 His inspiration comes from the people and events around him.
For more than half a century, Merle Aukamp has been taking notes and turning them into poems. "I started when I was about 25 or 26." he recalled. That was several years after he came back from fighting in the Korean War. "I was Sunday School superintendent [at Memorial United Methodist Church]. Milton S. Herr had done it before me. He was a World War I veteran and I really admired him," Aukamp said. "I was also a lay leader for the Rev. Keeler and helped with communion and sometimes opened the service with a prayer." One Sunday, Aukamp and several other congregation members were asked to do short sermons.  They don't deliver pizza.
They don't take tips. They don't even get paid. But five days a week, volunteers for the local Meals on Wheels program bring meals to housebound people across the Southern End. Sometimes, they also provide the only human contact their clients have that day. "They like to visit," said volunteer Norma Herr. Herr and her husband, Dick, have been doing a route since last October. Visiting is enjoyable, but they do have to complete their route, Dick Herr added.  With three years' experience, organizers now have a good idea what will happen when they open the doors for Bingo players on Sunday, May 3.
"We expect to have more than 250 people," said Linda Kushlan. Kushlan is helping stage the annual event to raise money for the Bob Bard Memorial 5K and 10K race in June. The race is a year newer than the fundraiser. "The first year we did it, we raised money to help the team that went to Washington," Kushlan said. After about 100 people from the Quarryville area turned out for the 5K Race for Hope in 2011, organizers decided to stage their own race in the Southern End.  New officers for Solanco High School's FFA Chapter are, left to right in the front row, Casey Foose, student advisor; Wyatt Kudia, chaplain; Hanna Welk, president; and Amber Kirk, secretary. In the back row are Andrew Aument, county representative; Katelyn Teaman, treasurer; Jordan Trout, vice president; Kelsea Blevins, president; and Kyle Phipps, sentinel. Members of Solanco High School's FFA Chapter want to reach out to the Southern End.
They also want to reestablish connections with past chapter members. "We want to connect more with the community," chapter president Hanna Welk said last Thursday. We want to do more service projects and host more events." Chapter members had completed one of the service projects earlier last week. They turned out to till and prepare the community garden that serves the Solanco Food Bank. "We also want to reach out to younger kids to get them interested in FFA," Welk said.
Volunteers from the Quarryville Fire Company were honored recenty for their service in 2014. Israel Stoltzfus received the Fire Chief's Award. Receiving Training Awards were Sarah Jones, Brianna DiFilippo, David Eshleman, Jorden Hess and Colin Shaw. Robert Benson was named the Trainee of the Year. There are two contests on the Republican ballot in the municipal primary election next month.
Three candidates are competing to become a Providence Township supervisor. Kent Peiffer, John Schroeder, and William H. Morrison have filed for the Republican nomination to fill the position now held by Gregory Collins. Collins is not seeking reelection. Now that winter's over, Quarryville Borough has resumed its efforts to collect past-due water bills.
Notices were sent out earlier this month to delinquent customers. Some will have their water shut off if they don't pay their bills by April 20. The borough began a concentrated effort to collect past-due bills last year. Some customers had not paid bills in up to eight years, and they were allowed to sign a contract to pay the overdue amounts.  A former Miss Solanco spent most of Friday morning, April 10, working in Quarryville's Memorial Park.
Marla Peiffer, with family members and another contestant, worked in the planting areas around the restored and expanded memorials at the park entrance. "It needed mulch for the spring and to get ready for Memorial Day," she said. Peiffer won the local title in 2010 and has gone on to take two regional titles. The work was her contribution to the Miss America Serves program. "We now have a day of service. It's officially scheduled for April 18, but that's our orientation for the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant so I decided to do it today," Peiffer said.  Kara Richards has no reservations about modeling in New Hope Community Life Ministries' spring fashion show.
"I did it before, when I was in fifth grade," she said last week. "I'm not nervous. I've always loved being in front of people." Not all the models were that easy to recruit. "Thinking about posing on the runway makes some people nervous," said Jennifer Herr. Herr, who is the assistant manager of New Hope's Community Closet shop, has been signing up models for the April 23 show. "I tell them it doesn't put a taxing demand on them and they can have a lot of fun playing dress-up," Herr said.  There isn't a theme.
Not officially. But the Quarryville Library's third annual fundraising auction is timed to appeal to gardeners eager to begin work after a long winter. "We held the last two [auctions] in June," organizer Ann Zemsky said last week. "We changed this one to earlier because the plants had done so well and Carol Groff has done a wonderful job getting plants for this sale." There will be fruit trees, mulch, flower trees, dogwood and other ornamental trees, native trees, shrubs, and plants, and perennials in that portion of the auction.  She's not the story, Carol Gibson is quick to say.
"It's about the volunteers who make this organization go," she said last week. Gibson has been one of those people for more than two decades, helping raise funds and run events at the Southern End Community Association. Earlier this spring, SECA recognized her work and named her Volunteer of the Year. "I started with the plant sale," Gibson recalled last week. The fundraiser started by selling plants from a farm wagon in the park, moved to StoneHouse Traditions on W. State St., and, in more recent years, sold plants from the grounds of SECA's pool on Park Ave. The winter of 2014-15 is over.
It was not as snowy as its predecessor, but what it lacked in precipitation, it made up in bone-numbing cold. February's freezing temperatures built up nearly two feet of frost, heaving roads across the Southern End. Now municipal crews are facing the months-long task of fixing the damage winter left behind. That may take all summer. Or longer.  Preparing food for two fire company sales isn't twice as hard as fixing meals for just one.
Members of the Robert Fulton Fire Company's auxiliary know that from experience. This is the third year they've been cooking for benefit sales held just seven days apart. The first, a horse sale, was held on Saturday, March 28. The second, the fire company's annual auction, is scheduled for Saturday, April 4. "This way, we have supplies for both sales," auxiliary president Pat Eller said. "We take inventory after the first sale to make sure we're going to have enough rolls, drinks, and other items for the second, but all the paper products are already here. … This is easier than having one sale in the fall and another in the spring."  After missing a year, the flashlight Easter egg hunt came back to Quarryville on Friday evening, March 27.
The hunt had been an Easter tradition until it was discontinued in 2014. "SECA didn't host it last year because there wasn't a director," said Nicole Luecker. Luecker, who became the nonprofit's director late last spring, decided to bring back the only after-dark egg hunt in the Southern End. On Friday night, more than a dozen kids turned out to search the grounds around SECA's Park Ave. building for 1,100 plastic eggs. Volunteers placed the eggs around the SECA building. "We had four people and we began working at 4:30 [Friday afternoon]," Luecker said. |
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