ABOVE: Around 50 times a month, CREST Executive Director Rob Stauter picks up the phone and makes calls to up to 60 volunteers so people who cannot take themselves can have transportation to their medical appointments.

FAIRMONT – The Caregiver Response Effort and Service Team (CREST) has had a nearly 50 percent increase in need for their medical transport services in the past few months as they look for more volunteers.

CREST Executive Director Rob Stauter said they started doing medical transportation in 1998. It is just one of their services, which include home helper services, minor home repair, and respite care, among others. Overall, transportation is their most in-demand service.

“We’ve taken people to Mankato, Rochester, the Twin Cities, Sioux Falls,” Stauter said. “Those are basically the four out-of-town places we [often] take people. Then, of course, locally to appointments around Martin and Faribault County.”

Those who cannot transport themselves to and from medical appointments can ask CREST for a ride to be scheduled, and CREST will get in touch with its volunteers to see if any can be there for the request. Volunteers use their own cars to fulfill the request, but if it is out of town, they are given gas cards to compensate for that expense.

There are currently around 60 volunteers for the program, which Stauter said has come from spreading the word as much as they can.

“We put notices in church bulletins,” he said. “We put notices in the newspaper. The best way to find volunteers is word of mouth. I went through the church directory at my church recently, and I came up with four or five volunteers.”

While 60 is a solid number, Stauter said they would prefer to have at least 75, and thus have continued to put out notices asking for volunteers for a variety of reasons.

“Based on the increase in rides,” he said. “You have some people that only want to volunteer in the winter, or they only want to volunteer in the summer, you get people with all sorts of different circumstances, so the more the merrier.”

Right now, Stauter said there are around 50 rides requested per month. This is up from just six months ago, when they averaged around 35. He said constrictions in the medical transport field, such as the closure of Truman’s MN Para Transit, played a big part in this increase.

“We’ve seen more of a demand for transportation,” Stauter said. “MN Para Transit was a medical assistance provider for transportation, so now the closest one for that is Mankato. We have had some people who are on medical assistance. They have them come down from Mankato, pick them up, take them up to an appointment in Mankato, and bring them back. It’s a back and forth.”

That’s not the only factor, however. Several types of operations and specialties have been dropped in Fairmont, and in cases where patients cannot drive back and have no one who can take them, services like CREST are their only option.

“We’ve had an uptick in demand for out-of-town trips because people that have macular degeneration and get shots in the eye need to go to Mankato, Albert Lea, Waseca, Owatonna, places like that. We’ve seen an uptick in that because those shots to the eye are not available anymore in Fairmont.”

Overall, Stauter said the program should be able to continue for the foreseeable future, but they rely on grants, individual funding, and volunteers to ensure they can still help people who need it.

For more information, including on how to volunteer or donate, call 507-235-3833 or visit the CREST office at 820 Winnebago Avenue.