Ron Anderson, Volunteering & Charity

Volunteering, Ron Anderson

Misc. At Presbyterian Homes on Lake Minnetonka, Spring Park, MN, for a year I refilled water glasses in the rooms at the Care Center. Now I drive the pontoon boat every week during summer months to take a group of well-chair-bound residents for an hour's ride through the channels and marshes to see birds, turtles, and other wildlife, as well as to get a breath of fresh air. At the Pres. Homes you will see about 30 of my framed photographs, mostly of the wild life from these weekly trips during the summer.

IOCP runs a private foodshelf in Wayzata, MN. Sometimes I help stock the food shelves with packaged foods and then stuff items in paper bags for the 100s of people who come pick them up every day.

Near a hill rising up from the shores of Medicine Lake in Plymouth Minnesota sits a detox center, Mission Detox Center. It has no sign on the building and no visitors are allowed through the tightly locked double doors without special permission. On any given day, 15-20 adults will be residing there suffering the pangs of withdrawal. A medical staff helps makes the transition less traumatic and remains alert to emergencies of all kinds. For several months I worked as a general assistant, answering phones, serving food, cleaning up, making beds, and whatever needed to be done. It was the kind of experience that, if you keep in your consciousness, keeps you sober: alcohol and drug free.

Bushaway Preservation. In an attempt to curtail the damages from County highway reconstruction on community historical and cultural resources, I am working with neighborhood groups to develop the community history, preserve the wetlands, and save 700 trees and two homes from destruction. I prepared the following 87 slide presentation for the Wayzata City Council on December 1, 2008. Here it is in PDF form: Historic Bushaway Road. Much additional information is available on my Bushaway page and on our Bushaway Community Wiki. I continue to conduct whatever research and community organization is needed in order to save the local environment where we live.

In 2011, we were in our third year of community action to preserve Bushaway. We started the Bushaway Preservation Fund, an organization to raise funds and implement projects that target the preservation of the natural, historic, and scenic qualities of Bushaway Road. After two year's of work, in October of 2010 the Bushaway Task Force produced a professional, 47-page document titled the Bushaway Task Force Report to Wayzata City Council. It outlines the neighborhood vision for the road reconstruction and suggests how it could be implemented. The report and its recommendations were adopted by the Wayzata City Council. Since then, the only new development was the preparation by an engineering firm, Barr, for the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District of a report entitled "Ecological Assessment of Proposed Design for CSAH 101." Regretably, this report accepted most of the design assumptions of the Hennepin County project engineers rather than thoses of the neighborhood and City. So, it appears that we are a long way from resolution of the issues.

Part of this project has been to propose a Lake Minnetonka Scenic Byways that would help to preserve and promote the natural and historical in the whole Lake area. Here are some photos of sites along the proposed routes. The Lake Minnetonka Scenic Byway project has been put on hold, however, the Metro Council approved Wayzata's change to its Comprehensive Plan, which includes the "Local Designation of Bushaway Road" and the section of road between the Bushaway/McGinty intersection and Co. Rd 15 as Scenic Byways.

In 2012, The Task Force has had weekly meetings with the County and progress is being made toward a more acceptable road design. Here is the Bushaway Task Force Presentation to the City Council on June 5, 2012. Several more reports are expected during 2012.

Retirees Association. The University of Minnesota Retirees Association (UMRA) with nearly 500 members looks after the welfare of those retiring from the University. It's main activity is to meet monthly for lunch and to listen to an inspiring speaker on a topic of current interest. I worked for 5 years sas their webmaster and serve on the Board. To facilitate closer interaction on topics of personal interest, I started the UMRA Photo Club. We meet once a month during the academic year for fun while learning how to take better pictures.

Homeless Connect. The Project Homeless Connect has huge events all over the USA to bring social services free to the urban homeless. Here is one of my stories of participating in the all-day event in downtown Minneapolis.

Foundation for Compassionate Societies. My greatest labor of love has been to establish the Foundation for Compassionate Societies, Inc. as a nonprofit 501-c-3 educational charity. Currently, the principal purpose of the Foundation is to fund and manage the web site: CompassionateSocieties.org It's express purpose is to promote greater compassion in personal and socioeconomic policies through education and social networking among those with similar social values.