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A Great Way to Encourage Reading in Children

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Monday Morning

We had 18 members at Monday’s meeting along with our guest speaker, Sarah Newton from the Fond du Lac Public Library.  Bonnie Baerwald noted that four members; herself, Donna Freund, Brenda Schaefer and Jeff Stueber participated  in the leaf raking Make A Difference Day project on Saturday and Gary Miller volunteered at the Lutheran Home making Linus blankets.  Thanks to all those member who participated.  Gary Miller noted a successful InterClub to the Fond du Lac High School Key Club on Friday, October 24th and also to the Noon Kiwanis Club Pancake Day on Thursday, October 23rd.  Happy Bucks were offered by Bonnie Baerwald for the group that helped out at the Make A Difference Day on Saturday and also by Sharon Kollman for the birth of her grandniece on the same date has her niece, our newest member, Dawn Scannell.  Sharon had a picture of her new grandniece with a Kiwanis swaddle that she circulated.  John Cooper was the 50/50 Raffle winner and he drew the Ace of Diamonds, not a winner.  Next week’s drawing will have four cards with one pay card and a pot of at least $688.  Good luck everyone.

Sarah Newton, Fond du Lac Public Library Story Walk

Sarah Newton, Youth Services Coordinator at the Fond du Lac Public Library, joined us on Monday to talk about the StoryWalk program at the Library.  A StoryWalk is an innovative yet simple way for adults and children to enjoy reading and the outdoors at the same time.  StoryWalks have been installed in 48 different states and four other countries.

StoryWalk partnerships happen naturally between libraries, schools, children’s museums, city parks departments, service organizations, nature centers, and more.
In January of 2014 the National Education Association reported that 80% of low-income children in 4th grade do not read at grade level.  That means at least 2,800 students are not reading at grade level in the Fond du Lac school system.

The interactive relationship between a child and their caregivers is essential to the developing brain.  Studies have shown repeatedly that children who are read to from birth to 5 years old are better and stronger independent readers.

Academic success at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the amount of talk children hear from birth through age 3.  Children who are not reading on grade level by the end of first grade have only a one in eight chance of catching up without costly direct intervention.

StoryWalks are created by disassembling a storybook and installing it, page by page, on stakes throughout a trail, park, or other area. StoryWalks often have guides, hints, and tips posted throughout the walk to encourage interactions and positive experiences.  The Library is hoping to have their StoryWalk be a permanent, weatherproof structure.  Parks Superintendent John Kiefer has estimated that each individual StoryWalk post will cost $50.00 to build, for a total of 40 posts for $2000. This includes the heavy-duty post and the plexi-glass, hinged top to hold each page.

This will be custom-built by the Parks Department to best fit the designated space and needs.  The Library will begin this process in Lakeside Park.  They will feature service group’s names of the various donors on the welcome sign, and each individual post throughout the walk.  Donors will be thanked in promotional materials, on their website, and in person.  They hope to continue fundraising and install StoryWalks throughout all of our parks, for all of the children in our community.

Kiwanis Happenings – November 10

sorry we missed this post last week; please read the report on both of the past two meetings included in this post.

Monday Morning
We had 19 members and four guests at Monday’s meeting. Joining us as guests were Joan Seidl and Lois Towne along with our guest speakers Bob and Marie Wondra. Mark Luttenberger started circulating the sign-up sheets for our first Salva-tion Army Bell Ringing date of November 29th. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Bob Kahl, to celebrate Deanna’s last visit to the cancer center in Milwaukee, and also by Gary Miller celebrating the halfway point in his shoulder surgery recuperation. Mar-lin Towne was the 50/50 Raffle winner and he drew the ten of spades, a $10 winner. Great Job Marlin. There’s still plenty of money left in the Raffle for next week.

Key Leader Program – October 31 Meeting
Six of our Key Clubbers (five from Fond du Lac High School Key Club and one from North Fond du Lac Horace Mann Key Club) attended a Kiwanis Key Leader Program on September 23-25th at Camp Wawbeek in Wisconsin Dells. Those six Key Clubbers joined us on Monday morning and gave us a summary of what they did and what they thought of the Key Leader Program. These six young adults showed us their agenda booklets, worksheets and other materials that they received at their weekend program. According to one of the speakers the Key Leader program went from about 8:00AM to midnight. When they arrived at Camp Wawbeek they were all introduced to one another, had dinner and then were divided into neighborhood groups. The five main points stressed in the Key Leader Program are: service leadership, integrity, growth, respect and community and pursuit of excellence. While they did a lot of classroom type work they also had the opportunity to develop teamwork and trust by participating in a ropes course at Camp Wawbeek. All six of the Key Clubbers found the Key Leader Program to be beneficial and thanked us for providing them the opportunity to attend. From a District perspective, the Key Leader Program is current Governor Fred Dietze’s Governor’s Project for the current year. Governor Fred is strongly encouraging District Kiwanis Clubs to sponsor a student(s) from either a Key Club or a Circle K Club to provide these future leaders with this valuable leadership experience.

