Burley’s Mary Zarybnisky honored with 2023 AARP Idaho Andrus Award
She has been awarded the Most Prestigious Volunteer for the entire state.
BURLEY Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Mary Zarybnisky from Burley has recently been awarded the 2023 AARP Idaho Andrus Award.
Mary Zarybnisky has been an avid volunteer for most of her life.
“We basically started when we, the first few years of our married life, which has been a number of years ago, but we started doing it in earnest, when we both retired in 2012,” said Zarybnisky.
Some of her biggest projects are donating school supplies and food to students in Minidoka and Cassia Counties, adopting close to 50 families near Christmas time so they will have a great Christmas, inviting the community to a free Thanksgiving Dinner, making and donating hygiene kits to homeless shelters all over the United States, and volunteering at a local food pantry. They also visit different orphanages and provide services they need.
“Those are the spots where we can go and do hands on help, we might do cleaning, we might do repair work, we might do, working one on one with the kids,” said Zarybnisky.
Mary is the recipient of the 2023 AARP Idaho Andrus Award for Community Service.
Her husband Jack nominated her as well as Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield.
She has been awarded the Most Prestigious Volunteer for the entire state.
Mary said she was surprised and excited to be selected for this honor.
“Very very honored and very very, I feel unworthy, because I know there is so many more people that could’ve been honored,” said Zarybnisky.
She says though, that she feels she has gotten a lot out of volunteering, and wants to use this award to encourage people to find something their passionate about and spend their time helping to make the world a little bit better.
“It’s given me a purpose, something that I look forward to, and helping others, it makes you feel, wonderful, and it’s just good to reach out to other people, and it doesn’t matter how much time you’ve got, you can spend just a few minutes with it, or you can do it almost like a full time job,” said Zarybnisky.
There will be a ceremony honoring Mary on November 21 at the Burley Senior Center from 12:00 -1:00.
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