them, is in a nursing home. Profenno will be 99 in August.

Tamantha Wilson of Freeport, who has been with the Grange for 30 years, is the unofficial cook in charge of the suppers, Clark said.

“I do everything,” Wilson said while visiting Clark one day last week. “I cook beans, brown bread, biscuits, pies, the potato salad, the macaroni salad and the cole slaw. I start up on Thursday and finish on Saturday.”

The Grange, founded after the Civil War in 1867, is the oldest American agricultural advocacy group with a national scope to promote, sustain and help farmers, said Clark. Harraseeket Grange No. 9 was established in 1874, and was the ninth branch of the organization in the state, according to the Maine State Grange. Like most Granges in the state, Harraseeket needs an infusion of young members. Harraseeket Grange has 36 members, but only about a dozen attend meetings.

“We’re struggling along,” Clark said. “We need new members. We’re getting old. It’s kind of discouraging. It’s kind of a way of life that is no longer.”

Harraseeket Grange does, however, have a rarity in Freeport High School senior Alisha Goldrup. When Goldrup joined the Grange, she became a third-generation active member. Her grandmother Laura Jean Pace, 67, and mother Ann Winship, 48, preceded her. She is also Wilson’s cousin.

“I’ve been going to the Grange since I was a little girl,” Goldrup said. “My grandmother, Laurajean, or my cousin Tamantha, would take me with them to meetings. I loved it. I wanted to be part of it.”

Goldrup became a Grange member when she was just 13.

“I love it there,” she said. “I love the other members. They’re part of my family. I haven’t been able to go as often as I use to due to work, but I go whenever I get the chance. In a way it’s like another home. I’m proud to continue the legacy at the Grange.

Goldrup’s mother and grandmother love it, too.

“She sometimes brings friends with her to help,” Ann Winship said. “It’s very good for us. She enjoys it. She learns things.”

Pace is pleased as she can be with her granddaughter’s activity in the Grange.

“Alisha is really active,” Pace said. “She does wonderful, just wonderful.”

Pace said that Goldrup and two of her classmates at Freeport High have taken on work at the Grange as their Senior Projects. They are pulling out “prickly bushes” and other brush out back, and planting flowers there this spring, Pace said. The three girls also are cleaning the inside of the building.

“It’s going to be a lengthy project, believe me,” Pace said. “She not afraid to work.”

The Grange will conduct its first meeting of the year on May 3. During that meeting, members will present the Freeport Flag Ladies with the Grange’s Community Service Award.

Members meet on the first and third Saturday of the month, with refreshments at 6 p.m. and a business meeting at 7. They also get together for potluck suppers on the third Saturday of the month at 6, and the bean suppers are on the fourth Saturday, so the Grange is a busy place every Saturday.

Just the way they want it.

The busy season is about to begin at Harraseeket Grange, 13 Elm St. in Freeport, which will host its monthly public bean suppers starting April 26, among other activities.