News

Do you think you bake the best chocolate cake? Do your friends rave about it? Then you need to enter your cake into Studio 84’s Chocolate Cake War!

The event will take place Saturday, Sept. 14 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Studio 84. All cake baker entry forms must be received by Aug. 1. For details and an entry form visit www.studio84inc.org, email info@studio84inc.org or call 262-473-9845.

The entry fee is $25 with prizes being awarded for the Best Chocolate Cake and honorable mentions. Cake bakers will bake their cakes and serve bite sized pieces to cake tasters (members of the greater community.) Tickets for the tasters are $5 per person and $15 for family of four or more. The tasters will be given a ticket to cast their vote for the best cake after tasting all the entries.

Get your entry form in early as space is limited to the first 20 entries!

Studio 84 is at 121 W. Center St. in Whitewater. It’s a non-profit art studio that provides experiences in the arts for the community. The studio specializes in the creative and vocational development of people with disabilities, including those with autism, physical disabilities, cognitive limitations and mental illness.

To learn more visit www.studio84inc.org or check them out on Facebook.

Heart Prairie Lutheran Church on Whitewater Lake is celebrating its 175th anniversary in 2019.  A celebration will be held on the evening of Sunday, June 30th, and the public is invited. Feel free to wear a Norwegian bunad.

6:30 pm – Festivities will begin with a display of Scandinavian crafts and Heart Prairie memorabilia.  Take the opportunity to sample some Norwegian finger foods.

7:30 pm – Listen to an oral history of Heart Prairie by Pastor Jerry Wendt as well as by Pastor Larry Froemming, who wrote a book on the church for a seminary project in 1974.   Norwegian music will be performed. Siblings Dave Cleven and Cathy Zange will share family memories including excerpts from an 1861 letter that surfaced in 2009 (in Norway). Jørgen Nielsen, a schoolteacher at Heart Prairie, writes, “Sorg og lykke bor side ved side.”  That translates, “Sorrow and happiness live side by side.” He writes of their happiness of eldest son Niels’ wedding to Ingeborg Aslaksdatter at the Heart Prairie church on Friday, November 1, 1861, and their sorrow of youngest son Halvor leaving Whitewater on Saturday, November 2, 1861, to join the 13th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment in Janesville during the Civil War.  Jørgen, Niels, and Ingeborg are all buried in the cemetery surrounding the church. Halvor Nielsen is not.

8:30 pm – The lanterns will be lit and the evening will conclude with an Oil Lamp Service (Høymesse) inside the church.    Please join us.

In 1846, two years after approximately 16 families organized their congregation and before the present building was constructed, bilious fever struck and 22 people (mostly children) died between the months of September and December.  Most of these graves are on a farm near the crossing of Engel and Clover Valley roads near the flowing well.

Heart Prairie Lutheran Church was built around 1857.  It is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1948, the congregation merged with the First English Lutheran Church congregation in Whitewater.  The Heart Prairie church is still used today for services during the summer as well as on Christmas Eve, without any electricity or indoor plumbing. Many artists have sketched or painted Heart Prairie Lutheran Church over the years, including the renowned etcher, Leon Pescheret.  

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will feature Summer on the Mall on Wednesday June 19 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event takes place on the North Mall at UW-W. Casual Joe’s will be catering, and there will be live music, art workshops, BINGO, a silent auction, and other activities to help raise money for United Way.

Festival Foods from Fort Atkinson sent their management team to Whitewater with the first order of lunch fixings for students this summer.  Summer brings with it a period of eight weeks during which our schools’ feeding programs do not operate. These feeding programs are the main nutritional support for many of our Whitewater children. Without these programs, or a substitute program, the children go hungry.  Whitewater Unites Lives (WUL), in cooperation with The Community Space, community churches, groups and individuals, fills that feeding gap. 

Festival Foods is providing goods at cost, and their team delivered it this week as a community service. 

Last year, food donations together with cash donations of $7,473 enabled WUL to distribute 1,015 meals that fed 145 children. WUL volunteers acquired the groceries, sorted them, filled bags, loaded the bags into cars, and delivered the food. It’s time to do it again. WUL is preparing to do the volunteer work that keeps our children healthy and adequately nourished through the summer.  

