The Junior League of Parkersburg playground at City Park in Parkersburg will be among the legacies of the organization that announced Monday it was disbanding after 100 years. (File Photo)

PARKERSBURG — The Junior League of Parkersburg has disbanded after 100 years of service, the organization announced Monday.

The Junior League was created a century ago, establishing in that 100 years a number of local institutions and programs that continue to this day.

“It is with extreme mixed feelings the members made the decision,” Rebecca Crooks, Junior League president, said.

The decision was difficult to make, Jane Burdette, a past president of the Junior League, said.

“It’s not something we wanted to do, I can tell you that,” she said.

A problem that faced the League, like other non-profit groups, was fewer younger members were joining and becoming active, Burdette said.

Of its 70 members, about a half dozen are active, she said. Most are at the sustainer level which comes after six years of active status, and about 20 with emeritus status are 80 years and older who can not do as much as they once did, Burdette said.

“We have members in their 80s,” she said. “Actually, in their 90s.”

The programs and services started by the Junior League are now sustained by other organizations, which is what the group does, Burdette said. Among those were the Sheltered Workshop that is now SW Resources and the Junior League Thrift Shop that is now the Arc of the Mid-Ohio Thrift Shop.

“It has been an ongoing practice of the Junior League to meet the needs of the community, develop a project and ultimately turn the project over allowing it to stand on its own,” past President Sharon Davis Plemons said,

The first civic organization to join the Chamber of Commerce was the Junior League, she said.

Westbrook Health Services started as a Junior League children’s behavioral clinic and the Harvest Moon Festival that began in 1963 continues to this day and will be held on Sept. 21 and 22.

“There is not an area in the community that has not been impacted by our members’ efforts,” Sherry Ruehl Dugan, a past president whose mother, Kit Ruehl, chaired an early Harvest Moon Festival, said.

A reorganization is not being considered at this time, Burdette said. While regrouping is possible, the Junior League would be starting from scratch, she said.

Jess Mancini can be reached at jmancini@newsandsentinel.com