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Local voices statewide impact.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
It is six minutes after eight now.
If you are in Appleton and Oshkosh listening on WISS or in Eau Claire listening on 93.5 the tap or in Hayward listening on WBZH.
We are glad that you decided to join us today.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And I'm Brian Noonan.
Glad you are here.
Well, Wisconsin has a significant shortage of substance abuse centers and estimated 78% of people who do need treatment don't receive it, leaving many residents without access to care.
Chippewa Falls is putting a little dent in that problem.
On Tuesday, officials from Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan were in Chippewa Falls for a ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new facility.
Here to tell us more is James Kelly, Senior Radio Journalist.
at WCFW and WSCM.
James thanks for being here this morning.
Things are popping in the Chippewa Valley.
Well the new the new center does come and replaces it one that closed in 2024.
What happened that that one closed and what is the need in the Chippewa Valley for this new center?
Yeah, that was actually part of the kind of wave of HSHS and Prevea clinic closures way back when and you know it actually Lines up pretty closely with when I first joined civic media and moved out here to the Chippewa Valley So it's kind of nice to see that come full circle and you know that was one of the first stories I really covered out here the closure of that center and now here I am three years later talking about a new facility going up there
So what kind of gap did that particular closure leave?
for people who might have been struggling with substance abuse issues in the Chippewa Valley because, I mean, it's hard to find treatment centers in rural areas as it is.
Yeah, that's definitely what the big problem was and quite frankly the size of that former facility was not nearly what it needed to be to meet the full needs of this community.
This has been a multi-year effort by Eau Claire County, Chippewa County, Dunn County, pretty much every county in Western Wisconsin to kind of address the rise in opioid addiction issues over the past decade.
They've done a phenomenal job of getting those
harm reduction vending machines up, moving sharps disposal boxes.
I'm sure every six months I'm in awe at how much medication is collected during those drug take back days, especially locally compared to California and Texas are the only two states that have collected more than us in total.
Wisconsin has a pretty significantly smaller population than those.
So they've done a really good job with this over the past few years, and this is kind of the latest in that effort.
When that treatment center closed, a lot of people were forced, you know, if you needed treatment, you could maybe find room in Eau Claire at another treatment center, maybe a Menominee, but for the most part, you know, there are limits to how many people those facilities can serve.
So you might have to go to Minneapolis, you might have to go to La Crosse, you might have to go to Superior, you might have to go to all these different places where you're adding
hours and hours of travel time to get services that you desperately need because you lost them in your hometown.
And, you know, this new facility, the LSS, Ellie Phillips Center, which was officially named this week, they are going to be able to have 50 bed inpatient recovery center.
They'll be able to help a lot of people with evidence-based treatment, peer support groups, or kind of relapse prevention education.
It's kind of this full service, putting together of all the services that were lost.
during those closures and kind of in that interim period where things were opening back up.
So it'll be a big boost for them.
And there's also the Rogers Behavioral Health Center, which is broke ground earlier this year.
When that's completed, it'll be kind of more focused on mental health and substance abuse treatment.
So not quite kind of that laser focused just on substance abuse, but it's a service that is desperately needed in this area.
And this is going to go a long way for people.
Who are going to be the residents at the new center, James?
And how did the community react to the news that this new center was going to open?
Yeah, it's been really positive from the community.
There were a lot of people there from the Eau Claire area, Chamber of Commerce and the Chippewa Falls area, Chamber of Commerce.
They've put a lot of work in.
They got a million dollars in grant funding from the state.
State Senator Jeff Smith and Jesse James were both there.
That's a Democrat and a Republican who works together on this bill to get that grant funding out.
They're just about near there.
They're trying to raise $4.6 million in total to cover the renovations and to also kind of support the treatment services that they are going to be offering when they start kind of taking people in this fall.
So it's a lot of bipartisan effort.
It's a lot of community fundraising effort.
And it's one of those projects that when it comes together, everyone can be really proud of the work that they had done to make this a reality.
We're talking with James Kelly.
He's a senior radio journalist for WCFW and WSCM here at Civic Media.
And you were talking a little bit about the fundraising goal.
They're not quite there yet at the final goal.
Is that correct?
Yeah, as of this week when they officially unveiled the building, they were only about $150,000 away.
You know, you would hope that a big event like the grand opening
of this
facility might spur a few extra donations and perhaps they are kind of reaching that goal as we speak this week.
