Let's say good morning to Jamie Freeland.
And you've been here before, but not for what we're going to talk about today.
Right.
I've been on a couple of times when I've been on with Racine County.
And now I'm the new executive director of the senior companion program.
Well, muscle tough.
Congratulations.
Thank
you.
That's very nice.
So before we talk about the event and everything.
What is the organization now, your executive director?
So the senior companion program is basically an organization where we match seniors that are looking for a friend.
It's simple as that.
We don't provide any health care.
We don't provide any running around cleaning or errands or respite, just strictly friendship.
I got involved with the program last year.
I have my senior shout out to Alice.
I know she's listing this morning.
And she's not someone that I consider that I'm volunteering anymore.
She has become my family.
She's taught me so much.
She brings me so much joy.
We are so close.
And I get to spend an hour a week.
I can spend more time, but we ask that our volunteers to give up an hour of their time to visit the senior.
And now you can visit them anywhere.
Yes.
Yeah,
this isn't a building.
No, not a building.
You can go to their home.
It's a program.
It's a program.
Wherever they're living at, you go and visit them in their home, whether it be if they're living in an assisted living, nursing home, at their own home, apartment, wherever it is, you go and visit them.
We
have a dedicated listener, and I'm not just... A lot of people dedicate listeners.
This guy goes above and beyond.
I mean, he's a senior.
He lives at Ridgewood.
Okay.
He has a little radio, which is looks like it's one of the originals from Marconi, one of the original radios.
I got him a new one.
He knows the entire history of this of this radio.
He knows all 100 years of it.
He knows every listens every single day.
His name is John.
And he just sits there with his radio listening to W.R.J.N.
That's awesome.
And I got him this new radio that has FM on it.
Because in the building, A.M.
comes in, but, you know, a little scratchy here and there.
But now he has a brand new radio.
And I knew what you knew to him.
It was one of my favorite.
It's a transistor type radio.
It's a
small one because he sits out with it on his lap.
This guy knows everything.
And he's he's as smart as a cookie.
He sits with these puzzle books all day long.
And he plays the puzzle books, you know, where, you know, like crossword puzzles and word searches
and doing all that stuff.
Now, I don't know how to play that.
Me neither.
I think he does.
He could teach us.
But and that's why I think he's as sharp as a tack.
Yeah, because he keeps doing these all day long.
He sits there in a chair and he just plays it and listens to W.R.
J.N.
all day long.
I know he's listening now because he listens for 100 years.
He's been listening.
And so John shout out to you.
And he's a great guy.
So.
So you go actually everywhere where now how do you how do you.
Where does it has a companion program?
How do you get people to call you to come down or how does that work?
So how it works is sometimes we'll get we'll get referrals from The from the EDRC we'll get we'll get referrals from different Ridgewood from Elizabeth Gardens from Parkview Gardens from home Harbor Otherwise family members might call and say hey mom or aunt or dad could
You know, they're lonely and they could use somebody to talk to and we do background checks on all of our volunteers so that the families know that their loved one is going to be safe.
We'll do the background check and then we like to match our seniors and our companions with someone that has a, you know, an interest in mind, whether it be playing cards or just talking or listening to music.
Maybe it's baking or knitting or whatever it is.
We try and match them and, you know, it just typically goes off from there and they form a
nice deep connection or friendship.
That's kind of neat.
Um, I don't, it's hard to talk about this sometimes, but a lot of seniors don't have anybody left in the world.
My mother, when my father passed away, she had me and my brother and she had a family, but all her friends have were gone.
She was 92.
So her friends were all gone.
Right.
Every friend she ever had in the world.
Gone.
Right.
Now she had us family, but you know, families.
stink sometimes.
Right.
They do.
No, no,
no, no, no.
I broke.
I broke my mother here.
She moved from New York to Florida back to New York when my father started to get Alzheimer's.
And after a while, she said, I can't do it out here anymore.
So I said, you come to Wisconsin, come to Racines, Lake Oaks over here.
