Moraine Park has named over 1,100 students to the Dean’s List for the fall 2019 semester.
Are you one of them? Click here to find out!
Continue readingMoraine Park has named over 1,100 students to the Dean’s List for the fall 2019 semester.
Are you one of them? Click here to find out!
Continue readingEngaging with our communities is a Moraine Park Technical College (MPTC) priority. That was evidenced as the College honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the College’s inaugural MLK Week of Service Literacy Project.
Throughout the week of January 20-24, more than 70 Moraine Park employees spread the joy of reading to elementary school students. Some read culturally responsive books to classrooms and individual students at three elementary schools — Chegwin in Fond du Lac, Green Tree in West Bend and Jefferson in Beaver Dam. Others personalized MPTC bookmarks to distribute to the schools’ nearly 1,000 students. Additionally, each school received more than 150 culturally responsive books for their libraries, thanks to donations from MPTC and Kiwanis of Fabulous FDL. What a great week it was!
Congratulations to Moraine Park’s very own Pete Rettler on earning the Hometown Hero designation at the State Assembly Floor Session on January 22.
Pete was nominated by Representative Rick Gundrum for his selfless community efforts that span from volunteering to organizing his run event every year that raises funds for charity.
Pete’s most notable impact revolves around his 25 Runs of Gratitude event in 2018, which collectively raised $34,000 for the United Way of Washington County. To date, that is the largest donation they have received from an event like this. You can find more information on Pete’s 25 Runs of Gratitude here.
Most recently, Pete helped the Wisconsin 9-11 Memorial raise $2,500 toward their efforts in building a memorial in Kewaskum.
Pete accepted his award with his son Max in attendance.
“I want to stress that I do not see myself as a hero. That title should be reserved for those that risk their lives every day,” Pete said. “ I am the one lucky enough to be here in Madison to receive this award, but I am merely a representative of a collection of friends, colleagues, and businesses that have donated to the year-end running event. Frankly, I’m just a guy with a streak that happens to throw a party at the end of every year. It’s the great people and businesses of Washington County that show up with their generous contributions. For that, I am incredibly thankful.”
Congratulations again to Pete for his continued efforts. This award is very well deserved!
You can watch his speech here (which begins around at the 12-minute mark).
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.
In 2018, MPTC started a community impact awards program where students can track their service 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 of service learning or volunteering.
As of January, 2020, we have our very first President’s Award Winner – Renee Vnuk-Uhrman! Renee earned the President’s Award with over 220 volunteer hours to date!
Renee is a second year medical laboratory technician student, who took advantage of dual credit opportunities in high school and became a certified phlebotomist after graduating. She is also part of the College’s Promise Scholars program, our current MPTC Newman Civic Fellow, the Secretary for the MLT Student Club, and volunteers at her local community hospital as well as Campbellsport High School as a bowling and band coach; all while maintaining high academics.
“We are so proud of Renee,” Moraine Park President Bonnie Baerwald said. “She is a great role model and student leader, with such a strong dedication to her family, school, and community, and a true desire to make an impact. It was extra fun to present her with our first President’s Student Community Impact Award, which includes lunch with the President! We are all excited to see what comes next for Renee!”
It’s that time of the year where you receive multiple forms to file your taxes, and as they pile up you begin to wonder where to find the tax forms to file and how to figure out what information you really need? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get someone to help you through this cumbersome process? The good news is you can, and it’s free!
Here’s the information sent out by the IRS.
What is this?
Most Free File users are under the age of 30 with modest incomes. The Free File adjusted gross income limit for 2020 is $69,000. For those who want to do their own taxes, Free File means free tax preparation, free electronic filing and free direct deposit, which is the fastest way to get a refund.
How does it work?
For more information on free file, visit irs.gov/freefile.
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.
Moraine Park Technical College, in partnership with the Wisconsin 9-11 Memorial and Education Center, will host a 9-11 Lecture series every Thursday in February, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. The events are free and will be held at the College’s West Bend Campus, 2151 N Main Street.
The lecture series will feature Mike Nichols, author of a Few Sleeps Away, on February 6; Secretary Mary Kolar, Wisconsin Dept. of Veterans Affairs, speaking on societal changes since 9-11, on February 13; Charlie Vitchers, foreman at Ground Zero, on February 20; and, Gordon Haberman, father of 9-11 victim Andrea Haberman, on February 27.
The purpose of the series is to bring continued awareness to the 9-11 Memorial efforts in Wisconsin through accounts of personal stories and the building of a memorial in Kewaskum. Current Moraine Park students are working with the Wisconsin 9-11 Memorial and Education Center to offer assistance in some areas of the project. Refreshments will be provided.
This event is made possible thanks to generous donations from Dunn Brothers Coffee, MCR Services, LLC, Property Loss Management, LLC, The Candyman on Main, and Washington County Fair Park and Conference Center.
Seating is limited, and registration is required. The event will also be available on a live stream format. For more information on the event, the live stream, or to register, visit morainepark.edu/lecture.
Nursing students in Instructor Michele Mengert’s Mental Health and Community Concepts course recently completed their community advocacy projects as part of our Fall, 2019 service learning opportunities. Michele said, “students are purposefully working to learn community oriented nursing. We want to target prevention as a priority. Nurses need to understand how to advocate for specific populations of people and have knowledge of the resource programs in your community that you can partner with to help your patients.”
This semester 20 students spent over 100 hours researching and collaborating with community partners to learn more about parenting, fostering, opioid addiction, poverty, developmental disabilities, domestic violence, sexual assault, and more. Students formulated detailed advocacy plans to address how a nurse could help a community identify and address these issues, providing education, awareness, advocacy and resources. Students gathered data to help determine strengths and weaknesses in their own communities. Project presentations were held on December 20.
Congratulations on all of this great work on important community issues!
Envision Fond du Lac’s 2020 Career Connections, held January 7, 8, 9, officially wrapped up Tuesday evening with a debrief meeting encompassing school, business and MPTC representatives. The overwhelming consensus from the committee was that “year four was the best Career Connections yet!” Presenters offered more interactive sessions than ever before, student movement from room to room was smooth, and some minor tweaks to the welcome sessions created the positive results the committee had hoped for.
Of course, none of these successes would have been possible without all of you! We had more than 100 MPTC employees fill 190 timeslots, which included welcoming presenters, guiding students to their assigned rooms and ensuring students got safely to their buses. If you were one those 100-plus – thank you, thank you!
A special thank you also goes out to our housekeeping staff for their efforts with room set up and take down, to our instructional technology staff who ensured room technology was ready to go, and to our facilities staff who helped in so many various ways!
So, again, we say “thank you” for helping Moraine Park ensure those who entered our doors during those three days, left our college with a new appreciation for what we have to offer.
Take a look at Career Connections 2020 “By the Numbers!”
· 3 Days – January 7, 8, 9
· 2,100 7th and 8th Grade students
· 6 School Districts
· 7 Private Schools
· 65-plus area businesses
· 130 area business presenters (including several MPTC faculty)
· 80-plus career areas highlighted
· 100-plus MPTC employees
· 10 Envision Greater Fond du Lac Team members
For more information on Moraine Park, visit morainepark.edu.
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