But it seems like they've certainly raised the funding they needed to go forward with opening the center and being able to treat these people.
Wow.
Well, it sounds like a great thing.
Chippewa Valley very much in the news this week.
What is it about the area that's drawing all this coverage and all these events?
Well, you know, the Chippewa Valley is just a great place to live for everybody.
And I always say that the people out here are super smart and they really, they love their news.
That is a big thing in Wisconsin that I didn't get back in New York.
Man, people are so engaged out here.
Just every single person has some idea of what's going on in the political world and how it's affecting them.
It's encouraging to see a lot of times.
And I know you've got a busy day in the area tomorrow.
The president and Derek Van Orden set to speak to basically about manufacturing and rural communities.
And so I'm assuming you will have a very busy day with coverage around that, near that tomorrow.
Yeah, there's a lot of farming coverage going on right now.
Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes was actually in Chippewa County yesterday talking to farmers about kind of the impact of tariffs and the trade wars that are going on, gas prices.
So this is definitely going to be, I think, maybe the main issue that people are focused
on
come election season.
How are we supporting the farmers in this area who are really struggling it with the higher prices, especially the input costs?
specifically have been something that I've heard from farmers where it's hard to plan because of the tariffs.
And even when they're planning it out, you know, things like potash from Canada.
These things are going up almost 100%.
You know, you have to spend a lot more of your input costs on these things that you need for your farm to continue going.
And that really hurts you down the line when you're trying to, you know,
what if you
have to fix a piece of machinery?
What if the harvest doesn't really come out the way you want it to come out?
You know, now you're talking about potentially selling your farm to a larger farm conglomerate.
It's a big issue out here.
And it's certainly going to be one of those things that's at the front of mind.
And James, as you get ready for the president's visit tomorrow and you're talking to farmers across the Chippewa Valley, are they still in the Republican camp?
Are they becoming disillusioned because of all these costs going up, like you said, and the difficulties with the tariffs and everything else?
I would say there's definitely a few that have been kind of...
Former Republican voters self-identified there's been a lot of town halls about the farming issues and the tariff
issues
that people have been facing and a lot of residents have shown up and said listen I did vote for Donald Trump and and now I am kind of regretting that because My farm is struggling we can't
afford
anything our health insurance prices have gone up so high that we're just we don't have health insurance anymore and
You know, there's a lot of people who are maybe not ready to make that switch over to the Democratic Party, but they're saying we want President Trump to know this is hurting us.
We are struggling right now.
James, from somebody who lives in the area and when you're out and about and you're talking to people, you mentioned with like the treatment center that it was a very bipartisan effort.
How does that play in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin?
It's definitely nice to have a bipartisan effort every once in a while.
It's not something that there's been a ton of but I will say for specific issues like this and like the Rogers Behavioral Health Center that you know these are issues that have been worked on in a bipartisan way and they really didn't have that much of a problem getting through the legislature and then getting the funding released by the Joint Finance Committee.
There have been
other if you remember the emergency funding for
the
HHS closures where Governor Evers used that partial veto to kind of expand what that money could be used for and then that money ended up sitting in Madison until it expired and it was no longer available for the emergency departments out here so.
It's those kinds of bills that I think really frustrate people in the Chippewa Valley because there's a clear need for this.
Other hospital organizations are coming in and trying to fill the gap.
Mayo Clinic in Eau Claire is working on an expansion project at their emergency department right now because they don't have the capacity to continue serving this many people.
It's one of those things where
people want the politics to stop and just say, we need money for emergency departments right now.
I don't care if that's limited to emergency departments or if some of it can go to mental health care services, which are also needed, substance abuse services, which are also needed.
So when it comes to something like the Ellie Phillips Center and getting that $1 million in grant funding or the Rogers Behavioral Health Center and getting $10 million in funding, it's nice to see that everyone's on the same page that says, this is needed, let's get it done.
Well, James, before we let you go, maybe we missed it, or maybe I missed it, and I was rereading your story that was, you can always read James's stuff on CivicMedia.us.
Just go look for the tap in Eau Claire.
Are they, I know they're still trying to get some funding, and they're pretty close, as you said, about 150,000 away the other day.
Are they ready to open?
When are patients going to be able to avail themselves of the new center?
Yeah, they will be offering services this fall.
