Tag Archives: fond du lac

How Are We Attacking Poverty in Fond du Lac County?

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Monday Morning

We had a nice turnout of 19 members at our Monday meeting along with our guest speaker, Doug Pearson from ADVOCAP, and Kim Laws from the YMCA and Dale Hans from NAMI.  Gary Miller made donation presentations to both Kim and Dale for their respective organizations.  Charlene announced that the West Bend Noon Club is hosting their Annual German Night on Tuesday evening, March 31st at the West Bend KC Hall.  Cocktails at 6:00PM with Dinner at 7:00PM.  Gary Miller will be trying to get enough members to make this our March InterClub.  Bonnie Baerwald announced that the Club Satellite is providing a lunch for the Habitat for Humanity Builders on Saturday, April 16th as a service project.   “Happy Bucks” were offered by Chris Serres for the beginning of a “Sisters Week” with her sister from Arkansas, Doug Pearson for the Badgers Big 10 Tournament Championship, Charlene Petit for surviving her babysitting weekend with two grandchildren and a sick dog and Jan Krug in celebration for her husband Mike’s transfer from Rochester, MN to Green Bay.  Glen Treml was the 50/50 Raffle winner on Monday and he drew the Two of Spades, a non-winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 45 cards, including eight pay cards, and a pot of at least $87.

Doug Pearson, ADVOCAP

Doug Pearson, Community Relations Manager for ADVOCAP joined us on Monday.  ADVOCAP, a non-profit community action agency, was founded in 1966 to fight poverty within our local communities.  They do this by designing and implementing programs that empower people in Fond du Lac, Green Lake and Winnebago counties to break the cycle of poverty.  Individuals and families build on their strengths and participate in opportunities that will develop the knowledge and skills they need to strengthen their economic future. Their anti-poverty programs help low-income persons secure affordable housing, gain employment skills and training, start a small business and become self-employed, volunteer at schools and daycares, become actively involved in their children’s learning, remain independent in their homes, and reduce the amount of home energy costs just to name a few.

For over 49 years they have been helping families change their destiny

Have You Volunteered Lately?

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Monday Morning

We had a nice turnout of 20 members at our Monday meeting along with our speaker, Nancy Zompolas from the Volunteer Center of Fond du Lac County and Craig Larson, guest of Gary Ring.  Gary Ring made a donation presentation from the Spiritual Aims Committee to a needy family to help with the purchase of a used minivan.  The presentation was made to Craig Larson who spearheaded the fund raising efforts through social media to help this needy family.  Gary Ring also reminded Club members that Spiritual Aims is also collecting books for “Raffle Basket” for an upcoming Grief Relief fund raiser.   “Happy Bucks” were offered by Gary Ring in celebration of his and Lois’ 40th wedding anniversary over the weekend, Del Waldschmidt to promote our upcoming NFDL PDQ Brat Fry on April 11th, Harry Schneider for a lucky weekend at the Knights of Columbus Bowling Tournament, Jan Krug for being back from a wonderful vacation in Mexico and Glen Treml for a new grandbaby on the way.  Jackie King was the 50/50 Raffle winner on Monday and she drew the King of Spades, a non-winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 46 cards, including eight pay cards, and a pot of at least $74.

Nancy Zompolas, Volunteer Center
Nancy Zompolas joined us on Monday morning to update us on what’s happening at the Volunteer Center.  Nancy has been the Executive Director at the Volunteer Center for the past three years and has facilitated a number of growth areas at the Center.  They currently have a branch office in donated space at the Ripon School District to help extend this valuable resource into western Fond du Lac County.  Nancy talked about two programs that have really taken off over the past couple of years.  First of these is the Higher Education cService-Learning Program.

The Volunteer Center works closely with faculty and staff from local higher education institutions to help them develop service-learning experiences for their students.  Whenever possible, project ideas are submitted directly by the agencies they serve.  Participation in these programs has been growing nicely since they started several years ago.

The second program that Nancy talked about was Youth Civic Engagement & Service-Learning.  This program connects youth to service opportunities that will promote civic responsibility, understanding of diversity, skill development, and practical application of curriculum objectives. This is accomplished through the Youth & Family Volunteer Guide, the annual Youth Leadership Camp, summer school programs in Ripon and Rosendale/Brandon school districts, and partnerships with local educators.  According to Nancy, this program has exploded, especially as more students are looking for service opportunities for various reasons.  The Volunteer Center is currently working with 52 different youth groups to match them up with various service projects that will fulfill the mission of the various groups.   While Nancy didn’t give us a number of how many youth are involved it sounds like there are a lot of youth involved in these programs.

Nancy closed with a brief description of “Kitchen Table Kits” that allow just about anyone to do some volunteer activity.

What Do You Know About Walleye Weekend?

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Monday Morning

We had 17 members at our Monday meeting along with our speaker Leanne Doyle from Fond du Lac Festivals. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Bonnie Baerwald for her first attendance at Celebrate Community, Gary Ring ($2) for a successful StoryBook Land and Celebrate Community, Gary Miller ($3) for the Food for Thought Project, Fondy Idol and Celebrate Community, Vickie Goldapske for her birthday and a weekend of family and fun and Glen Treml for being back from vacation.  Chris Serres was the 50/50 Raffle winner on Monday and she drew the Three of Hearts, not a winner.  Next week’s drawing will have 47 cards, including eight pay cards, and a pot of at least $58.

Leanne Doyle, Fond du Lac Festivals

Leanne Doyle joined us on Monday morning to find out what we knew about Walleye Weekend (WW).  Leanne has been the Fond du Lac Festivals Executive Director since August 2012 so she’s had the experience of Walleye Weekend from the front lines for two years.  Leanne brought along a 13 question quiz to help us learn how much we did or didn’t know about Walleye Weekend.  The first significant statistic that Leanne noted was that they sold 17,000 wristbands at last year’s WW.  Her next statistic was that 53,320 cups of beer were sold last WW or 3.14 cups of beer per wristband sold.  While not in the Q&A, Leanne noted that the 2014 WW generated over $211,500 in funds for the 46 groups that participated in WW as either vendors or volunteers for the weekend.  Another statistic not on the Q&A was the fact that it takes about $225,000 to fund all of the weekend activities from bands, to dog shows, Family Land, etc.  Several other noteworthy statistics from the Q&A was that the festival has returned over $616,000 to the community in the past three years, no small amount.  The final statistic of importance was that our Club sold over 2,700 pounds of cheese curds at the 2014 WW event.  Leanne closed by reminding everyone to put June 12 – 14 on their 2015 calendar for the next Walleye Weekend.