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THIENSVILLE — The village of Thiensville completed a two-month-long project to upgrade the boat launch in Village Park with a ribbon- cutting ceremony on the evening of Oct. 6.

The improved boat launch is funded by the village and a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that covered half of the $306,000 total project cost.

“The boat launch is a simple but effective and aesthetically pleasing upgrade to the park,” said Village President Van Mobley. “A big thanks go out to the taxpayers who funded it, engineers who designed it and construction workers who built it. We will all enjoy it for many years.”

The upgrades include a cove that protects the launching ramp from current in the Milwaukee River. A new kayak launch and boarding pier will serve the growing number of users of kayaks, canoes and paddleboards.

The project includes a variety of environmentally friendly landscaping improvements and stabilization features along the riverbank, which have deteriorated over the years. Several benches also have been added.

Improvements to the parking lot include a designated vehicle/boat trailer ADA parking space. Runoff from the parking lot will be directed into native prairie plantings, significantly reducing contaminants before reaching the river.

The boat launch is the latest improvement in Village Park. Others include the Port Washington State Bank River Stage, which was completed in 2019, as well as a new playground, comfort station and entryway feature.

Future fundraising goals for Village Park Reimagined include a splash pad, an upgrade to the pavilion and ice-skating facilities.

The following story reveals how Rotary Youth Exchange continues to change lives.

When Tim Pfrogner was in Los Angeles on his exchange in 2010, he participated in a service project that altered his career trajectory. “In our district, we do a humanitarian trip every year,” says Melody St. John, a member of the Rotary Club of Hollywood, California, who with her husband, Paul, hosted Pfrogner during his exchange year. “Tim was with us when we did a water filter project in the Dominican Republic, and he was fascinated.”

After returning home to Germany, Pfrogner went on to study at the Technical University of Munich, but he couldn’t forget what he had experienced on his exchange — or the fact that 800 million people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water.

In 2014, he co-founded a startup, called Waterfilter, that works in the Kigoma region of Tanzania and is now supported by the Rotary Club of München-International. With his team, he developed a sustainable business model to distribute an innovative water purification product made using local resources. Waterfilter trains unemployed people to open up their own Waterfilter shop, where they build the filters and sell them to members of their community for an affordable price.

“This way,” Pfrogner says, “we do not only provide clean and safe drinking water; we also create jobs.”

Pfrogner says his experience with Rotary Youth Exchange was pivotal. “Being confronted with different cultures at such an early time in my life strengthened my ability to have empathy for others,” he says. “Youth Exchange taught me to follow my passions.”

Jan Goetz
Hospice nurse
Rotary Club of Albemarle, North Carolina

I have been a nurse for 43 years, and this will be my 16th year doing hospice care. I love what I do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s a privilege when families allow us to walk this journey with them. It’s a very sacred time. They allow us into their homes, and we become part of their family, and they become part of our family. It’s not just a job; it’s a ministry.

Everything changed with this virus coming around. Imagine facing a terminal illness: You’ve been told you’ve got six months or less to live. The family is dealing with that. They’ve come to the conclusion that hospice is what they need. They decide, “We want comfort care; we just want to enjoy the time we have left.” People are fragile anyway, and suddenly this virus hits.

Most of the patients we visit are at home, but we also have patients in nursing homes and assisted living. All of a sudden, those nursing homes and assisted living places are locked down. Even for our home patients, their families are not allowing people to visit. Not only are our patients dealing with their terminal illness, but now they can’t spend time with the people they love. I have a patient with pulmonary fibrosis. Her whole life is her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, and she has not seen them for weeks. It breaks my heart, because we don’t know that she’ll live long enough to spend time with them again.

As hospice workers, we’re trying to keep our people safe. We want to make sure COVID-19 stays out of their homes. So the hardest part for us is not being able to love on our patients and their families. The people who go into hospice care have a heart for people and a heart for the dying. Most of us are touchy-feely people. The first thing we do when we arrive at a home is hug our patients and our families, and we can’t do that now. It tears us apart. We’re losing that personal part of what we do. We try to be a smiling face, but that’s tough to do when you’re wearing a mask.

We have to get close enough to take our patients’ vital signs. We use those times to get close to people, to touch them. It’s really the only chance we have. At the end of my visit, when I’m at a safe distance, I take my mask down. The families see my face, and we smile. But it’s not the same. When I finally leave the home and I’m back in my car, I cry. It’s very, very difficult.

I am not the hero in this situation. Our patients and our families rise to the occasion and deal with the hand that they’ve been dealt the best they know how. Through all this, they are the ones who are the heroes.