That's a done deal at this point this extra funding that they're trying to raise I believe the original projection for how much the actual renovations to the facility would cost because it is the same facility as the Libertas Center They did they renovated it expanded it a little more They improved it a bit So they will be able to offer services in the fall
I believe three and a half million was for the renovations and the rest was to continue supporting the treatment services they're going to be offering.
They've eclipsed that point already.
The facility is built.
It's ready to go.
They're ready to go this fall.
Okay,
cool.
Awesome.
All right.
Well, James, thank you as always for joining us.
We appreciate it.
You can always listen to James on the tap or read him on civicmedia.com.
James Kelly, senior radio journalist at WCFW and WSCM.
James, have a great rest of your day.
Good luck getting getting into the rally tomorrow
or the
speech.
I don't know if it's
an
actual rally, but it always turns into one.
It does.
It
always does.
Thanks,
guys.
Have a good one.
Thank you.
Have a great
day.
Take care.
You know, as we bring James on today and we talk about the treatment facility, I think one of the things that always sticks out to me is it doesn't really matter where you're at in the state.
This is what I take away from this conversation.
All of the needs are basically the same, right?
I
mean,
that's what keeps going back to me.
And when James said that people are glad to see this bipartisan effort to get something like a treatment center or a behavioral health center in a place that really needs it,
People are tired.
I'm personally tired of the bickering in politics and I'm tired of the polarization because none of that actually helps people.
What we saw happen in Chippewa Falls with this addiction, with this treatment center and with a behavioral health center, that's what actually is affecting people.
And the fact that we could get
two senators to come together, to throw support behind
something that's
so important to actual people, right?
That had nothing to do with the ballot box.
I don't know, I'm really tired of the polarization.
I don't imagine I'm alone and the fact that we sometimes see these glimpses of what it's like for the parties to work together to get real things done.
I don't want to be too optimistic because I know that there is a lot in the way, but it does leave me somewhat hopeful when we can get things like this done on a bipartisan level and at a community level.
And it's needed, as you mentioned, all over the state, especially rural communities.
They're affected.
14 Wisconsin counties have no formal substance abuse treatment center, and they need them because we in Wisconsin have fewer treatment centers than the national average.
It's nuts.
It's all outpatient, and that doesn't always work.
All right, listen, we've got a lot.
of things to get to.
And snap new rules.
What if you're really sick?
How is that going
to work?
We'll talk about that and more after this.
It's Daybreak on the Civic Media.
Blake Superior to Lake Michigan.
This is Wisconsin's Morning Conversation.
Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning and thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
Hopefully you are having a bright, sunshiney, beautiful start to your day like we are in Madison.
Thank you for having us on.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
How are you feeling about these new snap work?
rules and all the changes to SNAP, which we know are going into effect very soon, 8-5-5-7-5 Civic, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Well, you know, they've added these work requirements,
so you
have to go work.
The new requirements are scheduled to take effect by January.
Many adults who have to regularly prove they're working, right?
Or you're attending school or you're volunteering.
Well, health advocates are concerned that the rules could affect people with serious illnesses, such as cancer, HIV and other chronic conditions, because under the new guidelines, having a medical diagnosis alone might not automatically qualify you for an exemption if you are still physically able to work.
So sure, you might have
HIV or you might have your maybe you're going through chemo treatments or whatever well you could still work says the people who are not sick and and still go to work so federal officials estimate about five million people could lose Medicaid coverage over time many experts believe a large share of those losses could result from paperwork issues missed deadlines reporting errors or difficulty navigating the new requirements
And advocacy groups for patients warn that losing Medicaid coverage even temporarily could interrupt cancer treatments, medications, doctor visits, and other ongoing care.
So once again, we're going to put a rule in that
wasn't really necessary because, while Jamie doesn't have one of her .0000003% facts for us, which I always love and I'm glad you have it on hand all the time, we don't have one
of
those for how much fraud, but we know that yes, there is some Medicaid and Medicare for us.
Usually though, that has been perpetrated by doctors and insurance companies, not people on Medicaid.
I mean, here's the thing when I hear this story and when I read it yesterday.
I've thought about the numerous family members that I've personally had who have had cancer or passed away from cancer.
And let's be honest, none of us here, none of us sitting here today can say that we're immune from somebody with a cancer diagnosis, right?
We've all known somebody.
Maybe we've experienced it ourselves.
Here's the thing though.
Have you ever seen somebody in some cases going through cancer treatment?
It's brutal.
Depending on the treatment, depending on the severity, depending on what type of cancer it is, those treatments can be brutal.
