news-record.com

Teaching memoir-writing classes for Shepherd’s Center’s Adventures in Learning series is always a pleasure. As expected, the seniors attending the 2010 winter session were enthusiastic, intelligent and keen on discovering something new.

Each of the 20 participants wrote and read stories. Some, bubbling over with enthusiasm, wanted to read the first day. Others handed me their pages, wishing to know what I thought before attempting to read aloud.

Dea Aune respectfully waited until others had read before delivering, in a soft yet convincing voice, her carefully crafted reminisce of childhood. Impressed, the class wanted to hear more. Though blessed with a gift for writing, most people are more familiar with another gift Aune possesses — a gift for sharing. In both cases, Shepherd’s Center of Greensboro is the lucky recipient. She spends several hours each week helping out with services offered by this interfaith organization of older adults helping other adults.

The winter issue of Shepherd’s Center News featured one of Aune’s articles, “Driving Miss Daisy and Mrs. Eleanor and Ms. Bertha And…”
She shunned praise for her own good work as a 10-year volunteer for Shepherd’s Wheels, and, instead, wrote gracefully and convincingly of the plight of those who call requesting a volunteer driver to take them to pick up necessities, go to an exercise class, or visit a spouse who is in a rehabilitation center or nursing home.

Of her experience as a driver, she wrote, “I have learned that there are many twists and turns in life, and many amazing people who never thought they would have to depend on strangers to take them to grocery stores and banks and pharmacies and all those ordinary places we just zip in and out of; who never thought their spouse or child would die and leave them stranded, who never thought their money would run out, or their sight would be diminished, or they would have to use a walker to get around.”

Concern for the plight of others. That’s why Aune volunteers.

More than 10 years ago, Aune took on her first assignment with Shepherd’s Center: working in the office from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesdays. She still helps out there by answering the phone and aiding with correspondence and the newsletter.

Later, discovering how desperately the center needed drivers, she volunteered for Shepherd’s Wheels as well, even though she admits, “I am probably the most directionally impaired person ever to sit behind the wheel of a car.”

Blessed with a sense of humor, when she picks up passengers, she warns them, “Take a good look at your home. You may never see it again.”

“I am but a drop in the volunteer bucket,” Aune insists.

A longtime advocate of Shepherd’s Center, she loves getting others involved. Her husband, Vernon, helps coordinate “HandyHands,” a service that assists senior citizens with minor repair jobs such as plumbing, fixing a door, or changing a light bulb. Smiling, Aune notes that HandyHands was previously called HandyMen until a “HandyWoman” volunteered.

In addition to Adventures in Learning, HandyHands, and Shepherd’s Wheels, the organization also provides tax counselors and a speakers’ bureau. Volunteers are also needed for the two fundraisers, a golf tournament and the Human Race.

Aune, a former teacher of learning-disabled children, has always made room for others, beginning with those years she and husband lived in the frozen northland of Superior, Wis.

After retirement, they had two choices, remain there or opt for an adventure. After a thorough investigation of places to live, they chose Greensboro. The Aunes never regretted the move. They prefer the warmer climate. They appreciate, even more, the warmth of the people in this city — people, like them, volunteering to help others.

Contact Sandra Redding at sanredding@earthlink.net.