Volunteer Profile

Kris Vomastic has been on the United Way of Shawano County board for three years. She was born in Shawano, graduating from Shawano High School in 1973. She helped operate a dairy farm for 18 years, and for the past 23 years has been employed at Cooperative Resources International in Shawano, where she oversees accounts receivable and the credit and collections area. Vomastic lives by Cloverleaf Lakes and has five children and nine grandchildren. She is the town clerk for the town of Belle Plaine. She enjoys decorating her home and flower gardening. Vomastic is a member of the CRI Leadership Shawano County alumni group that does funding for Leadership Shawano County to help keep the program going. Q How long and how did you get started with United Way of Shawano County? A “It’s been three years. My director supervisor at CRI at that time was Chuck Dallas, and he asked if I would be interested.” Q What do you do? A “Being in United Way for three years I found that my passion is to work on the CRI campaign each year. Some of the things we’ve done are having a pie auction, with Doug Wilson being the auctioneer. Co-workers make the pies. We did that three years ago. We do something different every year. One year we had a chili cookoff. It is always held around Halloween. This year we had a Spooktacular event at Halloween. There were prizes for best costume and best-carved pumpkin. We had a spaghetti lunch and we had a miniature golf outing downstairs with the glow balls that are used at the kickoff. Stacey Cicero from Safe Haven spoke to us. Every year we have a person from one of the agencies talk to the group.” Q How do you get ideas for the campaign? A “They just pop into my head. I could be walking and get an idea. Diane Patza helped me with the food this year.” Q How do you get money for United Way? A “We take donations at the meal for food. They make pledges of payroll deductions or a one-time donation. We always try to better ourselves each year. It’s very successful when people hear the speakers. They can’t help but want to give.” Q Why do you volunteer? A “Because there’s such a need for it in our community. It helps so many agencies that I didn’t even know existed before.”