Leander Community Club

Leander Community Club

By William Gest Friday, 17 October 2008

When Sharon Stegall moved to Leander in 1993, she found herself missing the small-town lifestyle in her hometown of Pritchett in North Texas. There, everyone knew their neighbors, and people spent time together as a community.

“I grew up where we had chili suppers and ice cream socials,” she said. “We think it’s really important to have that sense of community.”

Stegall founded the Leander Community Club in 2003 to address the lack of community-wide events in Leander. The club organizes two major events each year, the Fall Festival and the Christmas Parade. The events employ live music, art exhibits and food to bring people together.

“We bring quality of life events to the Leander community,” she said. “From day one, it’s like we filled a vacuum.”

As a real estate broker, Stegall has been on the front lines of Leander’s explosive growth. The idea for the club came when she began to feel that the loss of community, caused by rapid growth, could be offset by events designed to include everyone. Stegall said the city’s July 4 Fireworks Fest was not enough, and she organized the first Fall Festival in 2003. Stegall described it as an immediate success with attendance far exceeding her estimates.

“If you want your community to be close-knit and warm, you have to do things that help make it that way,” she said.

The club’s events also provide a fundraising opportunity for schools, churches, advocacy groups and the volunteer fire department. The events themselves rely on sponsorship from local businesses and vendor fees. There is no charge for admission, which has been a part of the club’s efforts to include people of all economic levels.

“We wanted to make sure that money would never keep someone from coming to the festival,” Stegall said. “It was a very big thing for us.”

This year, the Fall Festival Oct. 3-5 featured 11 different musical acts ranging from bluegrass to Latin, and more than 60 vendors displayed their wares.

Despite the scale of the Fall Festival, Stegall said that fewer than 10 people do most of the work required to organize and run the event. Stegall estimated she spends 1,000 hours a year working on club business. She credits the support of Ray, her husband of 38 years, with giving her the strength to keep at it year after year.

Despite the heavy workload, the club plans to add a yearly spring event to its schedule in the near future. Stegall said she hopes the efforts of the Leander Community Club can inspire others to work to bring about changes they want to see in their communities and give something back.

“To whom much is given, much is expected, and Leander has given me a lot,” she said.

See you next time

• The Leander Community Club’s next event is the Leander Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting Ceremony in Old Town Leander Dec. 6. For more information, visit www.LeanderCommunityClub.org.
• Next year’s Leander Fall Festival is scheduled for Oct. 16-17.

Leander Community Club, 259-9119, www.leandercommunityclub.org