Cassville Capers make cheese balls to provide funding for countless community projects

CASSVILLE, Wis. — In this Mississippi River village tucked into the very southwestern corner of the state, no one needs a Kickstarter campaign to get a project going.

Sure, crowdfunding websites have their place. In Cassville, though, projects get a boost and are seen through with a different kind of currency: cheese balls.

The Christmas lights that decorate the village streets? Paid for with cheese balls. A donation for the local public library? Cheese balls. Assistance for the Cassville Rescue Squad and Fire Department? Cheese balls. Help for the local swimming pool, including new chairs? Cheese balls.

The emergency food fund, the Cub Scouts, a new River Walk, a defibrillator fund and a helping hand to some school projects? In Cassville, those and a long list of other projects all have found a friend in cheese balls made by a group of women who call themselves the Cassville Capers, the Wisconsin State Journal (http://bit.ly/1sddJ2v ) reported.

"Those ladies are always doing something good for the town," said Tom Okey, owner of Okey Market, where the Capers buy their massive amount of cheese ball supplies every year.

Since 1987, thousands of cheese balls at a current rate of about 800 a year have raised tens of thousands of dollars that have gone directly to help fund projects in the community.

Late each fall, the Capers, along with friends and family, gather in the kitchen of Cassville High School for a cheese ball assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud. From there, they sell them en masse and give the money to other community groups.

This year the group - which has just eight members remaining - made 777 cheese balls on Nov. 15 in the school kitchen. They got help from, among others, Cassville's school cook Cindy Hertrampf, and two high school students from Cuba City, Weston and Brandon Morley.

"I got them roped into it a couple years ago," said their grandmother, Mary Ila Esser, a member of the Capers. "They were coming for the weekend and I said, 'Want to do some cheese balls?' And they've come back ever since."

The Capers don't just make the cheese balls, they are the saleswomen, too. Most are sold before they are made, which only makes sense if you're about to make 800 cheese balls. Bierman committed to 125, 80 of which will go to the insurance agency where she used to work in Lancaster. Last year, Ritter sold 200.

The parsley-coated cheese balls sell for $7. The ones also rolled in pecans cost $7.50.

"We were selling them for less, but the price of cheese went up so we had to raise the price," Esser said. "But people didn't care. They bought 'em anyway."

The Capers began as a homemakers group — most members had been in the Grant County homemakers club that was organized through UW-Extension. They liked the club but wanted to do projects that more specifically helped Cassville.

So they formed the Cassville Capers and set about finding ways to help their community and have a little fun along the way.

"We liked 'Capers' as our name - it sounded like something fun and frolicking," Bierman said. "And that's how we used to be when we were younger."

One member, Joanne Lange, mentioned that her mother's church group in Indiana had great success making cheese balls as a fundraiser. The Capers learned the church group's cheese ball profit margin was pretty good and figured if that item could be that popular in Indiana, it probably would be a pretty good idea to sell them in Wisconsin.

In 1987, using the recipe from the Indiana church group, the Capers set about making their first batch of cheese balls. They started somewhat slowly, making a mere 60 the first year. The 60 very quickly became 300 and a few kitchens in Cassville became cheese ball factories.

Bumped-up production had its inefficiencies. Opening that many small boxes of cream cheese and bags of cheddar was an endless task. Mixers ran constantly and wooden spoons were broken.

"My hand was so sore I couldn't throw my bowling ball," said club member Michele Fishnick.

After about five years the order total quickly jumped to 500 and changes had to be made. The group contacted the school, which allowed them to use the school kitchen because it was work that was benefiting the community. With the commercial mixers and equipment, a group that numbers about 12 can get them all made in a day. It's now a fine-tuned process that goes from mixing to forming to weighing to coating to wrapping to bagging.

Hertrampf has been helping with the cheese balls since she came to work for the school in 2006.

"Then I was sworn to secrecy about the recipe," she said.

Seasonings? No comment.

"This is not a big-deal recipe," Esser said. "I don't know what it is, but there's something different about this that we all love."

The group buys all the ingredients locally. The parsley and mystery spices come from Sugar and Spice Bulk Foods in Fennimore; the cheese and other ingredients come from Okey Market, which delivers to the school the day before the cheese ball-making extravaganza. Okey sells the group its ingredients at cost, he said.

"That's what small towns are supposed to be for," Okey said.

Small towns are also a place where the rumor mill can churn, and every once in a while the group hears that people are worried the cheese balls aren't going to happen again. The Capers have no plan to slow down, at least not any time soon.