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 Building a
bridge of love
There’s
more than 3,000 miles separating Elm Grove from Quito, Ecuador, but
Pat Parks has helped bridge that distance many times over during her
four decades working with Family Unity International, Inc. Family
Unity International is a volunteer-organization that supports The
Working Boys Center. Parks is now president of the state-side part of
the organization.
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 Guarding the
disadvantaged
Caring for a developmentally disabled
child often brings challenges, and sometimes more so when the child
reaches adulthood. "The age of 18 is the time when parents no
longer have the legal right to make decisions for their child,"
according to Germantown resident Noleta Jansen, an attorney with the
firm Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, Milwaukee.
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 In touch
with Tanzania
France, Australia, Italy ... Tanzania? Not your typical study abroad
list. But Ryan Skaife is trying to change that. His first order of business? The Hope in Tanzania Marquette
University Chapter, which embarked on a two-week trip to Tanzania from
Dec. 27 to Jan. 14.
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Mom
on a mission
Lori Holton Nash makes her rise to PBS
KIDS fame sound like child’s play. The Wisconsin native - she’s a
Shorewood High School graduate - has been acting since she was just
9, when she landed her first role with the Children’s Theatre of
Madison. "The minute I got it, I didn’t stop," she says.
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Flipanthropic
work
Renee Foutz and Sandra Uihlein hope to
be "small stones that create big ripples." The two, who met when Uihlein’s
husband, Mike, and Foutz started their residency in emergency
medicine, have shared countless phone conversations throughout their
seven-year friendship.
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Faces of
compassion
Daniel Meehan, a young U.S. Merchant Marine who hailed from Staten
Island, would be forever marked by the scenes that greeted him in 1948
as he sailed into the Mediterranean and saw a land and its people
devastated by the war.
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Attitude of
gratitude
In Swaziland, Africa, young children learn about HIV/AIDS as if it
were a storybook rhyme or any other subject in school. They even sing
about this deadly virus, which has claimed the lives of virtually a
generation of mothers and fathers there, and affected the lives of
countless others.
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Global
connections
Carol Storck imagines that her daughter, Jasmine, held hands with
her best friend, Sophia, through the crib bars in her Chinese
orphanage. From the first weeks of their lives they were together, and
they remain connected today after being adopted by Ozaukee County
families who live within blocks of each other.
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Spreading
hope
Many
college students take a year off to earn money, soul search or see the
world, but if your aunt is Oprah Winfrey you’ve got some explaining
to do. Alisha Hayes, the niece in question, says not only Oprah, but
also her parents and grandparents, "really gave me grief to stay
in school." They shouldn’t have worried. Hayes graduated from
Carroll College in 2004 and Aunt Oprah was in the audience.
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Matched set
For
most people, the word "mentor" is defined as "trusted
counselor or guide." But, for one young woman, the word simply
means "Kristin." Kristin Eickhorst of Cedarburg and
Mindy Donald of Fredonia have been matched through the Big Brothers
Big Sisters of Ozaukee County program since Mindy’s mother died when
she was 4 years old.
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Children
first
Attorney
John Stocking arrives at the law firm on Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee
that bears his name about 10 each morning. He starts the day a little
late because on his way in from Hartland, he drops off his 43-year-old
son John for work at the Waukesha Training Center.
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Sustaining
life through peace
Learning about chickens can be a small step toward achieving world
peace. Dr. Lynne Woehrle, an associate professor of sociology at Mount
Mary College, believes that.
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Unconditional
friendship
Bo Dowsett’s always been a friend to the volunteer community. But
it was the nonprofit Best Buddies program that cemented that
relationship. The mission of the international program founded in 1989
by Anthony Kennedy Shriver is to foster "one-to-one friendships
and integrated employment" for those with intellectual
disabilities.
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Teen
work
At Strive Media Institute, a team of
artists recently earned an Emmy award for a series of commercials they
developed encouraging Milwaukee bus riders to behave. Not bad for a bunch of teenagers.
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Putting kids
first
Jay Sorensen is mild-mannered until the
topic turns to child abuse. "It really upsets me to see
children who have been harmed by adults," says Sorensen, 46, of
Shorewood.
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David Lenz's
perfect world
When you’re a kid, you tend to have only an inkling of what your
mom and dad do during the day. Maybe you’ve visited Mom’s office
on occasion; Dad might come and make a little speech at your school’s
career day.
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Heart of a
lioness
A baby’s heart is about the size of a walnut. Usually it is a
model of perfection, but sometimes not. Some of the babies with those
tiny, sick hearts find themselves in the capable, caring hands of Dr.
Ndidiamaka Musa, a cardiac intensive care specialist at Children’s
Hospital of Wisconsin.
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Tricks of
the trade
For Sarah-ann Friedman, teaching
science to middle-schoolers involves a bit of sleight of hand. "The strongest way to prepare our
students for their future success is to promote creativity and
innovation," says Friedman, science specialist and teacher at
Milwaukee Jewish Day School.
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Celebrating
one big whirlwind year
She may have once briefly
been known as "The Big Enchilada" but really, the only thing
truly big about Delaney "Laney" Buzzell is the big way in
which the 1-year-old enjoys her life. "She’s figured out what
it means to be No. 3," says her mother, Mequon’s Robin Buzzell.
