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Postal Customer Local Vol. 4 No. 4
TOPSoccer Takes Kids From the Sidelines to the Field By Grace Allen If you visit the KP Middle School fields on Sunday mornings, you may be surprised by the activity you see. Kids in wheelchairs, kids chasing balls pellmell, kids blowing bubbles…it looks like chaos but it’s actually a very special program in the area. It’s The Outreach Program for Soccer, or TOPSoccer. TOPSoccer was developed for children with physical and/or mental disabilities, and furthers the goals of US Youth Soccer to foster the physical, mental and emotional growth of children through the sport of soccer at all levels. In 2011, long-time youth soccer coach and Norfolk resident Lisa Kellett was approached by Massachusetts Youth Soccer to start a local chapter of TOPS. Kellett, then the president of King Philip Soccer Association (KPSA), thought it would be a good program for the district. “As a tri-town group our reach was broad,” said Kellett. Kellett’s background included working with special-needs chil-
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TOPS participant Olivia Freeley and volunteer Scott Kellett.
dren so the program seemed like a perfect fit. “I recognized there wasn’t a lot of extracurriculars for kids that had special needs. The timing was right,” she said.
Kellett reached out to area Special Education programs and eventually, through word-ofmouth, parents signed up their
TOPSoccer
continued on page 6
Town Clerk Looks Back as Race Heats Up By Alison Osborne Elections are quickly approaching for Wrentham, and with them will come a new Town Clerk. After twenty years on the job, Carol Mollica retired at the end of January and certainly left big shoes to fill. Her career has been filled with challenges and changes for the town and she has served on numerous committees, including the Town Hall Building committee, responsible for creating the beautiful Town Hall standing now. Mollica saw technology improve numerous registration systems and says that it was “quite a learning experience at the time.” Since she began, the “MotorVoter” registration system, the birth registration system, the death registration system, and the dog registration system have all been computerized and have all grown immensely. Originally, processes like the dog registration system were entered and filed by hand on index cards. Better able to process these registrations, the system now registers approximately 1,800 dogs a year.
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For Wrentham voters, the punch cards of old were replaced with computerized voting systems and the heavy, wooden voting booths have been updated with the simpler “quad” booths. As Town Clerk, Mollica successfully overcame the challenges of preparing the yearly budget in order to not only run the office but also fund town elections. She balanced all this while keeping up with changing state mandates. Most mandates are unfunded, creating a hurdle for the Town Clerk and administrators. With her well deserved retirement, Mollica hopes to finish some projects around her home and travel. She’s bound to be busy with five, energetic grandchildren. She also hopes to dedicate some time for volunteer work. Kristi Mollica and Cindy Thompson are the hopeful Town Clerks and both have experience under their belts. Thompson is currently an Administrative Assistant for the Board of Selectmen’s office and Mollica is a
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