The document announces that a local newspaper is seeking holiday recipes from readers to include in its upcoming "Holiday Cookbook & Gift Guide" publication. It provides details on recipe categories and the October 30th deadline to submit recipes by email or by bringing them to the provided address. It also advertises an upcoming sale at a local furniture store.

1. October 10, 2014 The Fitchburg StarConnectFitchburg.com
27
We are seeking your favorite recipes for our annual
Making Spirits Bright
Holiday Cookbook & Gift Guide
Send us your recipes for:
Appetizers • Breakfast Dishes • Salads • Soups • Breads
Main Dishes • Side Dishes • Desserts • Beverages
Deadline for submitting recipes is October 30, 2014
The Holiday Cookbook and Gift Guide will be published
Thursday, November 13, 2014.
Get your copy in the
Oregon Observer, Stoughton Courier Hub & Verona Press!
Send or bring copies
of your recipes, no later
than October 30, to:
Holiday Recipes
133 Enterprise Drive
Verona, WI 53593
or e-mail:
aroberts@wcinet.com
Please be sure
to include all
measurements,
temperatures
and cooking
times.
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City hires public
works director
Horton comes from
McHenry County, Ill.
SCOTT GIRARD
Unified Newspaper Group
The City
o f F i t c h -
burg filled a
three-month
vacancy at
the end of
September
with a new
public works
director.
The city
announced Sept. 11 it had
hired Cory Horton as the
new department director.
Horton replaced longtime
director Paul Woodard, who
left the city in June for a
similar position in the City of
Janesville.
Horton most recently
worked in McHenry County,
just south of the Wiscon-
sin-Illinois border, but the
UW-Madison graduate said
he “always wanted to get
back to the (Madison) area.”
He officially began Sept.
29 and told the Star Oct. 2
he had “hit the ground run-
ning.”
“Staff here has a tremen-
dous amount of projects
going on,” Horton said. “I sat
down at my desk and started
doing invoices instantly.”
Horton has worked in
public works for more than
15 years and specialized in
working with transportation,
water supply, stormwater
and utility issues while in
McHenry County.
The camping and hiking
enthusiast said he got into
public works to “serve the
people,” and looks forward
to helping Fitchburg con-
tinue heading “in the right
direction.”
“Everyone who gets into
public works has the desire
to make life better for other
people,” he said.
Horton
‘A life of least harm’
VAHS grad is
youngest ever
executive director of
the Alliance
KARINA GALVAN
Star Correspondent
When Hannah West was
in elementary school, her
older brother donated a
year’s worth of his allow-
ance to the humane society.
Since she had always
wanted to be like him, the
act served as a source of
inspiration that led her to
take part in a similar cause
years later with the Alliance
for Animals and the Envi-
ronment.
West, a 2008 Verona
Area High School gradu-
ate and Fitchburg resident,
became the youngest ever
executive director of the
organization at the age of
24. She began her role on
Sept. 2, but she has been a
volunteer with the organi-
zation since 2010.
The Alliance, a 30-year-
old animal and environmen-
tal advocacy organization,
helps educate the public
that all animals, human and
nonhuman alike, should not
be treated as property. The
Alliance believes that with
the right knowledge, people
make the right choices.
“There’s a lot of misin-
formation out there,” West
said. “I just like to … pro-
vide information for other
people to do the least harm
necessary in their lives.”
West feels so strongly
about the welfare of ani-
mals that she started Vegan
Fest when she was a vol-
unteer at the Alliance. She
really knows how to get the
ball rolling.
“I have a lot to learn,
and it’s really challeng-
ing,” West said. “(But I)
can’t think of a better use
of my time than doing this.
... I love my job. What I’m
doing matters.”
West seems enthusiastic
about everything she does.
She says she gives as much
energy as she can to her job
while keeping in mind that
it’s easy to burn out.
“The older people (in
the group) told me that my
strength in being young is
that I have so much enthu-
siasm to bring and so much
energy,” she said with a
smile.
Starting young
West had an affinity for
animals at a young age.
