PERSONALITIES: Donkeys give great support Hebron woman turned to the animals after surviving a brain tumor at age 8TIES Donkeys give great support Hebron woman turned to the animals after surviving a brain tumor at age 8

Mar. 26—Jennifer Molnar was only eight when she was rushed to the hospital to be treated for a brain tumor. When she went home, she discovered a new passion. One that has continued to carry on for 22 years.

"It's just something about the donkey that clung to me," she said. "I don't like when people misinterpret donkeys. They say, 'Oh, they're jackasses, they're smelly. They're mean, They kick, they bite.' That's not the animal at all."

She compared donkeys to big dogs.

"They are man's best friend," Jennifer said. "That's what they want. They want your love and attention like a dog does. I've learned this with myself and with all my donkey friends I've met over the years. They like to do things with you. They don't like to be just left in our corral all day and do absolutely nothing."

Every day, she said, after coming home from work for environmental services at Mohegan Sun, Jennifer takes two of her donkeys out for a walk.

"We go down the road, we go up round and we come back down, and I bring them back in the field," she said. "I think they're great companions. They make me happy."

Health scare

Jennifer's love of donkeys stemmed from a traumatic event that happened to her when she was eight which began when her parents, Regina and Dale Molnar, took Jennifer and her brother to Walt Disney World.

"It was my first ever trip to Disney World," Jennifer said. "I got headaches while I was down there and my father would have to take me back to the hotel."

"When we came back, my mother took me to my doctor and they said, 'Oh, she's just got headaches, migraines, have her take a few of these, she'll be fine in the morning.' The next morning, I woke up and they were getting worse to the point where I was down on my hands and knees, literally squeezing my brains, screaming, crying."

She said her parents took her back to the hospital, where doctors performed a CT scan, which revealed a tumor pressing on Jennifer's optic nerve.

She was in the hospital for two weeks as doctors removed 90% of the tumor followed by radiation treatments.

Thankfully, the tumor was benign, Regina said.

After she came out of surgery, Jennifer said, something about donkeys fascinated her.

"I drove my teachers crazy writing essays on them," she said.

Regina said Jennifer lost interest in most of the things she was interested in before.

"She went back to school and started coming home with books with baby animals," she said. "She was glued to the page with the mother donkey. It said how calm donkeys were and how they were different from horses, and really good with handicapped people."

Jennifer said her parents encouraged her to research them and they'd consider getting her a donkey.

Her parents then got Jennifer her first donkey, whom she named Eeyore, and housed in a 30-by-30-foot barn.

Social struggles

Eeyore became a close friend while Jennifer recovered from surgery, as most of her schoolmates didn't know how to adapt to her coming to school with her hair shaved off and a scar where the tumor was removed.

"It was heartbreaking," Regina said. "It was hard. One of the counselors, she wanted me to come in and give a talk to all these children because they didn't understand what was going on and it was hard for them to accept. She never set anything up."

Now, 22 years later, the family has a much larger barn and Jennifer has five donkeys in total and one miniature horse.

"They're always there for me," Jennifer said. "They're always somebody I can talk to whenever I need to talk to somebody, when I get emotionally upset about something, I just run out there and they know I'm upset. They come over to me, they nudge me. They're very therapeutic."

Reaching others

Jennifer's love for donkeys has only grown over the years, she said, and she loves sharing that love with the community.

"I like to help people," she said. "I find people who get upset or something and they might come over or I might be on a walk, and we stumble upon people, and they seem upset, and they see the donkeys and they go, 'Can we come say hi?' They spend time with them, and they go, 'Boy, you really made my day.' It makes you feel like a million dollars and you're just walking a donkey."

"It's really wonderful," Regina said about her daughter's love and passion for donkeys.

"The animal actually brought people to her," she said. "She was asked to bring Eeyore to school."

Jennifer shares her donkeys with the community now, having them participate in the Hebron Maple Festival, and at Palm Sunday and Christmas services at local churches.

"We have an event coming up at St. Columbia Catholic Church in Columbia," Regina said. "We're doing the Palm Sunday for them for the 11 o'clock Mass and then they're going to have an Easter egg hunt."

Along with Bullseye the miniature horse, Jennifer has Jesse James, the micro mini donkey, Dominique, the mini, Angel, the standard, Chewbacca the large standard, and Carmel, the mammoth.

"I don't have a small standard," Jennifer said. "That's the size I'm missing."

Along with her donkeys, Jennifer has an expansive museum of donkey themed collectibles, including plush toys, and nativity scenes, which her parents helped her assemble in a side room to the barn.

"The bedroom, it started to get full," Regina said.

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