Northside Hill Neighborhood Association

10/17/2026

🎉 Please join us in welcoming Eunhae Hwang to the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association Steering Committee!

At our virtual meeting last Tuesday, the Steering Committee voted to fill our remaining At-Large position with Eunhae. With her addition, we now have a full Steering Committee!

Eunhae is already an active member of our neighborhood, attending meetings and events and helping capture the people and moments that make our community special through photography.

She's also been involved with several organizations throughout the Chippewa Valley and hopes to use those connections to help bring people and organizations together.

You might recognize Eunhae from her daily walks around the neighborhood with her two rescue dogs, adopted from Korea. She enjoys spotting our neighborhood's resident wild turkeys and is still hoping to catch a glimpse of a fox!

We're excited to have her on board!

📅 What's next?

The Steering Committee plans to meet again on October 27 to discuss and finalize our budget and begin putting together next year's events.

We're looking forward to building on the work we've done this year and finding more ways to make a positive impact in our neighborhood.

Thanks to everyone who continues to get involved and help make Northside Hill a great place to live!

09/22/2026

Quick reminder for everyone who helped make Party for the Parks happen!

We’re getting together tonight to talk about how the event went while everything is still fresh in our minds.

📅 Tonight, Tuesday, September 22
⏰ 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Dells Pavilion at Lower Mt. Simon Park

If you volunteered, helped plan, ran an area, helped with setup or cleanup, or pitched in anywhere along the way, we’d really love to hear from you.

This is our chance to talk about what worked, what didn’t, what surprised us, and what we can do even better next time.

We’d love to see you in person, but there will also be a Zoom option available. If you need the Zoom link, just send the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association page a message and we’ll get it to you.

And seriously, thank you again to everyone who gave their time and energy to Party for the Parks. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you. 🌳🎉

09/19/2026

Rep the Northside and support the neighborhood at the same time! 🌳

Our Northside Hill T-shirts are still available, with designs celebrating Mt. Simon, Mt. Tom and McDonough Park.

Every purchase helps support the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association and the community work we do throughout the year.

Check out the designs and order yours here:

https://shop.resbrandco.com/northsidehill/shop/home

09/19/2026

As we wrap up our thank-yous to outgoing Steering Committee members, we want to recognize Andrea Fortino.

Andrea was involved with the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association before she ever held an official position.

She showed up to meetings, raised questions and neighborhood concerns, joined discussions, volunteered at events, and became a familiar presence in the work of the association. When the opportunity came to serve more formally, she stepped up.

Andrea was appointed to the Steering Committee as Secretary, serving in that role since August 2025.

As Secretary, she helped keep the association organized by taking meeting notes and supporting communication with volunteers and members. She also continued doing the hands-on work that keeps a neighborhood association going, helping with brat stands, neighborhood picnics, fundraising events, and volunteer recruitment.

What we appreciate most about Andrea’s time with the association is that it started the same way we hope involvement starts for a lot of people:

She came to meetings. She participated. She volunteered. And eventually, she stepped into leadership.

Thank you, Andrea, for the time, energy, and care you gave to the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association and for being part of this chapter of our neighborhood’s story. ❤️🌳

09/18/2026

Party for the Parks may be over, but the community challenge is still on! 🌳

An anonymous donor has committed $15,000 toward a permanent public restroom near the Upper Mt. Simon playground and challenged our community to raise another $15,000 by December 31.

That means your donation can have twice the impact. Every dollar we raise toward the challenge unlocks another dollar for the restroom project.

If you enjoyed Party for the Parks, love Mt. Simon or simply want to help make one of Eau Claire’s favorite parks more welcoming and accessible, please consider making a donation today.

Even a small gift moves us closer to meeting the challenge. If donating isn’t possible right now, sharing the GoFundMe helps too.

Let’s keep the momentum going and show what this community can accomplish together!

Donate here:

Help Build a Bathroom at Upper Mt. Simon Park A $15,00… Northside Hill Neighborhood Assoc needs your support for Help Build a Bathroom at Mt. Simon Park

09/18/2026

Next up in recognizing our outgoing Steering Committee members, we want to say a huge thank you to Daniel Kraft III.

If you’ve been to a Northside Hill event over the last several years, there’s a pretty good chance Dan had something to do with it.

Dan has been one of the Association’s most active volunteers, helping organize our annual neighborhood picnic, Northside Nights, brat stands, cleanups, and countless other neighborhood events. He helped arrange bands, music and sound, worked on sponsorships and advertising, promoted events, helped with our website, and was always willing to jump in wherever something needed to get done.

