Back in Madison in Sept

Back in Madison..

We came back to Madison for a few days on Sept 14th. We needed to clean the house, and check the water level in the dock. You can see the Lake Mendota (mouth of the Yahara River) high water level pictures Anne took back in August.

Ack and Anne also had to catch up on some work related items and meetings. All fun. We enjoyed being back here and noticed that there are fewer people than in DC. What an observation!

But mostly, we came back as Anne was helping to organize our first community fundraiser to establish "Margaret's Fund: A Northside Scholarship." This is named after Margaret Ackerman Sparks, Ack's sister.

Alyssa Kenney (the executive director of a Northside Madison community center) and Anne have been working to establish this fund for the past year. They've had good community support (over $6,000 raised so far towards a goal of $10,000). While it's still developing, the scholarship fund will give a minimum of one $500 scholarship to an applicant chosen by a committee. After it's well established, we will give out more. The scholarship will go to someone who is either a graduating HS senior, someone already in college, or an adult going to college later in life (like Margaret did). The person will have lived on Madison's Northside for 4 years previous and have overcome significant hardship (language, health, financial, etc). A committee of Northside business and community leaders will choose the recipient.

We are now off to Amsterdam for a meeting and a little touring.