Written by: Pamela James, MBA, MPH, MPM, MT(ASCP), NBC-HWC, PMP

What do you use to clean your house, your dishes, your body?  Unfortunately, your common everyday products are putting the health of you and your loved ones in danger.  Every time you spray something, you inhale some of it.  Every time something gets on your skin (accidentally or on purpose), it can get into your bloodstream. 

Maybe some of you are thinking, “Yep, that’s why I buy ___ which is natural.  It says so right on the label.”  But did you know that even many “natural” products are full of chemicals, phthalates, parabens, and hormone disruptors?  And that doesn’t apply only to cleaning products but also to all those lotions and potions that we knowingly put on our skin every single day.

Here’s the great news. Making your home healthier does not have to be expensive or complicated.  There are many natural and safe options to choose from including essential oils, vinegar, castile soap, and baking soda. 

Essential oils?  Wait, aren’t those just a nice smelling alternative to candles?  Actually no, essential oils can be used in a number of ways and have been for thousands of years around the world.  I won’t bore you with all the science, but here’s the basics. 

Essential oils are naturally occurring compounds found in the various parts of trees, flowers, and other plants.  Plants make essential oils for their own health – to repel insects, protect them from the environment, resist microbes, and more.  When we use a 100% pure essential oil, those same properties work for us too! 

Have you ever used a scented candle, cleaning product, or lotion?  Ever had a cup of tea, put a lemon in your water, or added herbs and spices (fresh or dried) to your food?  Then you’ve used essential oils! 

As we’ve already discussed, we want to decrease (or eliminate completely) the use of dangerous household chemicals.  And the best way to do that is to start with simple swaps.  Make your own products and know exactly what’s in them!  Don’t let the idea of essential oils or DIY (do it yourself) overwhelm you.  Here are a couple easy DIY recipes to try.

Look at how easy it is to swap out expensive and dangerous cleaning chemicals!  Simple recipes with simple ingredients for a healthier home in just minutes.

A couple final notes.  Firstly, always use caution with essential oils as they are extremely concentrated and powerful.  A couple drops goes a long way.  Secondly, watch out for impure and synthetic essential oils as you lose all the great benefits when they are made in a lab instead of by nature.  Even those essential oils labeled as 100% pure are usually diluted or adulterated.  Do your research.

Interested in learning more about using essential oils in your life? There are a number of classes coming up that will help you get started. Visit https://www.morainepark.edu/academics/continuing-education/ find an essential oils class for you.

Congratulations Fond du Lac Medical Assistant Students! From Left to right, Kayelee Kufalk, Kayla Rieder, Amber Christenson, Hannah Miller, Allexis Wegner, Savannah Clarke, Hailey Rist, Hannah Stoll.

Moraine Park Technical College is committed to community engagement and student success.  The College supports these commitments through the opportunity for students to participate in student community impact and apply their classroom knowledge to an applicable, real world environment. 

MPTC encourages students to participate in our community impact awards program where students can track their service learning or volunteer hours, submit their reflections, and earn a Bronze Award for 25 hours, Silver Award for 50 hours, Gold Award for 100 hours, or Presidents Award for 200 hours!

In the 2021 spring semester, despite all the Covid-19 challenges, 53 students earned awards and logged over 2,600 hours of service!

Congratulations to our Spring, 2021 award winners!

Bronze Awards

Completing 25-49 hours of service learning or volunteering.

• Anderson, Keanu – Leadership Development
• Balzer, Morgan – Medical Assistant
• Bartoli, Candice – Nursing
• Bauman, Haley – Medical Assistant
• Berger, Abigail – Medical Assistant
• Christenson, Amber – Medical Assistant
• Collins-George, Halle – Marketing and Social Media
• Dobbert, Michaella – Medical Assistant
• Drabek, Renee – Marketing and Social Media
• Gleixner, Hanna – Medical Assistant
• Goes, Elisa – Nursing
• Goss, Kalie – Medical Assistant
• Haase, Melissa – Medical Assistant
• Hanefeld, Sara – Medical Assistant
• Hansen, Chad – Leadership Development
• Kabat, Mollie – Leadership Development
• Kliamentsyeva, Anastasiya – Marketing and Social Media
• Kollmorgan, Amanda – Leadership Development
• Kowalski, Haley – Medical Assistant
• Kluball, Rachel – Nursing
• Koch, Corey – Administrative Professional
• Kreuziger, Alyssa – Medical Assistant
• Kufalk, Kayelee – Medical Assistant
• McGrath, Megan – Medical Office
• Medeiros Simas, Gabriella – Medical Assistant
• Miller, Hannah – Medical Assistant
• Miller, Penny – Medical Assistant
• Pierret, Sean – Leadership Development
• Poellinger, Emily – Marketing and Social Media
• Quickle, Heather – Nursing
• Reding, Nicole – Nursing
• Reynolds, Douglas – Medical Assistant
• Rieder, Kayla – Medical Assistant
• Riemersma, Allison – Nursing
• Rist, Hailey – Medical Assistant
• Robinson, Kelly – Nursing
• Rosenberg, Kileen – Leadership Development
• Ruplinger, Sarah – Nursing
• Schneider, Stefanie – Medical Assistant
• Schoebel, Victoria – Medical Assistant
• Schultz, Kaytlyn – Nursing
• Serchuk, Marissa – Medical Assistant
• Stewart, Krista – Medical Assistant
• Stoll, Hannah – Medical Assistant
• Taylor, Tiffany – Medical Assistant
• Toombs, Nikki – Leadership Development
• Uttech, Venessa – Medical Assistant
• Vick, Ashley – Medical Assistant
• Wasley, Kelsey – Medical Assistant
• West, Laine – Leadership Development
• Zabolski, Renee – Medical Office

