Again we have a two week update here, so hang on!
Monday Morning
We had 19 members at Monday’s meeting along with four guests. Joining us were guest speakers Jeremy Shaeffer, Sara Hathaway and Ted Chiero from Community Education Opportunities (CEO) along with Ryan Scheel from the Fond du Lac Boys and Girls Club. Vickie Goldapske presented a check in the amount of $5,000 to Ryan for the Boys & Girls Club van replacement project. The donation was from the Special Committee. Mark Luttenberger reminded everyone that the next bell ringing date was that evening. Mark circulated the signup sheet for one last chance to help the Salvation Army. Gary Miller offered up a “Happy Buck” as he was glad to be back from vacation. Bonnie Baerwald reminded members that the Community Services Committee is collecting donations from the members for purchasing grocery gift cards for our Adopted Family. Ron Seidl was the 50/50 Raffle winner and he drew the five of spades, a $5 winner. There’s still a lot of money for next week’s raffle.
Jan Krug, Resident Real Estate Expert
Our own Jan Krug gave a program on the state of the real estate market. Jan started by discussing how the real estate market got to where it is today. The sub-prime market promoted loans for homeowners that probably couldn’t afford the homes that they were buying. These loans were then sold to investors which in turn created more demand. Everyone wanted more and were willing to leverage themselves to get it until the market fell apart.
Jan then distributed Realtor Association data that showed the number of home sales and median home prices nationally, state-wide, the northeast region of Wisconsin and Fond du Lac. For the FDL area Jan noted that there were currently 658 active listings with prices ranging from $19,900 to $1,500,000. She also noted that there were 42 homes sold in the past 30 days. Of those 42 homes, they were on the market an average of 200 days and sold for an average of 92% of asking price. Jan noted that there is currently a 15 month supply of homes on the market, assuming that no additional homes go up for sale. Jan closed by giving a few tips on what to do if you are considering selling your house.
Community Education Opportunities
In 2002, a group of Fond du Lac citizens met to discuss common beliefs that children thrive in educational settings that best meet their needs, and that both public and private schools in the city are excellent. However the opportunity to choose a private school was hampered by families’ economic circumstances limiting their choice of a school that would best fit their children’s needs.
In November 2002, a local task force was organized to set up a fund to grant educational scholarships. In August of 2003 sufficient funds were obtained to begin assisting nineteen applicants and by 2004 there were thirty-seven scholars in the program. The advisory board met for the first time in September of 2004 and in August of 2010, CEO was granted 501(c)(3) status and hired its first executive director, Sara Hathaway. While Jeremy and Sara gave us great statistics the real story was told by Ted Chiero. Ted and his family came from Chicago about 5 or 6 years ago to get a new start and Ted told his story of how CEO has helped him to achieve his goals. He spoke very highly of Trinity Baptist School and what they’ve done to help him on his journey to those goals.