I remember when my dad had cancer and he was going through chemo.
He was relatively okay for the days after his treatment, but those first couple of days, because he had a port where the medicine stayed with him
after he
was at the clinic.
It was bad for those first couple of days.
It was horrible.
He was so sick, he could barely move.
It was only because of the medicines that he was given that helped the nausea, helped the vomiting.
And he was a strong human being.
So to see your dad like that, right?
Who was always physically active and had done construction, still hopped around on trusses and roofs.
He was like some sort of monkey climbing from tree to tree even in his 50s.
That's what I remember my dad.
So then to see him go through his treatment and then be so weak and not be able to move or hardly get out of bed or his chair, there's no way the man could have done what he, even an office job some days because of how sick he actually was.
This to me is another form of cruelty.
from this federal government.
It truly is, because
all
these people really want is to get better.
The treatments are not always easy.
The treatments are expensive.
And to be like, eh, you could go get a job.
No, sometimes they can't.
You want your
Medicaid?
You got to work.
We don't care.
We don't care how weak you are from your illness.
We don't care that you might miss important treatments.
We don't care.
We only care about enriching.
our friends, we only care about enriching ourselves.
We are a society now, or, well, the society voted him in.
We are a society that doesn't value any sort of weakness.
And
weakness from illness is not, it's not a character flaw.
It's you're sick and you better pray that you don't get sick.
Well, I've been better taken.
No, no, you have no idea, like Jamie said.
And I can't imagine.
But we do operate from a place of us or me before you, us before them, and rich before anybody else.
And if you're sick, and let's be clear, most people who are on Medicaid are already working.
or they're a caretaker, or they're a small business owner, whatever it might be.
But this state alone, think about this for a minute if you're listening today.
In Wisconsin alone, this state sees roughly 30,000 to 35,000 new cancer diagnoses each and every year.
And a lot of those new patients are completely dependent on public health coverage at some point during that treatment because they cannot work.
And so they're gonna miss coverage.
They're gonna, even if it's temporary, that could delay their appointments, it could delay chemotherapy, it could delay radiation treatments, the medications, the follow-up care, all of those things that might keep a cancer patient alive and healthy.
You think of HIV patients.
If they are missing their medicines, that is what it keeps their immune system from being compromised.
It is.
It's literally a form of cruelty when we're thinking about it in those terms.
And I don't know.
This is, for me, this is a hard one.
I've witnessed so many family members pass away from cancer.
I know what my genetics are.
I had to be tested.
We had so many people with cancer at our family.
I know what my genetics are.
This is a hard one for me.
And to me, this is a sickening reality of where we're at as a country.
Yeah.
There's really no words.
It's we've we've taken a system that Had a few flaws no system is perfect and we have made it much We've made it much more difficult the states aren't even the states are having a problem remember This is not a state issue now.
This is not Wisconsin's fault.
This is the federal government This is the administration that we're operating under and they have decided that once again you are not important and
That's that's how we live right now.
Wow.
Okay.
Let's lighten it up because we're we're getting ready to wrap up the day Oh, no, we're not
we're talking.
We're talking to Ruth Schmidt the executive director of Wisconsin Early Childhood.
I'll get it out.
This is Daybreak.
Local voices and statewide impact.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
It is 835 right now.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Pandemic air childcare funding is set to expire at the end of the month.
And according to a new report from Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, the lack of funding could force about 25% of Wisconsin's childcare providers to either close or significantly reduce their services.
Here to share more of the report is Ruth Schmidt, Executive Director at Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.
Ruth, thanks for being here.
We've been talking a lot about the current state of childcare in Wisconsin.
from the cost of it to staff shortages to centers closing.
How much worse can the situation get if these current federal stabilizing funds or when the funds end?
So when you ask a question about how much worse can things get, the folks that I work most closely with often say I'm sort of the doom and gloom person on the childcare issues because I've.
been in my position for 25 years and I've watched generations of children move through this system with little to no change happening in terms of how we invest in it as a system for social good and a public good type of system.
When we went into 2020, so COVID, the year of COVID,
Wisconsin was already seeing very steep declines in child care availability across our state.
We lost in the last decade before COVID.
We lost about 30% of our regulated child care programs across the state.
And when you look at what is happening in family child care, so these are very small in-home programs that are regulated to care for anywhere from three to six.
children or three to eight children, I apologize for that.
Those are the types of programs that are rural areas of the state rely on very heavily.
