Jennifer Barrett and Karri Pitsavas from L.E. Phillips Career Development Center Chippewa Outreach Office received the “2024 Community Impact Basic Needs Award” from United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley at the Chippewa Valley Spirit Awards Banquet on April 4, 2024. Jennifer and Karri were honored to receive the award for their continuous commitment to make sure Chippewa Valley residents have access to food, shelter and medical services in their time of need. As Jennifer stated “We have worked hard over the last 5 years to get our name out there and to help our community. It’s been a long road, and some days are really tough, but this show of appreciation has me full of gratitude!!
                               Congratulations Jennifer and Karri!!

The month of April was a great one for The Community-Based class. We spent a couple of days in class working on our resumes and playing Kahoot with a twist! During those class periods, we had a guest speaker, Nate from UW-Stout. Nate helped us with our resumes and answered our job-related questions. We also had a couple of exciting tours at Kwik Trip in Altoona and Kohl’s. Both were very informative and helped us learn more about searching for jobs. The highlight of our month was a tour of Costco. Costco is relatively new to the Chippewa Valley and the community-based class finally got our taste of it. It was a phenomenal tour showing us the ins and outs of why Costco is successful. The General Manager and the assistant GM answered all of our questions with great detail. Our class had a very productive month, and it is shown in the classroom as we continue to grow and learn.

A huge Thank you goes out to the Eau Claire Fire Department for assisting us with our annual fire drill on April 18, 2024. We are happy to announce that we received positive feedback. The facility was fully evacuated in less than 2 1/2 minutes and our Equipment meets and exceeds all the required safety standards.

At the April Board meeting, Dawn Yarrington from Clifton, Larson & Allen presented Gregg with a check in the amount of $15,000 for the purchase of a new RICOMA printer. A RICOM printer is a combination printer that allows Direct to Garment (DTG) or Direct to Film (DTF) printing. It allows more flexibility in terms of the number of colors utilized and is more efficient for small orders. The DTF component allows us to produce transfer images to use in house as well as to sell to customers. The RICOMA printer is user friendly, requiring less manual labor, and less physically demanding for our staff. It will be a positive addition to the Print Shop Thank you Clifton, Larson & Allen, your support is greatly appreciated!!!

Nearly 900 Athletes competed at the 2024 Spring Games State Tournament at UW Oshkosh the weekend of April 12-14. The spring competition includes 3 on 3 Basketball, Team Basketball, Basketball Skills and Swimming. Three of our own competed at this year's State Games, Kent Kohlhepp and Nate Stygar in Team Basketball and Sara Fellenz in Basketball skills. Not only did they compete, but they also got to enjoy a number of events throughout the weekend including a flashback gear for the 90s themed Victory Dance on Saturday.

The competition for Basketball skills (dribbling, shooting and throwing) began Friday evening after the opening ceremony. Sara, who has been competing in the Basketball skills for the past few years, finally took home the Gold!! Way to go Sara!! Sara stated that she had a great time and enjoyed “meeting new people, watching all the other players, and being away from home”.

Approximately 50 teams competed in a round robin tournament play in the Team Basketball competition on Saturday and Sunday. Kent Kohlhepp and the Eau Claire Wolverines coached by Keri and Christopher, lost their first game to the Dream Team with a score of 16-8, but went on to win their next two games against the Tigers 32-30 and the Crusaders 32-11, winning the Silver in their Division!! Awesome job Kent and the Wolverines!! This is the first time to state for Kent with this team and he stated that he had “a good time!”

Nate Stygar and his team the Bucks coached by Roger and Barry, played some tough competition against the Barron County Yukons, Bobcats, and the Green Giants. The Bucks also won two games and lost one winning the Silver in their Division!! Way to go Nate and the Bucks!! Nate who has participated at the State games twice prior, stated that “the tournament was fun, but the competition was hard!”

Several area residents spent an evening of fun and dance at the Eau Claire Parks and Recreation Par-Te-Rec annual Winter Prom on Thursday, April 24th. Sarah Rindal, Linda Sorenson, Donny Archer, John Faust, Sara Fellenz, and Jake Janssen were a few that attended and enjoyed the “groovy” themed prom. The evening was very special for Sara Fellenz for she received the honor of being Prom Queen!! Congratulations Sara!
                                      “What a groovy evening it was!!”

An Autistic Guy with a Special Creative Dream 
An Autobiography by Carter Lage

There once was a guy named Carter Lage, he is an autistic guy, and he has a dream. He wants to become a Children’s Author and Illustrator like his idol, who is the creator of the Arthur books and television show, Marc Brown. He grew up watching his favorite show and reading books when he was a kid, and he also likes writing and drawing when he was a kid. He wants to create a book series that is like a homage to Arthur, because the characters in Arthur have fun times and sometimes problem solving, so Carter wants to make a book series about a monkey named after him, as characters would do the same things Arthur and his friends did, but at age 13. Some of Carter’s friends and family members would say things like, “You can’t be plagiarizing Marc Brown’s ideas”. “You can’t have characters be named after a lot of people you know, but just a fair amount”. “Hopefully, you know what you are doing when you get your books self-published.” or “I know you’ll eventually become a children’s author and illustrator”. Even Marc Brown would tell him to believe in yourself, because that's the place to start. Well for all the things Carter wants to do, he’s going to try to do what he really likes to do. He wrote his manuscript and made illustrations for his first children’s book, now he’s got to get it self-published. He would say to himself, “There’s life in you that your gotta get through”. Who knows? His first book and special creative dream job might become successful and special. That’s the story about Carter Lage and his special creative dream job to become a children’s author and illustrator.