OK.
And it was great for them for about nine years, eight years over there.
My brother moved to Kenosha.
You would have told me three of us from the East Coast would be living in Racine, Wisconsin or Kenosha.
I said, you're crazy.
Right.
But I had to bring her here and luckily my wife took her out to different things all over town.
She took her to the parade of homes.
We took her to, I took her to the State Fair one year.
I'll show you a picture of her during the break when she's on the sky ride with me, kicking her feet and everything
on the sky
ride.
Oh, wow.
The only thing is they had to stop the ride for her to get off and on.
Okay.
She's 92 years old.
Of course.
And
she'd hop on.
But she loved it and she walked around and then I got her a wheelchair to kind of
So she could push me around.
Yeah.
State fair gets kind of busy.
So that's great because a lot of people don't have family anymore and a lot of people don't have family that cares anymore.
That's the sad part
sometimes.
Exactly.
When your family just doesn't care about you.
So how I really got into this is my grandmother, 91 years old, Darlene, she lived up in Wisconsin Rapids and the majority of our family lived down here in southeastern Wisconsin.
And so she was lonely and she would say to me, she goes, Jamie, sometimes the only person I get to see or talk to in a day is my Meals on Wheels driver.
And that really hit me.
That was like, wow.
So I became a Meals on Wheels driver.
I delivered Meals on Wheels for the EDRC on Tuesdays.
And then I enjoyed it so much.
Going to see my seniors, a smile, a quick hello.
How are you doing?
And I would see the joy in there.
their face, their eyes light up.
Just because someone gave them a couple minutes of time and I thought, well, what more can I do?
Is that really stuck with me?
And I got involved with the senior companion program and I had a volunteer and now I'm the executive director and I couldn't be more thrilled, honored and blessed.
I got to finally find out what I want to be when I grow up.
Yeah, you're doing something.
Good for you.
You're doing something productive with your life.
Most people do.
Yes.
You know, even if you work in a store or something, you're doing something productive.
You're serving people, you're getting what they need for them and everything.
So that's great.
Yeah.
I really, I think it's great.
All right, we got Jamie Freeland here.
Jamie is, she works with Racine County Eye as well.
Yes.
But now she is also the executive director of the senior companion program.
How do you get the funding for that?
Why did he get your money?
So how we are funded is because this is a, this is a no cost program to our, to our seniors and obviously to our volunteers.
Um, we are funded through grants, donations and fundraisers.
Okay.
So we're having a big fundraiser on August 15th.
Now this is no pun intended.
And I just thought of it.
It's right on my alley because I did, I really did.
I wasn't going to say it.
And then I thought, Oh, I better not say that.
It's not like an idiot.
It's bowling.
It's a bowling tournament.
It is.
It's a bowling.
It's a bowling fundraiser.
It is going to be August 15th down at the Lanes and Angry Brothers Pub.
That's right on Washington Avenue here in Racine.
It's going to be from four to six thirty.
Cost is twenty dollars.
You get bowling, your bowling rental shoes.
You get pizza, soda and dessert all for twenty bucks.
Are you going
to use the bumper buddies?
Yes, I am because I am not a good bowler, so we get the bumpers as well.
I can't bowl
with bumpers.
Now, I told you when you're on the phone, when I was nine years old, my mom signed me up for the police boys club.
You know, to keep me out of trouble.
Me and my brother and some kids in the neighborhood signed up too.
It's a good way to, so you don't go doing stupid things at the police boys club.
And you could sign up for any one of their programs.
We signed up for bowling.
So every Saturday morning for four years, we did bowling every Saturday except for the summer.
And I became a good bowler at age nine.
I had a 140 average.
That's awesome.
From nine years old.
Yeah.
I had one problem, though.
I didn't wear glasses at the time and they didn't know that you can see individual pins down the alley.
So I would look there and I see just blur, a white line at the end of the alley.
I know aim for the middle.
And then when it got glasses,
When I was in sixth grade, I was now what, well, 12 years old, 11 years old.
