AARP brought its top volunteer honor to Fort Mill. Don Murfin made the choice easy.

Don Murfin shook his head slowly side to side, somewhere between a survey of the room and disbelief. No, he didn’t imagine three cafes and serving a six-digit number of meals.

He didn’t imagine dozens of corporate partners and more volunteers, or having to arrange bus arrivals so they don’t all show up to the cafes at the same time.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Murfin said, considering what’s become of The Community Cafe since the first site opened in 2010 in Lake Wylie. “Pretty amazing.”

All that was before receiving one group’s top volunteer award given in South Carolina.

“There were plenty of folks who were nominated, but he won hands down,” said AARP state director Teresa Arnold, who presented Murfin with the Andrus Award for Community Service on Thursday at one of its two Fort Mill cafes. “Top of the heap. We were so impressed with the fact that this organization, this community served 55,000 meals last year. That’s incredible.”

The Andrus Award is given annually. Murfin won the honor for heading three cafe sites in Lake Wylie and Fort Mill. Arnold said South Carolina ranks near the top of the nation for food stress among seniors. The cafes offer free meals and deliver to residents who can’t get to a cafe, pushing Murfin’s nomination to the top. Arnold said her group is spreading the word to national AARP leadership about the cafe concept, “bragging about what we do in South Carolina.”

The Andrus Award came with a $2,000 check not so much as prize money, Arnold said, but because her group wanted to be part of what the cafes are doing.

Such prestige is a long way from the 2009 email between Murfin and pastor Kenny Ashley. Murfin had recently retired and was considering something like a free cafe. Ashley had a similar passion and a big kitchen at River Hills Community Church, where he served at the time and where the cafe started. Ashley put a call out to membership. Murfin responded, asking if he could help.

“I told him, ‘no, you cannot,’” Ashley joked. Ashely, who came to the Fort Mill cafe site at Sisk Memorial Baptist Church on Thursday for Murfin’s award presentation, then gave him the genuine response. “‘You can do it,’” he told Murfin. “‘Go ahead, make it happen.’”

Ashley figures he’s made a good decision or two in his life, few as fitting as letting Murfin take on the cafe.

“He was born to do this,” Ashley said.

Mary Rasmussen is a long-time assistant with the cafes, including helping to open the newest one at Sisk. She started volunteering with charitable groups as a child, yet she has “never seen anything like this.”

“Every day when people come here, the thing that makes it so special is, they bond here,” Rasmussen said, crediting Murfin with creating the atmosphere.

The cafes also won a Charlotte-area community service contest. Area restaurants and distributors contribute to the cafes, along with churches donating kitchens and land space to grow produce.

The group wants to take that momentum and put it toward their new “audacious” goal. Murfin is working to get a food truck, something that’s becoming “more and more doable” with online fundraising. Volunteers look at places like the Blackmon Road area of Rock Hill.

“There are people we can’t really reach, and who can’t readily come to a cafe,” Murfin said.

Murfin went from six hours a week at one site six years ago to about 60 hours a week now.

“I’m going to be here until the Lord says come see Me,” Murfin said. “And in my life, that’s the only thing that’s going to be better than this.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 11:23 AM with the headline "AARP brought its top volunteer honor to Fort Mill. Don Murfin made the choice easy.."