Mary O’Sullivan can pinpoint the day when VINE Faith in Action’s plunge into managing the Summit Center changed from an experiment to a mission.

She was on a pontoon boat on Sleepy Eye Lake this June fishing with a North Mankato couple, Marie and Erv Shafer, who were out on a lake for the first time in years. VINE had partnered with Let’s Go Fishing, a separate group that organizes fishing trips for seniors, and Marie heard about the trip at the Summit Center.

Her 83-year-old husband, Erv, was in a wheelchair, making it difficult to organize fishing trips because most boats don’t accommodate wheelchairs.

“We used to spend a lot of time fishing on Minnesota lakes,” Marie, 76, said. “We were feeling very nostalgic about it.”

The Shafers also remember salmon fishing with a grown child on the Oregon coast.

While it wasn’t deep-sea fishing, Marie said the little sunnies they caught on Sleepy Eye Lake were enough to make them laugh.

“They had everything set up just great for us,” Marie said.

That day helped O’Sullivan make the connection between the Summit Center and VINE’s goal of helping people to care for loved ones.

A year after it began managing the Summit Center, VINE has added classes and, by some accounts, revived the flagging senior center. The United Way, a large donor, saw some problems with the previous management but is happy with the changes VINE has made.

Wet toes

When VINE took over in November of last year, it was a way to “stick our toes in the water,” O’Sullivan said.

Helping older adults stay independent seemed like a good fit, and it has been.

“Now, we’re in it for the long haul,” she said.

Even if, at first, VINE had to rely on volunteers as it figured out what, exactly, it had on its hands.

The first order of business was a physical facelift, largely through volunteer work.