This Holiday Season, Give the Gift of Giving (and Sweets)

More than 100 Whitefish Bay students are baking treats to raise money for an African schoolhouse through the Boxes of Love organization.

A growing number of Whitefish Bay kids are giving new meaning to the phrase 'made with love'. This holiday season, more than 100 Whitefish Bay students are expected to participate in the Boxes of Love project, which bakes holiday treats to raise money for a charitable cause. Last year, 120 kids baked 17,000 treats for a fundraiser that donated $20,560 to expand the HIP and HIPPY parent involvement programs at COA Youth and Family Centers. This year, the kids will be baking treats to purchase desks for Valley View Academy near Nairobi, Kenya. The effort to rebuild the schoolhouse has been led by Shorewood native Stephanie Koczela, who studied abroad in Nairobi in her junior year of college. After finishing her study abroad program, she …

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Dentist Protects Teeth in Toughest of Circumstances

The free mouthguards Paul Sandvick provides to local athletes constitute just one aspect of his commitment to boost Whitefish Bay athletics.

About three years ago, Paul Sandvick decided coaching his kids and going to their sports games wasn't enough. The local dentist decided to start WFB Hoops, the high school basketball program's first booster club, and he also volunteered to make free mouthguards for the boys and girls basketball teams. He has since opened the doors to his office on Port Washington Road to all of the school's football players, rugby players and hockey players. While other dentists might charge $50 for mouthguards, Sandvick doesn't seem too concerned by the cost. As a dentist who cares about Whitefish Bay athletics, he says he's just doing what he can to give back to the community. "For me, sports has been such a huge part of my life — I still play basketball…

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Quilting Project Will Comfort Children With Heart Disease

Whitefish Bay Middle School student Aviya Stein created 18 quilts and raised $2,600 to benefit children with heart defects in the Herma Heart Center at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

One year ago, Aviya Stein set out to sew 18 quilts and raise $1,800 for children with heart defects. It wasn't an easy mission, but the seventh grade student at Whitefish Bay Middle School was able to accomplish her goals by her Bat Mitzvah, which she celebrated on Sept. 8. In fact, Aviya exceeded her goals by $800, raising a total of $2,600 from friends, teachers, and other groups and individuals from across the country who found out about her online fundraising effort. Her 18 quilts will soon be delivered to the Herma Heart Center at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, where they will be distributed to the young patients. The quilting project is close to home for Aviya, whose 10-year-old brother Asher has been in and out of Children's …

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Wish Granted: Students Help Girl With Heart Defect Meet Taylor Swift

Whitefish Bay High School students raised more than $6,500 this school year to help a 12-year-old Make-A-Wish Foundation candidate meet her idol, country music sensation Taylor Swift.

Like many 12-year-old girls, Brittney Kuhl enjoys dancing and singing, and she idolizes Taylor Swift. But unlike many other girls her age, Brittney lives with a life-threatening heart defect known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which has required multiple surgeries and multiple pills per day.  Because of that illness — and the compassion and energy of students at Whitefish Bay High School — Brittney will soon be different from other 12-year-old girls in one more important way. She'll get to meet Taylor, the international singing sensation, following a year-long fundraising effort at the school. The high school chose Make-A-Wish Foundation as its charity this year, which is how students met Brittney, a student at Whitman Middle School …

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VIDEO: High School Students Buzz Hair To Fund Cancer Research

More than 40 Whitefish Bay students raised $16,517 for the MACC Fund by cutting or buzzing their hair Friday afternoon.

More than 40 Whitefish Bay High School students cut or shaved their hair to benefit cancer research Friday afternoon. And it wasn't just boys shaving their heads. More than 20 girls participated, some of whom went all the way and got their hair buzzed or shaved. Students spent the last couple months soliciting funds for the event, and they raised a total of $16,517 for the MACC Fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer). Most of the longer girls' hair will go to Locks of Love. The MACC Fund, founded in 1976, has contributed $41 million to childhood cancer and related blood disorder research. MACC Fund development officer Lora Kaelber thanked the gymnasium full of students for their generosity. "I can't say thank you enough to …

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Whitefish Bay Alum Plans Cross-Country Bike Ride to Build Houses

Arden Stewart will ride from Florida to California this summer, building affordable housing along the way.

Arden Stewart, a 2010 graduate of Whitefish Bay High School, said she has been lucky to grow up with secure, comfortable housing, but she knows many Americans lack that privilege. "I never had to question where the next meal was coming from," Stewart said. "But I know that poverty is a vicious cycle. When there are millions of Americans spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing, it perpetuates that cycle." So she decided to do something about it. It was her brother who planted the seed of the idea, when he rode 4,000 miles through Africa last year. "I was jealous with intense wanderlust," Stewart said. "Every day I was thinking, my brother's in Zambia, and I'm in class right now." After spending three semesters at Cornell …

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Cumberland Students Sell Handmade Bracelets to Help Kenyan School

Fourth-grade girls raise $50 over their summer break to help turn a dilapidated school house in Nairobi into a new, four-story facility.

When Cumberland School students saw pictures of a school in Kenya where students are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, knees-to-back into a small classroom with tin walls, four fourth-grade girls took the extra initiative to raise funds for the school by selling handmade bracelets, hair bows and headbands during their summer break. Cumberland Principal Jayne Heffron visited Valley View Academy in Nairobi, Kenya about three years ago when she heard about the school's needs from Shorewood native Stephanie Koczela, who is working with the school's officials to raise money and construct a new school building. After Heffron gave a presentation to Cumberland students and parents about the fundraising effort upon her return, the school's PTO solicited…

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Quilts for Kids Project Strikes a Personal Chord for Sixth-Grader

Aviya Stein is sewing quilts and raising money for sick children at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

When 12-year-old Aviya Stein was tasked with creating a meaningful Bat Mitzvah project, she decided to help kids with heart complications — a cause near and dear to her own heart. Aviya's idea to sew quilts for children with heart defects was inspired by the keepsake quilt her brother Asher received during his stay at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin for a congenital heart defect he was born with. So far, she has sewn nine quilts, but she hopes to create 18 — a number that means "life" in Hebrew. Her project, called Aviya's Quilts for Kids, also aims to raise $1,800 for the hospital's Herma Heart Center, and she is already about halfway to her goal. The effort has taken off through a Facebook group and by spreading the word around school…

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Waukesha County Museum Names Volunteer of the Year

Whitefish Bay man recently started as Mr. Boynton during "Night at the Museum.

Editor’s Note: The following information was provided to Waukesha Patch via a news release from the Waukesha County Museum. The Waukesha County Museum announced the winner of this year’s Willard Griswold Volunteer of the Year Award at last night’s annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. The award was given to Richard Whitaker from Whitefish Bay. Whitaker has volunteered in the museum’s education department as a docent since 2003. He is often requested by school groups for tours because of his wonderful teaching style and ability to engage children in learning about the past. Most recently, he volunteered for the museum’s annual Night at the Museum event playing the cast part of “Mr. Boynton,” the prominent jeweler who was sued in court for …

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Middle School Students Donate PB&J to the Hungry

Fox 6: Whitefish Bay Middle School students collected the most peanut butter and jelly of 75 Milwaukee-area schools participating in a Peanut Butter and Jelly Challenge that collected a total of 21,000 pounds of peanut butter and jelly in October.

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