Amy Harmsen’s Fall, 2019 Business Practicum students made a generous impact on their local and global communities, while learning all the ins and outs of creating and managing a small business! 10 students in Amy’s fall class partnered with our local Just Fare Market and created their own Fair Trade Pop Up Shop with beautiful Mayan Hands friendship bracelets, mini chocolates from Equal Exchange, and hot cocoa and milk chocolate bars from Divine Chocolate.

Students sold Fair Trade products throughout the semester and were very proud to use their profits to give donations of $179.07 each to the FDL County Sheriff’s Shop with a Cop program and the FDL Humane Society. Sales of the Fair Trade products also benefited farmers and artisans in Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Ghana! 3 students, Heather Fousek, Taran Smith and Valerie Stafford, also earned full scholarships to attend the National Fair Trade Colleges Conference in Pasadena, CA in March. Congratulations!

Moraine Park Technical College was named the first Fair Trade technical college in the U.S in May 2015! Fair trade supports farmers and artisans in developing countries. These producers lack economic opportunity and often face steep hurdles in finding markets and customers for their goods. Fair Trade is about making a tremendous impact on artisan and farmer communities while offering great products to the public all around the world.

Join us on Friday, March 29, 2019 at 11:30 am in the Moraine Park Technical College cafeteria as we hear firsthand from several Fond du Lac Hmong community members as they talk about their service during the Vietnam War and, the struggles they face to be accepted as veterans, as well as the effects it has had on their families.

America hasn’t always been thankful for Hmong veterans who risked their lives in secrecy in Laos during the Vietnam War. These veterans, trained by the CIA, played a critical role during the Vietnam War, and Wisconsin is home to the third largest concentration of Hmong in the U.S. after California and Minnesota and almost 50,000 Hmong were living in Wisconsin during the 2010 Census.

March 29th is also significant because it is Vietnam Veterans Day. A national day of recognition when we honor the nine million American men and women who served on active duty from November 1st, 1955, to May 7th, 1975 during the Vietnam war and solemnly remember the more than 58,000 whose names are etched into the Vietnam Memorial’s polished black granite—constant reminders of the price of freedom.

For additional information contact Steve Pepper, Moraine Park Technical College’s Student Veteran Specialist at spepper1@morainepark.edu or 920-924-3489.

The students in Moraine Park’s marketing and social media management online class, led by instructor Sarah Ninmer, recently developed a plan geared towards bringing life back to downtown West Bend. On December 3, students Tony Lechner, Heidi Mahoney, Jeremiah Kastner, and Chevy Holub presented this service learning project to Adam Gitter, West Bend economic development manager.

The Moraine Park student marketing team began this project in early September with gathering demographics, city background, and researching downtown West Bend to determine objectives and create a media plan with a timeline and budget.  They worked with Adam to develop a market analysis, behavior profile and SWOT analysis. 

The team decided on a beautiful and colorful branding slogan of THRIVE! This new theme is an active, full of promise word that will help bring the future of downtown West Bend to life, focusing on restaurants, the arts, the riverwalk, family friendly, dog-friendly, and all of the exciting downtown events! They also worked hard to make sure their marketing plan would be inclusive and open to all no matter age, gender, class, and ethnicity. Adam was pleased and excited to learn about the new plan with all the great ideas and research from the Moraine Park team! Great work!

For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.

On Tuesday, November 27 Eileen Bouchard, Cosmetology Instructor and students from the MPTC Cosmetology Program,  hosted teens in grades 5-12 and staff from the Boys and Girls Club of Fond du Lac a for a fun two hour interactive Dream Big event.

The time is finally here! Park Terrace will be opening as the Specialty and Ethnic Restaurant for spring.

Park Terrace is the campus restaurant serving meals created, cooked and served by Moraine Park Culinary Arts students. Dishes are prepared in the Culinary Arts kitchens with the freshest ingredients available and offered by a designated student manager for the day. The students take turns overseeing and running different aspects of the restaurant to get a complete on-the-job culinary experience.

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Moraine Park’s District Student Government (DSG) hosted its annual Fall Leadership Conference on Friday, Oct. 27, at The Golf Club at Camelot in Lomira.  Nearly 100 student government and club members were in attendance. 
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Are you interested in transferring your MPTC credits to a 4-year college or university but are in class or working during the face-to-face transfer fairs?  The Virtual Transfer Fair is held after hours and allows you to log in from anywhere with internet and talk one-on-one with a live representative from a specific college or university that MPTC has articulation agreements with!  You no longer have to be at a specific place at a specific time.

Here’s how you do it.  During the hours of a Virtual Transfer Fair simply go to www.morainepark.edu and click on the “Join Now” button

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It’s time! Hard to believe, but yes it is time to file your FAFSA; the application to file for the 2018/19 financial aid year is now available as of Oct. 1, 2017.

We will be hosting FAFSA workshops on the following dates: Wednesday, October 4, 2017 3:00 – 7:00 pm on the West Bend Campus, Wednesday, October 11, 2017 3:00 – 7:00 pm on the Fond du Lac Campus and Wednesday, October 18, 2017 3:00 – 7:00 pm on the Beaver Dam Campus. It is critical to file the FAFSA at the right website, with the right information early and we will be available to help you.

If you want to receive the best funding available, you will want to apply early with the 2016 tax information (the most recent tax year filed). In our next blog we will share with you how to use the Data Retrieval Tool so you can import tax information and avoid all the data entry. For now, plan to bring a few things with you to the workshops. Here is a handy list of those items: Your (and your spouse’s, if applicable) Federal Income, Tax Return for 2016 (IRS Form 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ), Your parents’ Federal Income Tax Return for 2016 (for dependent students), Your (and your spouse’s /parents’, if applicable) untaxed income records, Social Security number, Additional outside resources such as TANF, WIC, or Veteran Benefits, Driver’s license, Parent’s date of birth (if applicable), and W-2 Forms.

October is Fair Trade month and to help raise awareness MPTC and 3 other area colleges have teamed up to present a month of film screenings.

• UW-Oshkosh kick starts the month on Oct. 2 with the “Dark Side of Chocolate” from 6 to 9 pm in the Sage 1214.
• UW-FDL will show “Unravel” on Oct. 3 at 12:30 pm followed by a Wellness Tea Tasting in room UC-114.
• Marian University will show “Connected by Coffee” on Oct. 5 from 7 to 9:30 pm in the Stayer Center Auditorium.
• UW-Oshkosh presents “True Cost” on Oct. 10 from 6 to 9 pm in the Sage 1214
• Marian will show “True Cost” film on Oct. 16 from 7 to 9:30 pm in the Stayer Center.
• UW-FDL will screen “Connected by Coffee” on Oct. 19 at 12:30 pm in UC-114
• UW-Oshkosh will show “Connected by Coffee” on Oct. 24 from 6 to 9 pm in the Sage 4232
• UW Oshkosh will show “Immokalee, USA” on Oct. 19 from 2:30 to 4:30 pm in Sage 4232.
• MPTC will wrap up the film festival on Oct. 25 with four short films hosted by Brenda Schaefer’s sociology students beginning at Noon until 2 pm in A109.

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