Жительница Элк-Ривер получила звание волонтера года, хотя сама не стремилась к награде

The importance and value of volunteering have been woven into Katie Talbott’s life. Being recognized for it, however, is about as awkward as it gets. Talbott, formerly Katie Harstad, was named the city of Elk River’s 2026 Volunteer of the Year at the Aug. 3 City Council meeting after being nominated for the honor the previous two years. Mayor John Dietz presented her with a plaque. It wasn’t necessarily an honor Talbott was expecting that night. Because the Volunteer of the Year presentation wasn’t on the council’s regular agenda, Talbott didn’t initially think she needed to attend the meeting. Her boss, Joe Stremcha, had to convince her otherwise. She soon found out why. Talbott was selected from five finalists by a committee that includes Dietz, Council Member Cory Grupa, Elk River Area Chamber of Commerce President Debbi Rydberg, Thumbs Up Executive Director Katie Shatusky and Lions Club member Deb Weston. The recognition was the latest in a long list of acknowledgments for someone who doesn’t particularly seek them. Talbott remembers standing on the stage at last year’s Elk RiverFest with fellow nominee Deana McLean as Janet McCarty was named Volunteer of the Year. “It honestly makes me feel very uncomfortable to be called out,” Talbott said. “Being on stage last year, I know Deana and I were looking at each other, ‘Oh, this is so awkward.’” Talbott’s discomfort with the recognition is perhaps understandable when you consider how she views volunteering. She has been doing it since she was a child, beginning in the church nursery. “I’ve grown up helping, volunteering from the church nursery since I was a kid, and it’s just what I feel is a civic responsibility and something that I want to do,” she said. Both of her parents grew up in Elk River. They knew people throughout the community, and helping others was simply part of life. “That’s just how I was raised,” Talbott said. She carried that philosophy into adulthood and into a long list of community organizations and causes. She has served on the Elk River Area Chamber of Commerce Gala Committee for more than six years, completed the Chamber’s Leadership Program and was named the Chamber’s Young Professional of the Year in 2022. She has been active with the Otsego Lions Club and has participated in park and roadside cleanups. She has volunteered with Elk River High School, including operating the video board during football games. She has worked with ISD 728’s Career and Technical Education programs, providing students with opportunities for internships, job shadowing and mock interviews. And she has been involved with the Elk River Rotary Club, where her volunteer work included helping lead the Taste of Elk River. She was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow, one of Rotary’s highest recognitions. But Talbott’s connection to the Otsego Lions Club goes beyond a list of volunteer activities. Although she now lives and works in Elk River, she said she can’t see herself leaving the Otsego club because of the friendships she has made there. In fact, one of those friendships eventually led her to her husband. The family of Otsego’s mayor has long been involved with the Lions. Talbott became friends with the family and coordinated one of the children’s weddings while she was working at Rockwoods. She later coordinated another daughter’s wedding in Alexandria. Her future husband was a cousin of that wedding’s groom. “And when I say lifelong friends, they are now literally family,” Talbott said. She doesn’t see herself ever leaving the Otsego Lions, even though her community involvement has increasingly shifted toward Elk River. That experience also illustrates what Talbott says she likes about service organizations. “No one is making a wage for it, and we pay actually to be a member,” she said. “And I think it was so important to me to be a part of organizations where everyone’s just doing it out of the goodness of their heart, and not for anything that benefits them.” Her involvement with Rotary eventually led to one of her most significant volunteer experiences — the Taste of Elk River. Talbott had attended the event as a vendor before joining Rotary and said she always admired what it accomplished. After joining Rotary, she was, in her words, “voluntold” to become involved. Dirk Barrett was chair of the Taste at the time. “He was the chair. He’s like, ‘All right, co-chair,’” Talbott recalled. “I’m like, ‘What?’” The assignment turned into something she came to embrace. She eventually chaired the Taste and helped with its transition from the Sherburne County Fairgrounds to the Furniture and Things Community Event Center. “It was a lot of work, but it was such a sense of pride seeing it all come together,” she said. “Event planning