The Portage Lake Area Association for Family and Community Education, a regional chapter of the National Association for Family and Community Education, was established in the 1940s as a home extension group under the National Home Demonstration Council which formed in 1936. The initial goal of the group was to organize the rural women in the United States into a national organization where they promoted lobbying for Public Health Services. Among their first efforts in the 1940s, the organization cooked hot meals for classrooms and laid the foundation for the hot school lunch program. Other endeavors over its existence have included lobbying for rural reading programs and bookmobiles, traffic safety, rural health, and improvements in child television programming.

In 1964 the National Home Demonstration Council changed its name to the National Homemakers Council, later changing once again to the National Association for Family and Community Education, both of which existed at the state level as the Michigan Association of Extension Homemakers and the Michigan Association for Family and Community Education respectively.

The first local club in the Copper Country was established in Atlantic Mine in the 1940s and 1950s along with groups in Hubbell, Calumet, and Chasells. The Portage Area club was established in the 1970s and at one point in its history there were 14-19 clubs located in Houghton County with over 300 members. Locally, the clubs have worked on projects related to “helping with 4-H programs, catering the annual potato banquet…weekly radio spots on WHDF radio station, Senior Teas, Christmas Teas, Spring Achievement days and selling pinecone wreaths.” Additional activities have included an “annual food booth at the county fair, and a booth at the Chassell Strawberry Festival.”

Exerpts from "Houghton - Keweenaw Counties, Historic Highlights." Undated. Portage Lake Area Association for Family and Community Education Records, MS-030, Box 2, Folder 1.