I saw individual pins for the first time.
And now I was aiming for the right spot.
And I said, whoa, this is, my people said, well, didn't you know?
I said, no, I didn't know.
This is what it looked like to me.
Everybody sees it like me.
And so I, my average didn't go up when I saw the pins.
Oh, I thought maybe it was going to go
up.
No, no, no, you
would think so, but no.
Maybe you should
have taken them
off.
It was better when I just saw a blur white at the end of the alley.
But we had a great time.
I love bowling.
The bowling ball I used now was made by a friend of mine who worked at Sears or JCPenney.
And this is when they made bowling balls there.
This is back in the 70s.
He made me a bowling ball and he made it so well.
I still use it to this day.
The same bowling ball because it was so good.
It's just, you know, it's the magic bowling ball, like a magic eight ball.
And so I still use the same one today.
I wish it was 16 pounds.
I think it's 15, 14 or 15.
I wish I had a heavier ball for it.
But it's so good that I just I haven't changed since the 70s.
That's amazing.
The only bowling ball you have.
Yeah.
Oh, I know some people have like my dad's one of them.
Um, he's got about a dozen of them.
I'm like, really?
Well, one ball to do this and one to do that.
Well, it's a rubber
one.
It's not a plastic rubber one.
The shoes inside, I put him on one day.
I didn't want him in years and the bottoms fell out.
Oh, there was no thought to throw those out.
But I grew up bowling.
It's a great family sport.
It is.
It is.
It's a lot of fun.
My dad bowled all the time, Elmwood Plaza.
I think it was Paradise Lanes back in the day before it was the Lanes.
Now he's out at Hill Bowl out in Union Grove at Old Suttler.
So we were brought up bowling and
I'm not good at it at all.
I'm lucky if I hit 100.
So this is just a friendly, fun day out.
No competition.
Oh, there's competition.
Oh, there's plenty of competition.
You may not see it, but
there's competition.
Yeah, they'll
be fun.
All in fun, though.
There's actually a bowling alley right on Main Street.
Oh, there is.
Is it inside Rhino Bar?
The Rhino Bar.
There's a two-lane bowling alley in there.
Downstairs,
right?
No, it's upstairs.
Oh, it's upstairs.
You
can see right from the window.
Oh, neat.
Tulane bowling alley.
Neat.
A lot of people don't know what's there.
Well, you know, there used to be one on Elmwood Plaza downstairs.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So.
In Milwaukee, too, a friend of mine took me on a tour of Milwaukee.
Rod Lancer, he was the guy who came up with Summerfest.
He started that.
And he took me on a tour of Milwaukee with my parents one day.
And he showed us this bar in Milwaukee.
It was Tulane.
It wasn't automatic.
We had pin setters in there.
And he said, whenever the Pro Bowlers came to town,
They had to play there.
Oh,
it was one of their things.
They had to follow a line of bowling there at that bowling alley at a bar.
Okay.
Forget the name of the place.
It'll come to me as soon as you leave.
I'm
sure.
Yeah.
I know there was one on the south side called Kaz's bowling.
No, it was a small one.
I remember going as a kid.
We
went to
the bar.
She's down
bowling
alley to
them.
And they weren't automatic.
They had pin setters.
My dad was a pin setter.
Was he?
He
was a kid.
Yeah.
Duck pin bowling.
Yes.
Duck pin
bowling.
I like duck pin bowling.
Big fat pins right
been bowling
and was it like a wooden?
Yeah, small wooden circle ball.
I don't know.
Yeah, it wasn't a bowling ball.
Was it a bowling
ball?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, this is real bowling.
This is real bowling
with no, these are automatic pin setters.
You don't have to run back there and set your own pins.
This is
great.
And this is at the Lane's on 20.
Yep.
Lane's on 20.
One of our
sponsors here on WRJN.
So that's good.
That's what I like to mention him.
Lane's on 20.
So let's give a quick review of what we're talking about here.
This event is coming up Saturday, August 50th.
