Volunteers help clear debris in Crawford

The sun was high and bright as the CSC men’s basketball team, cleared tumble weeds from the fences at the Crawford Cemetery, one of the team’s tasks in Saturday’s The Big Event. Decked in their white “The Big Event” T-shirts and gloves with pitch forks in hand, led by Head Coach Brent Bargen, the team got to work.

The team moved quickly along the cemetery’s east fence facing the road.

“It’s helping someone other than yourself,” Kendrick Holliman, 21, junior of Mobile, Alabama, said.

“I don’t mind the work; it’s for a good cause,” Brandon Pippenger, 19, sophomore of Banning, California, said.

It started to get a bit windy, which made the work a little harder for the basketball team.

“Community service is huge,” Michael Safer, 20, of Elizabeth, Colorado, said.

“It’s a great way to give back to the people who support us everyday,” Justyn Anderson, 21, junior of Las Vegas, said.

The old truck that the team placed tumble weeds in was driven by Cemetery Caretaker Gary Hultgren.

“This has been our biggest tumble weed season, [we’ve] already removed a four foot wall of them on the west side,” Hultgren said.

The cemetery is a prairie cemetery that was established in 1885 and was taken over by the city in 1915, Hultgren said.

As they were hard at work, the CSC volleyball team was making its way to the Ponderosa Settlement and Villa in Crawford. The team cleared away tumbleweeds, raked pine needles, cleaned flowerpots, and got the small garden ready for planting.

“It was really cool to see the stadium packed with volunteers,” Head Coach Janel Baily said. “I tell my girls that community service is important and we try to do four projects a year. The Big Event was good timing for us.”

“It’s nice to be able to give back to the community that I’ve grown up in,” volleyball player Alia Brennan, 19, freshman of Chadron, said.

Wendy Osmotherly with Social Services from Ponderosa said that in the past volunteers from the community or staff members would clean the backyard.

“We like to plant tomatoes and strawberries for the tenants each year during the summer, and the girls are getting the garden ready for planting,” Osmotherly said.

Ponderosa was opened as a retirement home in 1971 and currently has 17 tenants with assisted living care and 16 tenants in nursing care.

Student volunteers also made their way to the Crawford Fairgrounds where they helped the Rodeo Club of Old West Trails Rodeo prepare the grounds for summer events. The volunteers used pitchforks to clear away tumbleweeds from the fence and then donned gloves to paint the corrals behind the chutes.

“It’s very nice having you guys over and get a lot of stuff done,” Jay Dee Smith, vice president of the Rodeo Club, said.

Smith also said that the rodeo club usually does all of the work themselves, and that this year was a lot faster with the help of the volunteers.

Jessie Zweifel, 18, freshman of Rapid City, South Dakota, said that her favorite part of volunteering was getting to be with all the people outdoors helping out the community.

In Chadron, Student Senate members volunteered at the Museum of the Fur Trade.

The museum director Gail DeBuse Potter assigned three big projects for the volunteers.

Trees that were still down from the big winter storm last season were taken up a steep hill and piled; the warehouse was cleared of leaves; and textiles were brought out of the warehouse and shaken out of debris.

Masks were provided to protect against the harmful dust, but some volunteers still suffered from allergies.

About 15 volunteers were expected to show, but only eight arrived.

“There were more volunteers last year since we had the girls basketball team,” Potter said. “They moved about thirty thousand books inside since the weather wasn’t as nice.”

The Big Event is not the only time the Museum of the Fur Trade has had volunteers.

“Whenever we are open, we have volunteers operate the front desks, work the exhibits, help with the quarterly magazine we publish, and with the ground work such as our Indian Heirloom garden,” Tammy Zuver said.

Zuver is the only other paid operative besides Potter.

Potter lives on-site for security reasons and is always in need of volunteers.