Those were closing at a rate of almost 75 to 80% prior to COVID.
So we had a crisis going on in our state.
It did not get the attention that it needed.
As kind of a public interest, this is something that we all need to pay attention to until COVID.
And the reason for that was that while the governor shut down schools in Wisconsin, the governor did not shut down childcare programs.
He urged childcare programs to remain open and they did.
This is what childcare does.
It's a lot of really great, wonderful women who care a lot about their communities and the children they care for.
They stayed open so that our essential workers across the state could work.
So that our healthcare workers could work, our grocery stores could stay stocked.
We could sell things to people that needed it during those days.
And suddenly, I think it raised the reputation, the importance of childcare as an issue in our state and the fact that it is essential work in and of itself.
Going into COVID, we already saw incredibly high tuition rates for children.
Those rates have continued to steadily inch up and we'll expect them to inch up even more.
We know that childcare programs were closing.
We had a shortage of teachers in this industry and things were pretty messy.
And the one thing that we like to point out right away on this topic of what happened when federal money started flowing to Wisconsin, first we need to understand Wisconsin was one of the first states to actually get its stabilization payments up and running and into bank accounts of childcare programs.
And this dramatic 30% decline in care that we were seeing across our state stabilized.
And so we've seen growth in child care, very incremental growth over the past five or six years.
When all of the stabilization payments are out the door by mid to late July of this year, we anticipate to start seeing those numbers escalate again.
So along with
affordability of care.
We can talk more about that and how much of a household income it's chewing up.
Things were rough.
Yeah,
we're talking with Ruth Schmidt.
She is the executive director at Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.
Let's jump into that funding.
We've heard from our own listeners here on civic media that say a good portion of their monthly income is going to childcare.
It's more than their mortgage.
So if this funding disappears, Ruth...
How are these families going to do this?
How are they going to make up those differences so those facilities are able to stay open?
Are there any solutions?
Parents are tapped out.
When tuition payment, and we hear this from childcare programs across the state, when childcare programs are starting to raise rates and this happened probably within the last three years, we started seeing it in a much more pronounced way.
When tuition payments continue to need to go up, we saw parents actually needing to pull their children out of childcare because they can no longer afford it.
So if you start with just that premise that parents are already spending 20 to 30% of their household income on childcare every single month, when you think of this in terms of some parents are paying anywhere from
If you have two children in care anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a year on childcare, you begin to understand their childcare works in a failed market.
Childcare providers cannot raise their rates high enough to afford to pay their staff.
People who work in childcare in Wisconsin on average are making about $14 an hour and only 20% of them have access to an employer-sponsored health care plan.
So this is an industry doing incredibly important work.
And they're paid poorly, so they leave the field.
Parents can't afford to pay more because they're tapped out.
It would be like saying to a parent of a child in starting kindergarten, hey, you got to start paying $15,000 a year for your child to go to kindergarten and for until that child graduates.
That's on your back.
We don't do that.
It's not good public policy in terms of what we have going on in childcare.
And so parents are leaving care.
We know that there has been an increase in parents leaving the workforce.
I think with the last round of tuition increases, we saw parents leaving the workforce up to 10, 11% of our workforce population.
And I feel like I can answer this question by like throwing data, data, data.
It's like, you know, when women are working in childcare.
women are working in industry.
If we have more women working in childcare, we have more women working in industry.
We could increase manufacturing in our state.
In healthcare, if you don't have 74% of healthcare workers are women.
If you don't have childcare for those women's children, you see declines in clinical care being available, you see workforce stresses, you see we have this incredible shortage of
health care workers in our state, it's all part of one system.
The solution is revenue, revenue, revenue, revenue.
The question is, where is it from?
Who's revenue?
But we have to put revenue into the system, or there is absolutely no way it will continue to be available to the average family in Wisconsin.
Well, the state had the child care bridge payments that were going on.
Those are stopping.
Was there any funding for early childhood in this proposed bill, the spending bill that came out and was defeated last month?
There was not.
So I would say there is, the Dems have advanced
or trying to advance bills that would reinstate childcare counts types of funding.
So that stabilization funding that has not happened in terms of what came out of the most recent negotiations on budget and surplus spending did not include funding for childcare.
The governor has
done what the governor could do.
He has made every possible dollar of federal money available for childcare that he could do.
It's not there anymore.
We have to turn to the state.
We have to turn to new revenue streams.
Like what?