has always been the core of my career, so being able to pull it all together was so fun.” Talbott said the Taste remains one of the volunteer experiences that has had the greatest impact on her. She remembers attending as a vendor and being impressed by the way the event brought the community together. “Hosting events for so many years, to see one that brings a thousand people together in community and raises such an enormous amount of money in one night for the cause,” she said, “is pretty special.” Talbott stepped away from Rotary this year, however, as she and her new husband, Nick Talbott, look to build their family. “I know that we want to grow our family and really my own children,” she said. “I need to be more present for them, so I decided to cut back a little bit.” Rotary’s weekly meetings made it the logical commitment to give up. She hasn’t, however, given up her involvement with the Taste. Because the event is now held at the Furniture and Things Community Event Center, Talbott remains involved through her work at the facility. She has handed the chair’s responsibilities to Heather Kliewer but remains in regular communication with the committee and is helping with the event’s new VIP area. “We’re still putting in the work,” Talbott said. “We’re the VIP area, especially. That’s a brand-new concept, and we sort of built it from scratch.” Stepping back from Rotary doesn’t mean Talbott has stepped away from volunteering. She continues to participate with the Lions and other community efforts, and she has made a point of involving her children when she can. “I think it’s important for my kids to know that they should also be contributing members of society,” she said. She brings Rylah, 15; Everly, 12; and Oaklen, 5, along for roadside cleanups in the fall and spring and to Lions Club meetings when possible. “Being a mom is first and foremost,” she said, adding that her children’s involvement in multiple sports has also made finding the right balance more important. “They’re getting to that age where sports are all-consuming,” she said. “They’re all in multiple sports. And that is one of the main reasons it became time to cut back.” Her volunteer work with young people extends into the schools. Talbott became involved with ISD 728’s CTE programs while working at Rockwoods, attending advisory meetings and hosting interns. At Rockwoods, she was able to offer students opportunities to learn about marketing, management, event planning and culinary work. She has also participated in job shadowing. Her involvement has continued even though creating formal internships is more difficult in her current role with a city facility. She participates in mock interviews at both Rogers and Elk River high schools when her schedule allows. Talbott also participates in a financial simulation program in which students are given a mock monthly budget and must make financial decisions. “It’s super fun,” she said. For Talbott, those opportunities are another way to make a difference without necessarily thinking of herself as doing anything extraordinary. She encourages anyone who has considered joining a service organization to simply give it a try. “Just go to a meeting,” she said. “Try it. You don’t have to join before you visit. Just go check it out.” The same goes for the Lions and Rotary, she said. “Just visit,” Talbott said. “I think it’s a pretty good idea to just visit a regular meeting and see what it’s like. But I guarantee you’ll make a connection immediately.” Talbott credits several people with helping pull her deeper into community service, including Rydberg, Weston and Barrett. Rydberg encouraged her involvement in the Chamber and the Otsego Business Alliance and has been trying to convince Talbott to join the Chamber board. “Debbi has been a big booster,” Talbott said. “She kind of pulled me in when I was at Rockwoods. She’s had me help with the Otsego Business Alliance and the Gala Committee just made sense when I was first involved with the Chamber.” “She’s a very dear friend of mine, and I appreciate everything she does for the community. She has been an inspiration.” Weston also encouraged Talbott to become more involved, including asking her to serve on the Lions District 5M7 cabinet when Weston was district president. Those relationships, Talbott said, are part of what makes volunteering worthwhile. And perhaps that is why being named Volunteer of the Year feels so uncomfortable to her. She isn’t doing these things because she expects recognition. She does them because she believes being involved in the community is simply part of being a member of it. Asked about the best advice she had received about volunteering, Talbott didn’t point to a particular mentor or memorable piece of wisdom. “I wouldn’t call it advice,” she said. “I have just always felt like it’s what you do.”