Daniel Groeschel
by Dan Groeschel
Living in rural America comes with many advantages. Among them are a slower lifestyle, less noise and light pollution and less traffic on the roads. When you add the benefits of living on a lake, life gets even sweeter for many.
Generally, where there are positives there also are negatives. For many living in the rural parts of the country, weather can change in an instant and residents don’t always hear the alarms.
“The closest emergency weather siren to Lake Eau Claire is seven miles away,” Lauren Lea, a lifelong resident of the lake, said. “We can’t always hear it when bad weather works its way in.”
Lea, a 16-year-old junior at Wildlands Charter School, is a senior Girl Scout with Troop 3297 in Augusta. At the end of the summer, she chose to pursue the Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout can earn. She said she wanted to work towards earning the Gold Award while leaving something that will benefit her family, neighbors and the community as a whole.
“I really wanted to work towards something that would benefit the entire community, not just my family,” she said.
According to the Girl Scouts of America’s (GSA) website, a Girl Scout must complete seven steps to earn the Gold Award. They are: identify an issue, investigate it thoroughly, get help and build a team, create a plan, present a plan and gather feedback, take action and educate and inspire. According to its website, one of the biggest benefits to a Girl Scout earning a Gold Award is the creation of a “community legacy with a sustainable solution to a problem.”
“This weather siren would be a very positive addition to our community,” Lori Bechtel, secretary of the Lake Eau Claire Association, said. “Our whole community, everyone here on the lake, would benefit greatly by having a warning siren within hearing distance.”
Lea said she’s been out on the lake with family when nasty weather arose in a hurry. She said her hope is this weather siren keeps people safe, while also protecting their property.
“The siren should go off at the beginning of the storm conditions,” she said. “Hopefully having a siren we can hear at the lake creates another layer of protection for the residents so they have a chance to get back to their docks, tie up their boats and gather everything so less of it gets ruined from the storm.”
Lea said part of the inspiration came from within.
“Personally, I hate storms,” she said. “Plus, out here on Lake Eau Claire, there’s little-to-no cell phone signal. Having some kind of siren to warn us there’s a storm coming would make me feel better.”
Lea said the cost to buy, install and run the emergency weather siren is about $25,000, a figure she’s currently working to raise via fundraising efforts. She said her efforts seem to be paying off so far. Lea estimated she’s raised about $14,000 to date, which she takes a lot of pride in.
“It’s been a community-wide effort to raise that much money,” she said.
Lea said she’s received donations from the townships of Bridge Creek and Ludington, the Augusta-Bridge Creek Fire Department, local American Legion and VFW posts, as well as a vast number of residents who’ve donated to the cause. While she’s received “a ton” of support from her friends, family and local communities, Lea said this project has had a few hurdles it’s had to overcome already.
“The biggest project we’ve had to overcome so far has been the cost of it,” she said. “In our efforts to raise the $25,000, we looked into different grants. There was only one we could apply for, a $4,000 one from the United States Department of Agriculture and we recently learned we were denied.”
Lea said her search for grants led her to searching for different ones at the state level. That search proved fruitless, as she said the state said this project was more of a “federal-level project.” She said when she asked the county, they said the townships were more responsible for the cost of the weather siren and the local townships “don’t really have the money for a $25,000 weather siren.”
Despite having to overcome some hurdles, Lea said the lessons she’s learned in her 10 years as a Girl Scout have helped her stay positive and focused on the end goal.
“As a Girl Scout selling cookies, I learned a lot about professionalism, salesmanship and how to connect with the community,” the Augusta teen said. “These are all skills I’ve had to use in this process, so I feel good about where we’re at.”
Being a student at Wildlands Charter School has also given her valuable experience which has helped this project gain legs.
“This is like most of my school projects,” she said. “The process and skills have been very similar. I’ve had to use project management and speech-writing skills to manage and share the project with the community.”
Lea said she’s been working through this project with a number of people, including those who will be responsible for it once it’s up and operational. Bechtel and Lea said the siren will be installed at the aeration station on the shore of Lake Eau Claire. Lea said the Town of Ludington will claim ownership of the siren, while the lake association covers the electric costs and the Eau Claire County Emergency Management Div-ision will wire it into their alert system.
“Everyone has been so supportive of this from the beginning,” Lea said. “There have been a few people who weren’t completely supportive right away, but after I’ve explained it to them they were excited about the project.”
At this point in the project, Lea said she’s in “fundraising mode.” With about $11,000 left to raise, she said she’s already shopping for the siren that will be installed.
“We’re pretty sure it’s between two different ones,” she said. “One is cheaper than the other, but we haven’t looked into all the maintenance costs and other factors.”
Lea said she has felt grateful for the support she’s received from everyone so far. She encouraged everyone interested in donating money to help make this project a reality to do so. She said many of the donations individuals have gifted her have ranged from $25-$200. Individuals who plan to write a check can make it payable to “Lake Eau Claire Rehabilitation District Siren Fund.”
“My goal is to have all the money raised by Jan. 31 and the siren up-and-running in May,” Lea said. “This timeline allows individuals to make tax-deductible donations in 2016 and ’17 and gives me time to make sure everything is in place.”