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Friday, December 14, 2018 • Vol. 5, No. 10 • Fitchburg, WI • ConnectFitchburg.com • $1
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Inside
Dancing lions abroad
Badger Prairie Needs Network
Nomination papers available for spring election Page 3 Tax bills in the mail
OMS students travel to China for dance competition
Page 5
EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
Second Harvest post it as available for delivery,” she said. As a result, Kasieta said, BPNN will have an impact on food-insecure homes not just within the Verona Area School District, but throughout Dane, Jefferson and Waukesha counties, as well as around a dozen more in southern Wisconsin that are serviced by Second Harvest Food Bank. Dawn Bradshaw, foods division program leader for CAC, said while the 52-year-old anti-poverty nonprofit has been conducting food rescues from Epic for years, the partnership with BPNN with repackaging the food will allow it to better serve the population of those who have food insecurity. Previously, the packaging would be flimsy and not keep the food safe, or it wouldn’t include lists of ingredients, a concern for those who have allergies. “That’s a big concern when you’re dealing with a vulnerable population to begin with,” she said. “You certainly don’t want to be causing any medical issues to those folks who are perhaps already having medical issues.” In addition to feeding people, a goal of Kitchen to Table is to create a working model for food recovery
Tw o O r e g o n M i d d l e School seventh-graders recently traveled to Macau, China last month to tell a tale – the tale of a lion who crossed a bridge in a simple act of bravery. Josie Feldhausen and Renee Erdmann did this while operating a colorful, puppet-like lion costume in a Chinese martial arts tradition known as a lion dance. The dance won the seventh-graders and the rest of their junior United States team a bronze medal in the first junior lion dance competition at the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer International Lion Dance Invitational, held Nov. 10-11. “They were thrilled,” said Colleen Feldhausen, Josie’s mother. “They practiced for months.” “I was surprised and ecstatic and I felt like I was going to explode,” Josie said in a later phone call with the Star. “I couldn’t comprehend the feelings that were rushing into my head.” The junior team also included Emerson Elementary fourth-grader Solomon Beebe Collum of Madison, who played drums during the girls’ performance. They traveled with their families, and the Zhong Yi Kung Fu Association women’s team with whom they train in Madison. While at the competition, the seventh-graders met teams from all across southeast Asia — including China, Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Feldhausen said in their free time, the girls were able to explore Macau with their respective families. “We did quite a bit of sightseeing,” she said. “We saw a lot of ancient Buddhist temples.”
Turn to BPNN/Page 15
Turn to China/Page 16
Veterans Day ceremony photos Page 13
Business
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Steve Barry places food items on the shelf in Badger Prairie Needs Network’s new warehouse.
Kitchen to table
Expansion allows for partnerships, feeding more people KIMBERLY WETHAL
Noble Knight brings thousands of games to Fitchburg Page 17
Sports
Edgewood girls swimming repeats Page B1
Schools OSD approves land purchases Page B6
Unified Newspaper Group
When Badger Prairie Needs Network expanded into a county building in 2015, it found itself with twice the space but still “bursting at the seams.” “From almost the day we moved in, we’ve been expanding our programs, and we are out of space,” Marcia Kasieta, executive director for the nonprofit social services agency, told the Press last month. With an addition onto the western and northern parts of the now 9,000-square-foot Verona facility, BPNN has the space to widen its impact on reducing food insecurity. It served 1,100 families in 2017 – two thirds of whom were from Fitchburg – and expanded its service territory in 2018. A 576-square foot warehouse is already mostly filled with dry goods, and a larger cooler and freezer area was ready use by the first week of December. Those additions allow BPNN to have the space to turn over more product, which it will need after increasing its services. The new 1,000-square foot cooler and freezer space off the back of the kitchen will allow for a new initiative to be rooted in BPNN’s facility. The “Kitchen to Table: Wisconsin Food PRSRT STANDARD ECRWSS US POSTAGE
‘From almost the day we moved in, we’ve been expanding our programs, and we are out of space.’ – Marcia Kasieta, BPNN executive director Recovery Network” initiative will involve conducting “rescues” from cafeterias from places like Epic and UW Hospitals and Clinics and using BPNN’s facility to repackage food and store it. Regional networks, including the Community Action Coalition and Second Harvest of Southern Wisconsin, and individual food pantries will be able to collect the prepackaged meals from BPNN and distribute them. That increases the amount of prepared food its clients will have access to, and other food service agencies that feed Fitchburg can receive prepackaged food that comes through BPNN, as well. “If the pantries at St. Vincent De Paul, Good Shepherd Church or Allied Drive want to receive packaged surplus food, they can come out to BPNN and shop the cooler – or they can order it when CAC or
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