Silver Awards

Completing 50-99 hours of service learning or volunteering.

• Drabek, Renee – Marketing and Social Media
• Gleixner, Hanna – Medical Assistant
• Kabat, Mollie – Leadership Development
• Kluball, Rachel – Nursing
• Koch, Corey – Administrative Professional
• Quickle, Heather – Nursing
• Reynolds, Douglas – Medical Assistant
• Taylor, Tiffany – Medical Assistant
• Toombs, Nikki – Leadership Development
• West, Laine – Leadership Development

Gold Awards

Completing 100-199 hours of service learning or volunteering.

• Koch, Corey – Administrative Professional
• Quickle, Heather – Nursing
• Toombs, Nikki – Leadership Development

President’s Award

completing 200+ hours of service learning or volunteering.

• Henning, Cortland – Culinary Arts

Congratulations to Bonnie Baerwald, Moraine Park’s President, for being named a Fond du Lac Area Women’s Fund ‘SHEro’. Bonnie was recognized for her strong leadership throughout the community during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

You can watch the Fond du Lac Women’s Fund video-featuring Bonnie- here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvfwpls7Yc.

For more information on the Fond du Lac Area Women’s Fund, visit fdlwomensfund.com.

Moraine Park Technical College student, Austin Seidel of West Bend, earned third place at the 2021 National SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference during the week of June 21.

Seidel, an electricity student at the College, competed at the regional conference last April in the Industrial Motor Controls category. He earned first place- advancing him to nationals. More than 16,000 students from across the nation participated in the weeklong event.

SkillsUSA is the showcase for the best career and technical students in the nation. Their philosophy is to reward students for excellence, involve industry in directly evaluating student performance and keep training relevant to employers’ needs.

morainepark.edu

Moraine Park instructor, Gus Boyle-Gustavus, has been named a 2020-2021 Educator of Promise. This qualification has awarded her the opportunity to participate in the Educator Leadership Rendezvous this July.

This event is offered annually by the Wisconsin Army National Guard (WI ARNG), the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), and Wisconsin Association for Middle Level Education (WAMLE). The three-day leadership retreat is designed to engage Educators of Promise to build leadership skills and strategies, connect with educators across the state, and learn how to uplift teacher voice and leadership in their roles.

Participants will learn through hands-on activities and leadership labs about topics such as:

• military life, and especially the lives of military families and children in our schools
• common leadership lessons and scenarios
• building culture and community
• applying leadership to problem-solving, to improve student outcomes, schools, and communities
• the effects on us all of PK-12 academic and career planning, equity and trauma-informed decision-making, and college and career readiness
• Curricular connections to classrooms, including STEM, Social Studies, and history
• Professional networking and relationship-building that live on far beyond the event

“I am hoping to learn more about leadership skills in a college setting, inside and outside the classroom,” Gus said. “I am especially looking forward to learning more about how to connect with, and uplift, the lives of military families and underprivileged students.  I am always looking to better myself, just as most instructors are.  I’m looking forward to doing this by connecting with other educator’s, outside of Moraine Park, and learning a tremendous amount of information from them.  I want to learn how to help build a stronger sense of culture and community at Moraine Park.  I believe Moraine Park is an amazing place to work.  How do I help get others to believe this?”

Congratulations Gus on your commitment to education, leadership and Moraine Park! We look forward to hearing about your experience at the Educator Leadership Rendezvous.

We all have goals of living independently and being self-sufficient but often obstacles and challenges get in our way.  After successful participation in a combination of virtual and in person instruction due to Covid,  two students were able to celebrate completion of a 2-year Learning for Independence (LFI) Program, moving them one step closer to meeting their goal of independence. 

Learning for Independence is a cooperative transition program offered in partnership by Fond du Lac Area High Schools and Moraine Park Technical College.  The students ranging in ages from 18- 21 years of age, have a documented disability and are current students at various Fond du Lac County High Schools.  “It is inspiring watching the transformation from the first day our LFI students set foot on the MPTC campus to the completion ceremony two years later! Our students arrive as high school seniors and leave as confident adults with life skills and plans to continue with their present job or pursue new employment or enroll in classes to pursue a certification or degree at technical college. This amazing program would not be possible without the great partnerships of MPTC, Fond du Lac Economic and Workforce Development, the Fond du Lac Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, surrounding Fond du Lac County Schools and the School District of North Fond du Lac!” states Chris Schultz, LFI Program Director.  