Bob Wondra’s Return to Vietnam – November 7 Meeting
Bob Wondra along with his wife, Marie, joined us on Monday morning to tell us about a recent trip they made back to Vietnam, 42 years after Bob was wounded in the Vietnam War. Bob brought a video of their trip in October 2010 that he played while he and Marie talked about their trip back to Vietnam. While Marie admitted that she didn’t really want to go on this trip she knew that Bob really wanted her to go. And from how she talked about what she saw, it sounded like she was really glad she did go. It took Bob and Marie three days to actually get to Vietnam with only four hours of sleep during the trip. The group of 16 travelers, all from Wisconsin, landed in Hanoi, which was the last place that Bob thought he’d ever visit. While in Hanoi, the group was able to see remnants of the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” along with a small museum at the site. Bob and Marie shared a number of facts about Vietnam that were most interesting; such as they have over 27 million motorcycles in the country, people don’t walk there, they motorcycle, the average monthly family income is about $2,000, which provides for a very comfortable living and even though they are a communistic country their citizens have a great deal of freedom to own property, businesses and practice their own religion. One final interesting factoid was that the country has only one casino and it can only be used by foreign tourists. Thanks Marlin for arranging this very interesting program.

FDL Library Express Opening
Congratulations to the FDL Public Library which is opening its new express location in Johnson Crossing Shopping Center next Thursday. Be sure to support the Fond du Lac Public Library by making use of this convenient resource.

Kiwanis Happenings – October 13, 2011

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Rather, than upload a pdf file of our newsletter every week, we will be changing the format to include updates from our past meeting and posting special announcements and volunteer opportunities as separate posts. We hope you enjoy the new format and find it useful. If you have any feedback don’t hesitate to contact us.

Monday Morning
We had 18 members along with our guest speaker, Ken Hall, at Monday’s meeting. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Gary Miller, thankful for being back from his shoulder surgery. Ron Seidl was the 50/50 Raffle winner and he drew the King of spades, not a winner but a new pot is now underway. Congratulations again to John Cooper for his $182 pot winner last week.

Ken Hall, Fond du Lac Public Library
Ken Hall joined us on Monday morning to tell what’s new at the FDL Public Library. Ken started by thanking us again for our major contribution to the soon to open FDL Express Library out at Johnson Crossings. The mission of the Fond du Lac Public Library (FDLPL) is: To support a high quality of life in Fond du Lac through reading, lifelong learning and community involvement. FDLPL has long been a leader in introducing new technologies to the public. Video recordings–both tapes and discs–were introduced in the 1980s. Public computers became popular starting in the 1990s. These were followed by such improvements as online databases, electronic books and radio frequency identification technology for handling the 860,000-plus items circulated each year. The library began lending e-readers in summer 2011.

Ken also informed us of construction delays at FDLPL Express, the library’s new branch, that are forcing the postponement of grand opening festivities planned for October 22. FDLPL Express will be located at the Shops at Johnson Crossing, on east Johnson Street. It will feature a “to-go” collection of materials that emphasizes best sellers and new releases, with a sizable children’s corner and materials chosen to help people in their daily lives, such as cookbooks and materials on home repair, family and parenting, crafting and more.

Finally, Ken gave us a view of what he thinks the libraries of the future will look like:

  • High tech
  • Collaborative
  • Comfortable
  • Self-Service
  • Designed for the end user

Key Clubs Corner
We’re trying to organize an InterClub to the North Fond du Lac Horace Mann Key Club for their meeting on Thursday, October 20 at about 2:30PM. Check your cal- endar and sign up for this InterClub if you can when the sign up sheet is circulated.

Mark your calendars for our Monday meeting on October 31st. The Officers from the FDL Key Club and possibly a member of the North Fond du Lac Key Club will be our guest speakers to tell us about the Key Leader Conference they attended back in September. This will be an interesting program to learn about how the Kiwanis Key Leader program works.