WINONA
STATE
UNIVERSITY
ALUMNI
NEWS
Fall 2001
Caring Stude en the
Mississippi River began to spill out of its banks in April and threaten the residents of Fountain City, Wisconsin, Winona State University students, staff, faculty, and administrators were there to help. Emergency management officials in Fountain City contacted WSU on April 11 asking for any available people to come help in a sandbagging effort to protect the city’s businesses and homes. The next day, more than 800 people from WSU came to help out their neighbors. “I know that we have caring people on campus that are committed to the local community, but the tremendous response from Winona State University to help was just amazing and gratifying,” said WSU President Darrell Krueger. “We talk a lot about campus partnership with the community. I am proud of the way our people responded. This is one more example of the level of commitment to be good neighbors felt among our staff, faculty, and
other Nature “I knowa lot of those Fountain City kids, taught many of them, and I made a lot of friends with people in the community during my years at the
high school,” said Sawyer. “Some of my current players grew up in big cities and have never experienced small town life, so this was a great experience for them to see how people in small towns come together in tough times.” Caring Students
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“Students, faculty, administrators, and Staff all worked side by side with a common
goal. Any sore muscles people had were forgotten. People were only feeling a tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment in helping a neighbor.” Dr. Jim Schmidt VP for University Advancement
students. Winona State University organized a volunteer
effort to help Fountain City, home to several WSU
employees and students. Shuttle buses transported people to and from the town every hour on the hour from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Chartwell’s, Winona’s food service vendor, donated lunches to feed the workers. Classes, athletic teams, and even
University administrators filled, carried, and stacked thousands of sandbags. “Helping out was just a natural thing for us to do,” said Tom Sawyer, WSU Head Football Coach. Nearly 60 WSU football players went to Fountain City to help residents fight floodwaters. Sawyer himself used to be a coach and athletic director at
Cochrane-Fountain City High School.
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