Our fund-raising target is $7,500. Every dollar we receive will be used to feed people who need your help.  Food contributions are welcome and helpful, too. Del Monte Foods, Inc. donated a pallet of green beans to this program.

Please send your gift to:

UCC Congregational Church

133 S. Franklin St. 

Whitewater, WI 53190

In the memo please identify “Lunch Fixings”

If you have questions or would like to volunteer, please contact:

Mary Sue Reutebuch (608) 931-9844

Lauren Smith (262) 490-4326

Marjorie Stoneman (414) 861-4126 or margiestoneman@sbcglobal.net

Whitewater Unites Lives (WUL) Mission:  Whitewater Unites Lives (WUL) is a locally-focused civil and human rights group that works to connect the people in our community and to create opportunities for all people to learn and support each other in our common humanity.

Kiwanis Whitewater Breakfast Club continues to support the work and creative opportunities taking place at Studio 84, in Whitewater.  Studio 84 specializes in working with all people, including those with Autism, physical disabilities, cognitive limitations and mental illness.

Studio 84’s mission is to provide fully accessible opportunities in the arts to enrich lives by focusing on the strengths and abilities of the individual, and by encouraging the creative voice with self-directed activities, thus inspiring self-worth, pride, confidence, and acceptance. More information about Studio 84 can be found online at studio84inc.org where they nurture “A Creative Focus on the Abilities through the ARTS.”

The Kiwanis Whitewater Breakfast Club is made up of dedicated volunteers who help children in the Whitewater community and the world, all with 100 percent of funds raised going directly to projects and zero to administrative costs.  Each year, the club distributes approximately $20,000, with over half going to the Whitewater Unified School District, including Ferradermis, ELL Summer School Transportation, shoes for students, Badger Boys State and Badger Girls State, and scholarships.  Kiwanis helped to build and maintain the Flowing Well Shelter, the shelter and accessible playground at Starin Park and Treyton’s Field of Dreams, the WHS football field lights and press box, as well as adopting a highway to clean up.  In addition, the group donates to the Whitewater Youth Soccer Club, the Friends of the Whitewater Aquatic Center Family Partnership Fund, the Whitewater Food Pantry, Bethel House and more.

Funds are raised through annual Pancake Breakfasts that have been served continuously since the 1950s, the Discover Whitewater Series Half-Marathon Pancake Breakfast since it began, and yearly poinsettia and lily plant sales. More information can be found on the Whitewater Kiwanis Breakfast Club Facebook page.

The City of Whitewater Common Council approved an increase to sewer rates at its May 21, 2019 meeting. The change will take effect June 27, 2019.

Residents will see an increase only in the sanitary portion of their utility bill as a direct result of the recent improvements at the wastewater treatment facility as well as street reconstruction projects completed through the Capital Improvement Program.

Based on the average water use among residential customers in 2017, the average resident using approximately:

• 3,000 gallons (low use) of water per month would experience an increase of $7.76 per month

• 4,000 gallons (average use) of water per month would experience an increase of $9.09 per month

• 5,000 gallons (high use) of water per month would experience an increase of $10.43 per month

The improvements were necessary to maintain sewage treatment quality at the wastewater utility and an effective collection system. This increase will ensure the sewer utility remains in compliance with the its bond covenants.

Learn more about the wastewater project at http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/270/Wastewater-Facility-Project- Update. For more information on the wastewater project and updates, please contact DPW at 262-473-0560.

Utility bill questions can be forwarded to the Finance Department at 262-473-1383 or 262-473-1382.

The City of Whitewater provides efficient and high quality services which support living, learning, playing and working in an exceptional community. Visit www.whitewater-wi.gov for community information and updates.

Several Members of the Kiwanis Whitewater Breakfast Club spent Saturday morning on June 8, helping to keep the highway clean via the Adopt-A-Highway program.  A team of five picked up  10 bags of garbage and some large car parts on Highway 12 in La Grange.

“Serving our community is a primary purpose of our club.  Cleaning up the highway is one of many contributions that our members make,” said Lynn Binnie, coordinator of the Kiwanis Adopt-A-Highway program. 

Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time.

Photo:  (Left to right)  Kiwanians Steve Ryan, Lynn Binnie, Steve Smith, Jerry Grant, and Rick Halvorson prior to spending two hours picking up garbage between The La Grange General Store and Highway O on Saturday, June 8 (Marjorie Stoneman took photo).