One might ask what positive input an animal feed business could possibly have in the community. Kyle Klaehn is owner/manager of Double K Specialy, Inc., which is located at 109 Fourth Street SE in Austin. Pose the question to him and you will learn that he is involved in a lot more than selling pet supplies and birdseed.

"There are various things we're involved with to put money back into the community," Klaehn said. "We have always been very much involved with 4-H -- supporting their programs by buying ribbons at the county fair. We've done that every year ever since our existence."

They have donated funds to support certain club programs in the Austin area, as well as neighboring towns. Double K contributed to the new announcer stand that was built in time for the 2002 Mower County Fair. Over the years, they have helped with several 4H events by becoming involved financially and physically when they can.

"We pride ourselves in having knowledge of the products that we carry, and we do pass that on to organizations," Klaehn said. "There again, we held many, many meetings with various 4H groups -- the rabbit group, for instance, the horse groups."

At the Hormel Home, they once held an informative meeting about wild birds. In support of the Audubon Society, they sponsored their sixth annual birdseed sale and donated the proceeds from the two-day sale to Audubon. Klaehn seemed pleased to admit this has been very successful over the years. Double K has also been as involved with the Mower County Humane Society.

A couple of years ago, they started the "Putt for Paws" annual golfing event.

"It started out a little slow the first year, but we hope it keeps growing -- it's a growing thing -- the second year it got better." Klaehn said.

"I think it will continue. We got a lot of good feedback from people.

That gives some pretty good dollars back to the Humane Society, which is truly within the community," he said.

There seems to be no end to Double K's involvement with Mower County. They have made contributions to yearbooks in many area schools, such as Lyle and Southland. Klaehn said that the store gets a lot of walk-ins, people looking for donations.

"We get people into the store from many communities. A lot of them get our support, but not always. There is a limit to what we can do. Still, it's giving back to the community. Especially to the smaller communities, we have been pretty supportive."

In addition, Double K has donated to many cancer telethons, helped out with the Mower County Posse when they have their Christmas banquets and other get-togethers and, as Klaehn said, they do a lot of "that," meaning the store donates something for fundraising events.

They also contributed to Wescott Field, because in Kyle's words, "that was kind of a big thing for us." Being a distributor of bird feed, they always donated products for the silent auctions held at the Pheasants Forever banquets, as well as other Pheasants 'n Habitat fundraiser events.

Then, there was the Austin Police Department's canine unit, Tazer, and Officer Jeff Ellis going to the national police dogs' competitions and made many -- but especially Klaehn -- exceedingly proud of their achievements.

"Tazer is the best dog the APD ever had -- only 2 years old, and has done as well as 5- to 6-year-old dogs," he said and cracking a proud grin, because he had a part in helping the canine unit getting to the various competition sites.

"Quite a bit of it (what we do) goes sight unseen, but the truth is, we are genuinely interested in giving back to the community that we are making a living out of," he said. "I think it's very important. I like being involved, especially with the fair. I spent three years on the fair board. It's not so much the investment, but also the time. I always enjoyed it and learned a lot. There are many areas out there that we aren't involved in, that I'm sure we have yet to do something with, but one business or one person can't do it all, either. You try to spread it out and be as fair as possible."