Mount Horeb Summer Frolic at dusk — fireworks over the lit Ferris wheel, festival tents and a crowd below

About

The picture up there is a Mount Horeb summer — fireworks over the Ferris wheel, the festival lit up, the whole village out under the lights. That's the Frolic. That's our village.

We're the Optimist Club of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Chartered in the fall of 1995, part of the Southern Wisconsin District. Friends of youth. Neighbors who believe in our home.

Optimism as a practice

Optimism, the way we mean it, isn't a mood. It's a daily practice.

It's easy to talk about; and a little harder to follow through, month after month, year after year. It means choosing to invest in kids without regard to the news of the day. It means bringing a high school student and their family to one of our meetings, and telling the other Mount Horeb Optimists — this is someone you should know. It means believing — out loud, in public — that a humble village's best days are the ones still ahead.

Most days it doesn't feel like something special. Pancakes at the high school. Burger shifts at the Frolic. A Kid's Zone at the Norsk July 3rd Celebration. The quiet pride of watching a student get named Someone You Should Know. It adds up. And we show up for it.

The Creed

The Optimist Creed is older than the club — Optimists have been saying something like it for more than a hundred years. It starts like this:

Promise yourself —

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

It goes on for ten promises. Most of us don't have it memorized. But after a while, you notice it showing up in your life every day.

Come say hello

If this sounds like the kind of place you'd like to stand, come say hello. We'd be glad to meet you.

Say hello