Wissners recipients of the Human Rights award

Want to see Eden Prairie volunteers in action? Follow Mary Jane and Basil Wissner around for a week – you’ll have a heck of a good time too.

”If you want to have fun, volunteer,” said Basil.  “You’ll get such a big charge out of volunteering, because you’ll see such happiness.”

 The Eden Prairie couple is involved in any number of community groups. This year the Human Rights and Diversity Commission is recognizing the couple’s work with PROP and the Eden Prairie Shopping Bus by naming them Human Rights Award recipients. Basil said they’re really honored people thought of them. The news came as a shock, he said while noting that there are so many people in this community who give so much.

“This community is absolutely blessed with volunteers,” he said.

The Wissners have lived in Eden Prairie for more than 35 years, seeing it shoot up from a small cluster of homes to the booming suburb of today.

Mary Jane said that, when you’ve been around like they have, you just have a strong commitment to Eden Prairie

“We have a lot of fun doing what we do.”

Mary Jane described still having that small town feeling, “because of people pulling together.”

Doing more

When Basil retired from his transportation company in 2002, he said, “I think there’s time for us to do more.”

“So we got involved with PROP, we got involved with the Shopping Bus, we got involved with Meals on Wheels”

Add to that list volunteering as an election judge, work with the Crime Prevention Fund, Eden Prairie Foundation, Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce …

When Basil started volunteering with the Shopping Bus, he had so much fun, he said, “Mary Jane you’ve got to come along.”

The bus makes its rounds around Eden Prairie, stopping at Edendale, Sterling Ponds, PDQ and The Colony, to help seniors run errands at different retail locations. SouthWest Transit provides the bus and driver.

“SouthWest has a great crew,” noted Basil.

When they first starting doing food pickups for PROP (People Reaching Out to Other People), the work entailed collecting food seven days a week at various locations.

With just the two of them, Basil realized they needed additional help, “so now what I do, is I coordinate all the drivers,” he added.

Mary Jane described her fellow PROP volunteers as “just friendly and so glad to be there.”

The thing that she’s noticed the most is “everybody wants to be there and be a part of helping.”

PROP’s interim director Sarah Cheesman noted that “volunteers are the lifeblood of PROP.”

They do anything from greeting customers and donors, to filling food orders and shopping to helping with seasonal events.

Basil and Mary Jane are just the kind of couple that you can call and say, “I have this unusual thing that I need to have done.

“They’ll step up to the plate no questions asked,” she said.

Regulars

Wissners take civic pride seriously. They’re regulars for every minute of every City Council meeting.First Mary Jane started attending meetings following her work on the Eden Prairie Planning Commission. Basil joined her in 2002.

“I got into the habit of going,” Mary Jane said. “Then I got really hooked.”

In an e-mail, City Manager Scott Neal, noted that he’s shared almost every Tuesday evening with them for the past six years.

“When they’re not there, I notice,” he wrote.

“I really value their participation at Council Meetings, not because they agree with everything we say and do, but because when they don’t agree, they share their feelings respectfully. I appreciate the effort they make to do that.  I take their critique of our actions seriously because they are engaged citizens and because of the way they deliver their message to me,” he wrote.