Where would that revenue come from?
Sorry,
Gina.
I mean, you can look at states across the nation and see different models for how that's happening.
One East Coast state, we have seen a employer supported employer paid payroll tax 0.44%.
And that has raised revenues directly for childcare.
It has allowed them to blow up their subsidy program to the point where they are serving.
families through their subsidy program up to, I want to say, over 500% of the poverty level.
So it's a great way to, you know, you get payroll taxes, you put it into a system, you make it more widely available, you increase the rate that you're payment, that's a solution.
You've got states like New Mexico with universal care and they can tap into oil.
I think it was oil that they
had available in terms of revenue from oil and and they're able to use that also for child care.
You've got states that have used marijuana taxes.
You've got states that have used soda taxes.
You've got all sorts of options and Wisconsin needs to be thinking of those.
We're talking with Ruth Schmidt this morning.
She's the executive director at Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.
We have about two and a half minutes here at Left Ruth.
Obviously, we need our lawmakers to
act
on a state level, but if absolutely, if nothing is done, right?
What would Wisconsin's child care system look like six months from now, a year from now, if nobody does anything?
It'll be sort of.
scary and it'll be sort of terrifying to think of what is happening to the children.
We know that 25 percent of programs indicate that they may close.
We know that 78 percent of child care programs indicate they will need to raise rates.
We know that over 35 percent said they'll reduce hours of operation.
We already have a workforce shortage of over 4,000 teachers in this state for our child care programs just to fill regulated capacity.
Childcare, our employers across our state will be faced with an inability to hire people because there won't be childcare available for the workforce.
We think this is a once in a lifetime kind of event that is happening in our state.
It's concerning, but it also is an incredible opportunity with the elections coming up to address this and do it right.
Are you seeing
politics.
Let's look at the governor's race.
We've got eight Democrats and one Republican running for governor.
Are any of them addressing early childcare needs as they're as they're on the campaign trail now we
got a
minute.
Yeah, I believe that almost every Democrat has put out statements on childcare.
There's a childcare forum coming up in July that is gubernatorial and it is exclusively on childcare.
We are engaging with gubernatorial candidates to hear from them in terms of what are their issues and how do they plan to address it.
So it's a hot topic.
It's on the table.
It's being talked about.
Well, Ruth, thanks very much for joining us.
Ruth Schmidt, the executive director at Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.
It is a sobering stat.
WisconsinEarlyChildhood.org is where you can get more information.
Ruth, have a great rest of your day.
Thanks for
joining us.
Thank you.
All right, there is more now.
We'll try to freshen things up with new
Listerine.
Anyway, it's 8.50.
This is
Daybreak.
It's 8.52 right now.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
A quick reminder that if you've been trying to win and get your name into the entry and you're in that Accelerate your summer multi-state text to win contest, another chance to play coming up in about eight minutes or so.
So be ready with that Civic Media app.
A new word will be given and you'll have your chance to enter and hopefully win some cash and some prizes.
Daily prizes and of course the grand prize winner,
prizes that we'll be giving away next week as well.
So exciting stuff, Brian.
Very exciting.
Yeah, very exciting.
And it's going on, as Jamie said, all next week too.
So today, tomorrow, just be listening.
It's not a hard job.
All you gotta do
is listen.
Then text, oh, that means spelling.
Yes, it
does mean spelling.
But we spell it for you.
We spell it for you.
We do spell
it for you.
All you gotta do is copy it down.
Yes, listen.
Get a pen.
Old school.
Just listen.
And text.
You're already doing that anyway.
We all text all the time.
Is mouthwash part of your daily routine?
8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
I've never been a mouthwash guy.
I think...
We might have a bottle of scope somewhere in the house.
I use mouthwash every day.
Do you really?
I do.
Twice a day, in fact.
Really?
Yes, morning and night brush here.
Well, I mean, I brush my teeth,
but that doesn't mean... Morning and night here, and then I use my mouthwash twice a day, too.
Okay.
But I will say this.
I am very sensitive to mouthwashes, because I don't like anything that stings my mouth.
Like I, like I don't, like I want clean breath, right?
Like I want clean teeth and healthy mouth.
I don't want my mouth to sting in the process of doing so.
And some of these- Well, how do you know
it's getting clean if it's not abrasive
and sting?
If it's taken off, my skin- If your gums aren't bleeding.
Right, my navel's wearing off my teeth kind of thing.
