Tag Archives: fond du lac

Fond du Lac Child Support Services Visits Kiwanis


Monday Morning
We had 15 members at our Monday meeting along with two guests, our speaker Mary Lopno, and Dan Leeds’ son, Charlie. Marlin noted that we’ve received an invitation to a 75th Anniversary Celebration at Camp Wawbeek on July 25th. If anyone is interested in attending get in touch with Marlin to get the details. Bob Kahl reminded those in attendance that the St. Peter Athletic Club will be holding a photo op at their baseball diamond, which we contributed to, on Friday, July 12th at approximately 6:15PM. Any and all of our members are welcomed to attend and get in the picture at this dedication. You can go earlier if you’d like and watch the Little League game that will take place prior to the photo op. Gary Miller announced that he’s investigating the criteria to be designated as a Cornerstone Club by the WI-UM District Foundation, and he’ll report back on what he finds out. Mary Lopno was the 50/50 Raffle Winner and she drew the seven of Clubs, not a winner. The next drawing will have 18 cards, five pay cards and a pot of at least $435.

Mary Lopno, FdL Child Support Services
Mary Lopno joined us on Monday morning to tell us about the Fond du Lac County Child Support Services department. Mary has been the Director of this department for the past 14 years and has seen a lot of changes to this important County department. All parents have a responsibility to financially support their children. Wisconsin’s child support program helps ensure that children receive the financial support they need. To obtain the services of the Fond du Lac County Child Support Agency you must fill out an application form. Cases are automatically referred when parents are receiving public assistance for minor children. There are additional charges for individual services, such as the Tax Intercept Program and requesting a modification of a support order. The Child Support Agency can assist in obtaining a child support order from a parent who is not living with or directly supporting his or her child. This can occur when parents are married and separated but not pursuing a divorce, when paternity was established but no support order entered, (because the parents were living together at the time) or when a child is placed in foster care or an alternate care placement.
The Child Support Agency will investigate how much the parent earns and determine how much support would be appropriate under the percentage standards. Child Support uses the State Percentage Standards (CHAPTER DCF 150) to determine support obligations unless there is good reason to deviate from them. Mary noted that her agency has collected over $1M of court ordered support. This translates to a greater than 80% collection rate of what is ordered by the courts. Mary also noted that her department can get involved in helping to determine paternity and they’ve done about 230 such determinations.

Bookworms Invade Kiwanis


Monday Morning
We had 19 members at our Monday meeting along with our guest speaker, Marianne Geiger from Wisconsin Bookworms. John Cooper announced that the final number for Walleye Weekend looks like a gross sales of approximately $74,700 with a profit of approximately $30,900 before the trailer purchase, a very good year. Again, a huge “Thank You” to everyone that helped make this such a success. A “Happy Buck” was offered by Bonnie Baerwald for her and Lisa doing 95 lbs. of strawberries into jam over the weekend. That included picking the strawberries which in and of itself is no small task. Bob Kahl announced that the St. Peter Athletic Club will be holding a photo op at their baseball diamond, which we contributed to, on Friday, July 12th at approximately 6:15PM. Any and all of our members are welcomed to attend and get in the picture at this dedication. Dave Lefeber was the 50/50 Raffle Winner and he drew the four of Clubs, not a winner. The next drawing will have 19 cards, five pay cards and a pot of at least $422.

Marianne Geiger – Wisconsin Bookworms
Wisconsin Bookworms is a collaboration and outreach effort of the Wisconsin Association for Home and Community Education, (WAHCE) UW-Extension Family Living Programs and Wisconsin Public Television. It is designed to provide free books and an early reading experience for children from limited income families. Each month volunteers read award winning books to the children, engage them in a related activity, give books to the children and provide educational activity sheets for their families. Marianne Geiger thanked our Club for our past donations to the Wisconsin Bookworms project. This program has been in operation in Wisconsin since 1998 and in Fond du Lac County since 2000. At the State level, the program has given over 500,000 books to children in the program while over 17,000 books have been given to over 1,989 children in Fond du Lac County since its inception in 2000. In Fond du Lac County there are 18 volunteer readers who read to four and five year old children in the local Head Start Program at four different locations. The four locations in Fond du Lac County are North Fond du Lac Friendship Learning Center, the old Franklin School, YMCA and the Head Start Program at the Advocap building. Each child gets eight different books along with a book bag to hold all of their new books. The approximate cost for these eight books and book bag is $30 per child.

Vacation Highlights Delight Kiwanians


Monday Morning
We had 22 members at our regular Monday meeting. John Cooper announced that he and Del had gone over the hours provided by our two volunteer groups and it was determined that Fondy Band Parents had 242 volunteer hours at Walleye Weekend and Family Resource Center had 30 hours at Walleye Weekend. Charlene Pettit circulated the sign-up sheet for the last time for Wednesday night’s Summer Picnic. She also was looking for a couple of more dessert providers. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Charlene Pettit for her son’s finishing the Grandma Marathon in Duluth this past weekend, Jan Krug for her daughter’s (Emily) 21st birthday as well as her co-worker and Club Satellite member, Mary Hietpas’ birthday and Vickie Goldapske for Ron and Jackson’s great finish in last weekend’s fishing tournament. Ron Seidl was the 50/50 Raffle Winner and he drew the seven of Diamonds, not a winner. The next drawing will have 20 cards, five pay cards and a pot of at least $407. President Marlin also drew two names, Jackie King and Steve Millin, from the meeting attendance to receive two Walleye Weekend t-shirts. Congratulations Jackie and Steve on being winners.

Vacation Highlights
Our planned program just got out of the hospital and couldn’t join us on Monday so we had an impromptu program of vacation highlights from several of our members who recently returned from summer vacations. Sharon and Gene Kollman just returned from a week long cruise to Alaska. Not only did they have wonderful views in the Inside Passage they also had a successful whale watching excursion and were able to experience a whale pod feeding frenzy. According to Sharon they had a week of wonderful weather which is not always the case in Alaska.
Dan and Lin Leeds spent almost three weeks in Scotland and England. They visited Dan’s sister and her family who are starting a Baptist church in a small Scottish town. They also took a train to a London suburb to visit their son, daughter-in-law and grandson for several days. They’re stationed with the Air Force and will be there for the next several years. The weather was cool and overcast.
Cathy and Glen Treml also spent a week in Alaska but they were RVing in the interior. The highlights were Mt. McKinley and flying over a number of glaciers on their way to an abandoned copper mine.
Dave Twohig spent his vacation time in the Tuscany region of Italy. He saw lots of Catholic churches, visited Naples and the Isle of Capris plus he had a chance to climb Mt. Vesuvius, which is an active volcano, ash and all. According to Dave, every view on his vacation was a postcard moment.