Then, in middle school,
she studied modern-day
slavery and began making
some connections with veg-
etarianism, coming to the
conclusion that animals and
people seem to be oppressed
by the same sort of dynam-
ics.
“The cows can’t speak
and the chickens can’t speak
and the pigs can’t speak and
fight for themselves,” she
said. “I couldn’t live any
other way than to start living
a life of least harm.”
West has been a vegan
since ninth grade. In high
school, she had three friends
who were vegan, and as a
group, they would debate
with their science teacher
about veganism.
“Our teacher would be
like, ‘But bacon,’ and we’d
be like, ‘Facts, facts, facts,’”
she said.
As a volunteer for the
Alliance, West started the
Mad City Vegan Fest. After
seeing a similar festival in
Portland, she felt as though
Madison should also have
one.
When first organizing
the Vegan Fest, West said,
“it was a lot of email(ing)
people and calling people.”
Then, after getting help
from different people, “I fig-
ured out what I was doing
… The more the volunteers
got involved, the less I did.”
She founded the Mad
City Vegan Fest in 2011.
The festival, which is held
in June, now attracts over
2,000 attendees and multiple
sponsors, exhibitors and raf-
fle donors.
Educating others
West’s brother contin-
ued to influence her beyond
charity and activism. He
joined choir in school, and
West took up a love of
music, too, earning a music
education degree from the
University of Wisconsin-
Madison this spring.
“A lot of things in my life
I can trace back to wanting
to be like my brother,” West
said.
But because of her pas-
sion for animals, which she
calls the gentlest creatures
and least destructive to the
world, she decided to seize
the opportunity with the
Alliance to advocate on their
behalf.
Because the Alliance is
an educational organization,
it allows West to leverage
her education degree for the
benefit of the organization.
“I do a lot of talking with
people and managing peo-
ple, and that’s kind of what
teaching is,” she said. “You
have to sort of have a hand
in controlling the energy in
the room, in what direction
it’s going.”
West finds many similari-
ties between teaching music
and working for the Alli-
ance.
“With music, you can
teach racial diversity and
youth empowerment if you
teach (about) hip hop,” she
said, “because young peo-
ple of color were the ones
who started hip hop, which
is now this worldwide phe-
nomenon. That’s so empow-
ering for kids to learn.”
West was surprised to find
the Alliance job available
this summer while she was
applying for teaching jobs.
She had planned on teaching
for a while and then eventu-
ally working full time at the
Alliance.
“It’s not that it was never
on my radar,” she said. “It’s
just, I kind of thought it
would happen some time in
the future.”
Staying motivated
Working with a nonprofit
organization requires a lot
of energy. West said many
executive directors burn
out, primarily because they
see little change despite big
efforts.
But in her time with the
organization, West has
already seen quite a bit of
success.
While working as a volun-
teer coordinator for the Alli-
ance from 2011 to 2012, she
started a Madison chapter of
the national Vegan Drinks
meet up as well as Simply
Vegan, a bi-weekly e-news-
letter with vegan recipes and
tips that’s sent to over 2,000
people.
She’s even seen the Mad
City Chili Cook Off and
Raffle transform from the
small three-member compe-
tition held in a tiny room in
the Goodman Community
Center to its current com-
petition among eight local
restaurants at the East Side
Club.
The 11th annual event is
Oct. 25.
West said that the Alli-
ance thankfully has a lot of
volunteers who are dedi-
cated, know a lot skills and
keep coming back. One of
those volunteers inspires
her by having a full time job
yet getting more done than
many of the other dedicated
volunteers combined.
It all reminds West that no
matter how much she does,
some of the volunteers are
doing even more.
“They have jobs and other
things to do, and I work 30
hours a week,” she said.
As she gets settled into
her new job, her primary
goal is to help the organiza-
tion develop and grow into a
true Wisconsin-wide orga-
nization by expanding its
activities to other cities.
She wants to help connect
people with other human
rights organizations and
make the Alliance “as wel-
coming as possible.”
Photo by Karina Galvan
Hannah West, 24, of Fitchburg, is the new executive director for the
Alliance for Animals and the Environment.