Sussex Branch Manager Candy Walecki, helping the Lions with vision screenings at Woodside Elementary School.

Ten years ago, Sussex Branch Manager Candy Walecki made a business-related decision that would have big implications for the rest of her life.

“North Shore Bank was new to Sussex, so I joined the local chamber of commerce and the Lioness Club to volunteer in the community and network,” she says of that fateful moment in 2006. “The chamber provided business networking opportunities, and the Lionesses covered the social aspect of volunteering. It’s more of a social club whose mission, among other wonderful things, is to provide assistance for people who are visually and hearing impaired.”

Regular Shorelines readers will know that Candy’s involvement with both groups has continued apace ever since. She has served as president of the Lioness Club, is currently on the club’s board, and routinely gives her time and energy to the club’s events and activities.

“I’ve never really calculated it,” she says. “If you were to average it out throughout the year, I’d guess I spend at least an hour a week [on the Lionesses]. Or probably more. I help out with other events such as movie night, the [rocking chair] rock-a-thon, the kiddie parade, Lions Daze. I don’t do the parade anymore. It’s a mile, and you have to walk it in July heat, so I save that for the younger staff members!”

This past November, Candy and other club members helped provide vision screenings to students at Woodside Elementary in Sussex and Marcy Elementary in Menomonee Falls. The free basic exams let parents know if a child’s eyesight is OK, or if they need to schedule an appointment with the optometrist.

“There’s a need, because we do just about the entire school,” she says. “They’re always looking for help, and they train us there.”

Another of her favorite Lioness-related events is coming up soon.

“Every February, we go down to the Vision Forward Center — formerly Badger Home for the Blind — and play bingo,” Candy says. “Boy, are the folks there competitive! They have bingo cards in Braille and magnets to keep track. We give them prizes and just chat with them, and it is truly inspiring to see how independent they are.”

In 2015, she also started handing out North Shore Bank tote bags at Sussex’s new farmers’ market. The market’s first year, she says, “was a total success. They’ve asked if we could come back. I already have the bags.”

“Candy has been very active on many of our committees, as well as being on the board of directors, and serving as vice president and later president,” says Peggy Nettesheim, a fellow Lioness who’s been with the club for 43 years. “And I know she encourages many of her people at the bank to get involved. I think it’s really important for a business to get involved in the community.”

Candy’s reasons for volunteering are both practical and personal.

“It’s important for the company because we’re a community bank,” she says. “It just helps get your name out there, and a lot of customers truly appreciate that — that their bank is involved and cares about the community. And on a personal level, I just feel that you need to give back.” As a girl growing up in Milwaukee with five siblings, she remembers that neighbors and union members would help out when her father was laid off from his job at Allis-Chalmers agricultural manufacturing.

“We needed help, and we got it, so now I do whatever I can,” she says. “If I can’t contribute with money, I contribute with time. It’s fun — you meet a lot of nice people, and paying it forward is very rewarding.”

And of the Lioness Club, Candy says: “This is an organization that I will always be a part of, even after I retire from NSB.”