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Heart and
sole
As an eighth-grade student at Bayside
Middle School, Kyle Lurie does not see many people who lack for
material possessions. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t aware that
others in the Milwaukee area are in need.
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Junior
achievement
Where Rivke Spalter works, everything
is colorful and teeny weenie — chairs, sinks, tables — even the
pairs of shoes lined up outside the playrooms. Spalter is the director
of the Mequon Jewish Preschool, where love and joy are as plentiful as
construction paper and singing lessons.
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Comforting
the children
GRAFTON - Last year, an
all-time high of 24,000 international adoptions were completed in the
United States. Yet, it is estimated that only 1 percent of the world’s
orphan population was adopted.
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Globe-trotting
doc
Dr. Pam Ogor is always looking for trouble. If she doesn’t find
any, it usually finds her. The diminutive doctor is a family
practitioner with Covenant Health Care System; her practice is located
at St. Michael Hospital in Milwaukee. She loves her local patients,
but given the chance to helicopter into a remote region of Pakistan or
bounce over dirt roads in Tanzania, she’ll pack her stethoscope in a
flash.
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Show of
support
Debi Balistrieri has beaten breast
cancer twice. Her sister, Mardele Reichwald, was less
fortunate. She did not survive the disease. "The first time I found out I had
cancer, my sister learned six months later that she had it, too,"
Balistrieri says.
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Building
blitz
Renee Johnson never thought she would
own a home. But the mother, who works 11 hours a
day as a loan processor for JP Morgan Chase and earns a 3.75 grade
point average at Milwaukee Area Technical College, has friends who
thought differently.
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A baker's
dozen
The number 13 appears to be lucky for
the Diel family in Delafield. Just ask parents Jim and Diane, or their
kids, James, 28, Jessica, 24, Jonathon, 21, Jordan, 16, Diana, 14,
Lydia, 11, Sophia, 10, Grace, 8, Katherine and Caroline, 6 and Joseph,
3.
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Saving the
music
What do you get when you put a lot of
musically and theatrically talented kids under one roof? Milwaukee’s
newest space for children - the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. The 80,000-square-foot building, a
former Schlitz warehouse, is located in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville
neighborhood.
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Missions of
mercy
During its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s,
the Italian ocean liner Anastasis plied the oceans from the
Mediterranean to Europe to Hong Kong to West Africa. Today the
572-foot, 12,000-gross ton Anastasis is based largely in Sierra Leone,
where it has been captained by Whitefish Bay native Clement Ketchum as
part of the Mercy Ships organization and renders medical assistance to
those living in the war-torn region.
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Circle of
friendship
Like a lot of us, Patti Swift stumbles
across the most unusual information on Internet searches. Years ago,
she was looking for a house bridge-loan, but in a simple twist of
fate, she found a way to improve the lives of families in Guatemala.
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Faith
through healing
Though his hands have lent a healing
touch to patients in countries far across the globe, Dr. Mark Bruce,
an osteopathic physician at Elmbrook Memorial Hospital, believes his
work is nothing more than a blessing and a duty he was put on Earth to
do. It was this belief that led Bruce, a Brookfield resident, on a
medical survey mission with other members of Elmbrook Church, to
Indonesia in 2003.
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Building on
a legacy
Michelle Aldridge Golding has a passion
for helping families cope with mental illness. The Shorewood resident
knows firsthand about the experience. She is one of two daughters of
the late Green Bay Packers great Lionel Aldridge who suffered from
schizophrenia. Golding is in the process of establishing Lionel’s
House, a resource center for loved ones and friends. She is the
executive director.
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Patches of
hope
Inspiration comes in many forms. For a
group of breast cancer survivors it’s gathering around a quilt.
Several quilters from the area were inspired to create the Patches of
Hope quilt which breast cancer patients and survivors can claim for
their inspiration.
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Staying
connected
Many of us don’t know the heartache of seeing a loved one go off
to war. But in September of 2004, Sharon Semrow said goodbye to her husband
when he left for Iraq, along with nearly 300 other family members of
Fox Company 2nd Battalion 24th Marine Company soldiers.
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Rays of hope
Halima
and Sheikh-noor Hassan were farmers in Somalia, the country on the
northeastern tip of Africa that juts into the Indian Ocean, directly
below Saudi Arabia and the Middle East hot spots. She was 14, he 24.
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Adoption
becomes adaptation
As soon as Shu Ren was born
in the Huan Province of China, she was sent to live in an orphanage.
She was one of 150 girls who never knew what it felt like to
experience the love of a family.
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For Adam
In his eighth-grade autobiography Adam
Lemel wrote that he wanted to live a life he could be proud of. And
that he did. But sadly, on Jan. 22, 1999, as he played basketball in
Grafton, the 17-year-old Whitefish Bay High School student died of
sudden cardiac arrest.
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On the home
front
The words — written in shaky elementary school script — were
far from prose. And the author, a young girl probably in second or third grade, was
a stranger. But in the middle of the desert at 20 years old and thousands of
miles from the Fox Point home he grew up in, it didn’t really matter
to Jon Linhart.
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Summer
camp for children with
special needs puts everyone at ease
It hasn’t always been easy
for Paul Multerer to fit in with his peers. The active 13-year-old
from West Bend has grown up with autism, a neurological disorder that
affects a child’s ability to communicate, understand language, play
and relate to others.
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