By Norma Dittman
Fulda Free Press staff writer
A.C.E. of SW Minnesota held its Murray County Volunteer Appreciation on Tuesday, July 25th, at the Fulda Legion/ Community Hall.
A welcome was issued to every volunteer present by Joyce Wiekeraad, who is the Coordinator for Murray County Aging and Volunteer Services.
A catered meal was served by VanBullys of Iona.
Shelly Pflaum, Access Coordinator and Michelle Czarnota, Mobility Manager of Community Transit of United Community Action Partnership presented a program were they talked about the programs offered by Community Transit.
Community Transit offers services in eight counties in Southwestern Minnesota including Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Yellow Medicine and portions of Cottonwood, Lac qui Parle, Nobles and Redwood Counties in Minnesota.
Pflaum stated that Community Transit has a listing of 80 volunteer drivers throughout the eight county area, but are still in need of more volunteer drivers as they are unable to accomodate all of the ride requests in the eight counties.
Pflaum and Czarnota stated that there is mileage reimbursement for the volunteer drivers. Pflaum said, “Volunteers in greater Minnesota are critical. Their hours with Community Transit in 2016 total, 15,000 with over 720,000 miles driven.
Entertainment for the Volunteer Appreciation was Tammy Aanenson. She began her program by explaining that Joyce Wiekeraad is her neighbor and that Joyce feeds her chickens and dog whenever Tammy is not able to.
Aanenson shared a story about Marie, the Aanenson’s pet chicken. The family had ordered five new chickens and a bad storm came up. “There were feathers here and there and, yup, something had definitely got the chickens,” Aanenson said. But then her husband told her to look up in the tree. “There sat one lone chicken, hanging on to that branch for dear life. I have no clue how that chicken got up there. But we got her out of the tree and every since then she follows me around everywhere I go,” Aanenson shared. “It’s rather interesting because we have a lever for a door handle. The dog discovered that he can open the door by pushing on that lever, so, although there is water in the dog dish, the dog comes in and drinks out of the toilet and the chicken drinks out of the dog dish.”
