Foundation Promotes Volunteering Spirit Among Students

While the Three Lakes Community Foundation regularly provides grants to local non-profit organizations, it also sponsors programming that aligns with its mission and values.

As part of its mission to make Three Lakes a place to live, work, and play and to inspire its continual growth by investing in tomorrow today through philanthropy, the TLCF has been promoting volunteerism among students in the Three Lakes School District.

In recent years, the TLCF has collaborated with the Demmer Library, the Three Lakes Lions Club, and the school district to host a three-hour activity in which students in grades 6-12 traveled to five community locations and heard presentations on volunteer opportunities.

When the group met to plan the 2025 event, they decided to offer local non-profits the opportunity to meet with students one-on-one. The result was a month-long Lunch Hour Volunteer Fair in which 20 Oneida County organizations visited the Three Lakes School District.

“Typically, two different organizations had representatives at tables during the middle and high school lunch hours throughout April. The event culminated with the May 3 event, in which students traveled to various locations and heard presentations,” noted Linda Goldsworthy, TLCF Board Member.

This year’s event encouraged students to consider volunteering as a way to explore career clusters. Goldsworthy even created a bulletin board linking the clusters to all participating organizations to highlight the connection.

“We noticed that several local non-profits directly align with various careers. For example, we invited the Northwoods Habitat for Humanity to participate so that students interested in construction as a career might volunteer in an area they are passionate about,” she continued.

Local non-profits who participated included: Downtown Three Lakes, the Three Lakes Center for the Arts, ARTStart of Rhinelander, the Three Lakes Historical Society, the Three Lakes Waterfront Association, the Three Lakes Visitors Bureau, the Three Lakes Parks Commission, the Three Eagle Trail Foundation, Northwoods Habitat for Humanity, Three Lakes and Sugar Camp Lions Clubs, the Demmer Memorial Library, Wounded Warriors, Town of Three Lakes Natural Resources, the Oneida County Fair, Pioneer Park, the Three Lakes Fire Department, the Reiter Center, the Three Lakes Community Garden, and the Three Lakes Women’s Club.

“We are gathering survey data from participating organizations as well as students to improve the Lunch Hour Volunteer Fair experience for 2026,” Goldsworthy concluded. “We think that year one has provided a foundation for building more volunteerism in the future.”