I don't, but I, yeah, if it stings my mouth, I'm pretty much out.
So I use a very mild, I guess you would call it mouthwash, which I absolutely love.
It's one of
of my absolute favorites.
But it's not Listerine.
Well, this
might be good news for you.
Listerine, I remember Listerine from when I was a little kid,
and it
was a glass bottle on my grandparents' sink,
and it was gold,
and it was the most
vile,
putrid, horrible thing.
It smelled like medicine, it looked like medicine,
the
bottle, everything.
And so Listerine was never, no, that was never
a
thing.
But now they're launching a new extra mild mouthwash.
They must have heard, but it's
like,
it took you this long
to come around for a while.
And man, listerine, I don't, no shade on listerine, but I think it could peel paint.
I
think,
you
know, I think that's what they have embalmed fetal
pigs
with for biology lab.
It
was
Listerine was rough.
It was.
Well, not now.
Now they got extra mild for
people
who want a gentler taste like you, Jamie.
But you still, Jamie wants the gentler taste while still getting her oral health
benefits.
That's right.
I do want oral health
benefits.
Because you know.
Listerine kills 99.9% of germs that cause bad breath, plaque, and gingivitis, and provide more cleaning power than brushing and flossing alone.
If that
live reed doesn't get me a Listerine endorsement, I don't know what will.
But yes, that's what Listerine claims.
I wonder what that one-tenth of 1% germ is, just
sitting on your
tongue, flipping off Listerine.
I have no idea, but the fact that they now have extra mild, mild, and intense makes me feel like I'm tasting a hot sauce and not like doing clean.
Doing fresh breath and good oral hygiene
Frank we got to get all three flavors of listerine and we'll do a taste off
Parker you
Yeah, because Jamie likes clean breath, so we
want to make
sure which one is which.
If Brian gets his sponsor deal there after that live read,
then
I'll do it.
Once I am Mr. Listerine.
What I love about this is that Listerine is launching what they're calling their summer swish tour.
And they're going to make appearances
at
major music events, interestingly enough, including the Governor's Ball.
which is a music festival in New York.
I have so many questions.
I'm
going to sit out.
I'm going to sit this out for a second so I don't get canceled.
I'm going to just
wait.
So many things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, well, this is good, I guess, the whole thing.
They're expanding oral health education efforts throughout partnerships with the American Dental Association and rural health organizations.
Why singling out to people in the country?
Again, you're not getting me with this story,
Jamie.
They're also partnering with Amazon Music and also social media influencers.
so that they encourage people to personalize their oral health care routine.
How else are you going to do it?
All health care is in fact personal.
How
much
more personal does it get?
I'm trying to figure out why we're trying to make this cool.
Because people stink.
Let's be honest.
We're trying to make Listerine cool.
I don't understand why we're trying to tie it into music festivals and social media influencers.
It's very strange to me.
I'm all for taking care of your mouth and making sure that you don't have to go to the... See, that's my thing.
I don't want to go to the dentist.
I don't like going to the dentist.
So I'll do anything I can to not have to go to the dentist.
Parker, you go to a lot of raves.
Is Listerine going to be cool when you're out there on your...
Molly, spinning around with your pacifiers.
Oh, maybe that'll take the smell out, I guess.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, that might be.
Making Listerine cool.
At least Listerine is not like the gold medicine that you remember from your grandparents' house.
It's probably the intense.
I would imagine the intense is the
original recipe.
They have like a mint now.
That's what my kid uses.
My kid uses Listerine because he wants it to feel like all of the enamel is being peeled off his teeth when he swishes his Listerine.
to rean through his mouth.
But then you can't eat or drink anything for hours
because your
tongue
has not been stripped of all it's like just
scraping and scraping and scraping.
It's numb.
It's been like being to the dentist and getting the Nova Cage shots.
I just don't understand why we're trying to make it cool.
Like, I
know, but I can't wait to wrap this up and say all the things that I wanted to say during this segment when we're off the air.
But yeah, so there you go.
Listerine.
All the kids are doing it.
Well, that's it for us.
We'll be back tomorrow with a Friday edition of Daybreak.
Thank you for listening and being part of the program.
Don't forget you can always listen to our podcast, go to Spotify or download the Civic Media app.
And then Instagram and Facebook, Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
This is Daybreak.
I'm Jamie Martin.
So thank you so much for joining us again today.
Join us again tomorrow morning right here on the Civic Media
Network.
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