 “When students start their LFI experience, they are anxious, excited and ready to embrace the program. During their two years, they meet students from different high schools and become friends quickly.  They start to become a close group and help each other when needed.  Their confidence levels and self-advocacy skills are completely turned around and almost mastered! The skills learned from each class will be ones they will be able to use when out living independently.  At their completion ceremony each student speaks about what they learned, what they liked about the LFI program, and where they see themselves in five years.  This is quite a transformation and all the instructors, people at MPTC, Chris Schultz and myself are so proud of all of them.  We send them out with a job lined up, or already employed, and some have gone on to attend MPTC.”, states Jo Marchionda, LFI Coordinator and Instructor. 

In person classes will be starting again in fall.  For additional information on the LFI program or applications for enrollment, please contact Chris Schultz, School District of North Fond du Lac, at cschultz@nfdlschools.org or call 920-929-3750 ext 6143.

Moraine Park Technical College has selected the Department of Corrections- Taycheedah Correctional Institution (TCI), as the recipient of the 2020 Innovation award. The College’s Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) presents five Business and Industry partnership awards each fiscal year; Excellence in Partnership, Employer of the Year, Innovation, New Partner of the Year, and Workforce Development Champion.

The Innovation Award is given to an organization that implemented an innovative solution to a workforce challenge. Jason Lederhaus, education director at TCI, continuously promotes educational opportunities for the incarcerated women at their facility. Lederhaus continued to advocate for the women in the welding cohort when COVID-19 created many restrictions and created a plan to allow them to safely complete their welding program. Additionally, the welding program became approved as a pre-apprenticeship program with Department of Workforce Development (DWD). Lederhaus has advocated for two new programs at TCI. These innovative solutions create real opportunities to enter the workforce in high demand fields upon release from TCI. The College recognized TCI and Lederhaus during a small gathering at TCI in late May.

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

Blog entry by Tammy Peak, ’21 Culinary Grad

The second-year culinary students were challenged with their own episode of “Chopped”.  Ok, it wasn’t quite that intense, but we were given a handful of mandatory ingredients, a list of available ingredients, and some staples deemed “pantry ingredients”.  The rules were simple:  prepare four courses or, in my case, five tapas, within three hours to be served to judges within a half hour period immediately following the preparation.  The four mandatory ingredients had to be used somewhere in the courses and each course had to include at least one of the available ingredients.  The mandatory ingredients were:  beef chuck, green curry paste or chamoy, rutabaga, and chocolate.   

Each of the mandatory ingredients had their own challenges.  Beef chuck has a lot of connective tissue so is most often cooked low and slow.  We were allowed to get around this in a couple of different ways – some students chose to smoke the meat or use the sous vide (knocking off a few minutes from their three-hour time slot).  Green curry paste and chamoy are both very strong flavors.  Rutabaga is, well, rutabaga.  It actually was the easiest to incorporate and the students came up with several interesting ideas including shredded in slaw, hashbrowns, The chocolate needed to be used in one of the courses other than dessert. 

The one big way the challenge differed from Chopped was that we could practice the recipes and the timing in the weeks before the final.  Thank goodness – during my first practice, I wasn’t even close on getting the five tapas done in the time frame allowed.  I’m clearly not ready for prime-time!  During my second week of practice, I was able to complete all of my tapas (although not exactly within three hours).  Keep in mind that any bread items need to be created from scratch.  For me, this was a tart crust and tortillas. 

The biggest snafu was my pineapple cake.  I took a tried-and-true recipe, cut it in half, and attempted cupcakes.  I did need to use fresh pineapple instead of canned, but otherwise it was just the measurement adjustments.  The cupcakes DID NOT WORK.  The sugar content caused them to bubble over and collapse.  Interestingly, they were delicious!  Kind of like caramelized pineapple.  With the instructor’s guidance, I decided to just go with it.  I topped it with a goat cheese (available ingredient) frosting and candied pistachios (pantry) for a topping.  In a word:  yum.  

Each student came up with unique ideas that were very well received by the judges.  It was one of my favorite challenges so far. 

This summer, teens from the Fond du Lac, Tri-County, and Jackson Boys and Girls Clubs will be learning about various careers through the MPTC Dream Big community service project.

The Dream Big project started in 2017 with  area BGC teens visiting MPTC or MPTC students visiting the Clubs each semester to help teens learn more about the over 100 careers available through MPTC. This past year, due to COVID, no visiting was possible. The MPTC Student Community Impact Team, in partnership with faculty leaders, came up with a plan to offer summer career exploration of welding, blueprint reading, cosmetology, and culinary through interactive videos with fun hands on activities.

Dream Big is a great community partnership opportunity to showcase MPTC careers and for area teens to get excited about career choices! Tri-County Boys and Girls Club Director of Operations Mindy Collado said, “We are so excited for these Dream Big opportunities! Thanks for stopping in today and delivering all the goodies. The teens already had a lot of fun and I am sure we will get good use out of the careers materials all throughout this summer! Thank you MPTC!”