The vision of the Farmington Valley (CT) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated took form in 1978, when our first president Norma Smith’s aunt, Faye Price, planted the seed during a visit to Norma’s Granby, Connecticut home. Price, a national officer of The Links, Incorporated, serving as director of the National Trends and Services Facet, was a strong spirited visionary and recognized the need and benefits the service organization would bring to the Hartford community.  Swiftly and effectively, she utilized her network and resources to organize the first suburban chapter in the state of Connecticut. With Price’s support and guidance, Norma Smith took on the challenge to activate the “Farmington Valley Girls” interest group, the required predecessor to the present chapter. For a year, the “Farmington Valley Girls” developed a number of impressive service projects, which included a canned food pantry, volunteer work at the McLean Nursing Home in Simsbury, Connecticut, as well as plans for the first of many fundraisers that would fund book awards for college bound students.

 

On April 28, 1979, at the Farmington Valley Country Club in Farmington, Connecticut, Thelma Hardiman, Eastern Area Director, officiated the installation ceremony of the newly birthed Farmington Valley Chapter of The Links, Incorporated. Assisted by the Eastern Area Treasurer Thelma Doby and the very spirited Faye Price, Thelma Hardiman inducted the charter members.  As the only chapter of a national predominantly Black organization in a Connecticut suburb, Farmington Valley (CT) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated sought not only to inspire African American heritage for the growing population of Blacks in the Farmington Valley community, but opportunity to enrich the life and culture of the Valley at large with the noble legacy of African Americans.

 

Charter members included Norma Smith, Edith Barnett, Marie Beane, Doris Bentil, Thelma Borbin, Cassandra Butler, Leslie Clark, Muriel Clark, Patricia Lyons, Ione Curtis, Evelyn DuBose, Irma Francis, Katherlyn Harrison, Janet Jackson, Irma Lee, Louise Malinosky, Marion McClellan, Constance Robinson, Peggy Simmons-Binion, and Laura Watson.