Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Sunday, February 10, 2008

Passion to help

Marianne Zerbe, 59, of rural Houston has volunteered most of her life. As the regional outreach volunteer for the Minnesota Senior Federation, Zerbe provides information about health care options to seniors in an eight-county area. (Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News)

By Kevin Behr / Winona Daily News

A product of 1960s revolt, Marianne Zerbe is a 59-year-old organic cattle farmer from rural Houston, Minn., who has dedicated most of her life to helping others.

She is a member of Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, and is a regional outreach volunteer for the Minnesota Senior Federation. She is also the vice president of the Houston County Women’s Resources in Hokah, Minn., and has worked there as an advocate for more than 15 years. She has even been an advisory board member for Winona’s Grace Place.

But she isn’t always affiliated with an agency when she volunteers. She recalled a friend who had so many things piling up, she didn’t have time to even do her dishes. So Zerbe took it upon herself to sneak into her friend’s house and take care of the pots and pans.

“If something needs to be done, I’ll try to do it,” she said.

Raised on a dairy farm and fed the facts of life from church and the government, she felt betrayed when she entered the “real world” and realized those facts didn’t exactly explain how life really was.

She demonstrated in the 1960s for equal human and civil rights for all people. She even went door to door with a petition calling for the removal of U.S. troops from Cambodia during the Vietnam War. She said it was uncomfortable and scary at times, but she has since lived her life based on those experiences, carrying enthusiasm and compassion into her life of volunteering.

She recalled hitchhiking around the country and later picking up those hitchhikers. Through that experience she learned the importance of a “pass it on” mentality.

“When someone does something good for you,” she said, “do something good for someone else.”

Mostly, she volunteers to answer other people’s needs.

“There’s so much need out there,” Zerbe said. “You see the disenfranchised groups. How can you not react to their need?”

She knows some people just don’t have what they need to live

a quality life, and she wants to help right that wrong by sharing her knowledge and the programs provided by the Minnesota Senior Federation. She gives presentations and information seminars in an eight-county area in southeastern Minnesota on retirement, Medicare and where to find

the best deals on prescription drugs.

Zerbe said she got involved with VISTA by simply answering an ad as something new to try and experiment with in order to do something meaningful. As a member, she then signed up to work at the Senior Federation full time for a year, earning a stipend that’s “just enough to get by.”

In April, her office in the Houston Fitness Center will close, but the job is so important to her that she’s willing to keep up the operation out of her home even after the money dries up. It’ll just be “less elaborate,” she said.

“I’m proud of the work I do,” she said.

Contact Kevin Behr at (507) 453-3524 or kbehr@winonadailynews.com