Most recently, Dan played a big role in Party for the Parks, taking on raffle baskets, radio promotion, equipment, media outreach, and plenty of the behind-the-scenes work that helped make the event happen.

But a list of jobs doesn’t really capture what Dan brought to the Steering Committee.

Dan brought ideas. He brought energy. And, maybe most importantly during some very long meetings, he brought a well-timed joke and regularly reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously.

He even wrote the Northside Hill Neighborhood Picnic song, which has been played at every picnic since the beginning. We’re pretty sure that means we’re legally required to keep playing it forever. 😄

Through all of this, Dan somehow managed to be a constant force for the neighborhood while also raising two young boys.

In his own goodbye to the committee, Dan wrote that one of the things he learned was “how to turn strangers into neighbors.” We can’t think of a much better description of what this work is supposed to be about.

Thankfully, Dan isn’t disappearing. He plans to keep coming to meetings and has already volunteered himself for future spaghetti feeds, neighborhood cleanups, and running the stage at the annual picnic.

So this isn’t really goodbye.

It’s just a very big THANK YOU.

Thank you, Dan, for the music, the ideas, the laughs, the countless hours of work, and for helping turn a bunch of people who happen to live near each other into neighbors. ❤️🌳

09/17/2026

As we say goodbye to several members of our outgoing Steering Committee, we want to take some time to recognize each of them and the impact they’ve had on the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association.

First, we want to thank Sue Sopiarz Frencl, one of the founding members of the revived association.

Sue has been here from the beginning and played a huge role in helping turn the idea of bringing the neighborhood association back into a functioning nonprofit organization.

As Treasurer, Sue helped file our founding paperwork with the state and federal government, guided us through the 501(c)(3) application process, handled banking and financial reporting, and made sure we kept good records as the organization grew.

And if you ever spent association money, you knew one thing for certain:

Sue was going to ask you for the receipt!😄

But Sue’s contribution went far beyond the books.

She was also a constant source of ideas and a hands-on volunteer at events throughout the neighborhood. She helped organize thrift sales, worked brat stands and raffles, created donation boxes and promotional materials, provided equipment, and most recently helped make buttons and donation boxes for Party for the Parks.

A lot of the work that keeps a volunteer organization moving happens quietly behind the scenes, and Sue did an enormous amount of that work for years.

We are incredibly grateful for the time, energy, experience, and care she gave to the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association and to our neighborhood.

Thank you, Sue, for helping build the foundation we’re still standing on today.

And yes, Sue, we’ll keep the receipts. ❤️🌳

09/17/2026

A lot happened at last night’s Northside Hill Neighborhood Association Annual Meeting!

First, members voted to approve updates to our Articles of Incorporation and amendments to our bylaws. Both measures passed. We’ll have the newly updated bylaws posted on our website by the end of the week.

We also elected a new Steering Committee for the next two years.

Before introducing the new team, we want to give a huge thank you to outgoing President **Andrew Niese**.

Andrew has stepped down as President, but his impact on this association and our neighborhood is hard to overstate.

After the Northside Hill Neighborhood Association had been dormant for nearly 20 years, Andrew was instrumental in bringing it back to life. Since then, he has worked tirelessly for our neighborhood, from helping secure a federal tree grant that brought new trees throughout Northside Hill to standing up for Longfellow Elementary and so much more.

Quite simply, we would not be where we are today without his leadership, persistence, and love for this neighborhood.

And thankfully, he isn’t going far. Andrew will continue serving the association as our Treasurer. Thank you, Andrew, for everything you’ve done and continue to do. ❤️

🌳 **Your new NHNA Steering Committee:**

**President:** Bill Sparks
**Vice President:** Justin Parker, returning
**Secretary:** Ben Orlikowski
**Treasurer:** Andrew Niese
**Information Officer:** Ian Reineck
**At-Large:** Jodi Sparks
**At-Large:** OPEN

That last one could be you!

We still have one open At-Large seat on the Steering Committee. This is a **two-year term**, and we’re looking for someone who lives in the neighborhood and wants to help shape what comes next.

Whether you’re interested in events, parks, neighborhood issues, fundraising, community building, or simply bringing another perspective to the table, we’d love to hear from you.

There’s a lot happening in Northside Hill, and this is a great time to get involved.

📸 Pictured left to right: Ian Reineck, Ben Orlikowski, Jodi Sparks, Justin Parker, Bill Sparks, and Andrew Niese.