That's a Saturday.
Next Saturday.
Well, what's this Saturday?
This Saturday, I think it's the eighth.
You're right.
Yeah.
It's.
I have the date right in front of my face.
I think I know that.
All right.
So it's a week from this Saturday, August 15th.
The lane's on 20 right there on Washington Avenue in Mount Pleasant.
Registration time, 3 30 p.m.
The first balls are being thrown at 4 p.m.
It's a two hour bowling, not a tournament, bowling.
fundraiser, right?
Pizza, soda, desserts, a 50-50 raffle, raffle baskets.
Whoa.
Right.
So even if you don't want a bowl and you just want to come to get some 50-50 tickets, bid on baskets and the baskets, they're some amazing ones, something for everybody.
So come on out.
Yeah.
We bowl at my
house.
We have the Wii game system.
I can bowl good on Wii.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm good at that because it.
I'm standing there in my underwear bowling and it's nice and easy to throw an imaginary bowl down the alley.
But yeah, my wife and I do that.
And yeah, we, we bowl in the house.
I went out a few times to some bowling alleys and stuff, but you know, the older I got and I lost a lot of weight recently.
So I may be able to do it now.
Maybe I'll give it a shot.
The, this sounds like a fun tournament and it's all to raise money for the senior companion program.
And if people are just turning in now,
turning on the radio station now.
We talked about it doesn't matter where seniors are.
It could be home, it could be at Ridgewood, it could be at any senior center, it could be anywhere you come to visit.
Now how do they get a hold of you?
So all they have to do is they can look us up online at seniorcompanionprogram.org or they could call our office at 262-898-1941.
We'll have Cheryl who does our matching.
We'll talk to the potential
client, the senior, and then find out what their interests are, what they're looking for, what do they really want to do.
And then we'll match them up with a volunteer that has similar interests, and it's like magic, your friendship happens.
See, I'm a different kind of person, and my mother used to say this to me all the time, growing up, don't you want to have a play with the kids?
And I had friends, we had a six pack of friends we always hung with, it was the same six kids all day long.
It went to all.
It was, I wanted, I don't want to go out today.
I want to sit alone and just, you know,
that is
before you got TB, but not cable or anything.
And it's sit alone and just either listen to my radio or just lay in bed and read whatever I was doing.
I said, don't you want to be with your friends today?
No, I'm tired of them.
I'm with them all the time.
I want a little break from them.
And so I'm one of these people likes to break every once in a while, but our six pack of friends, we used to go, just we always hung around together.
But after a while, you know, I want to quiet time.
Sure.
And I understand how people want that.
Now, I don't want quiet time 365 days a year.
Now I do.
Back then I didn't.
Right.
But and that's so good that, you know, somebody's sitting there alone.
They don't have family visiting them.
They don't have friends.
They got you.
They have us.
How many people you got?
We have 55.
Whoa.
Yes.
55.
I thought there were like four people.
No, 55 seniors.
And then of course the volunteers.
Some volunteers have multiple seniors that they see a week.
Just because I mean you I have learned so much from my senior She has brought me so much joy and taught me so much about myself Something that the internet or AI can't teach you I am learning so much from her and she's just made my life better Well,
I love talking to this guy John when I go over there and see him at Ridgewood He's just he has a wealth of history that I don't even know I know about some of the stuff he talked about with this place and I've been here, you know
27 years and he knows more stuff than I do.
Right.
He just has a great memory for it.
And it's very passionate to him, this radio station, because he's been listening to it all his life.
Aw.
I mean, we're a hundred years old this December.
That's amazing.
We outdate probably most of the population on the planet.
Right.
And so to him, this is one constant in his life, WRJN.
A lot of people feel like that is a constant.
We were doing, they were seeing concert band the other day.
And I mentioned, you know, I've been here, I've been radio for 55 years and
Some lady comes running up to the stage says, I was listening to you when I was eight years old.
Thank you.
I didn't feel old until you said that.
But thank you very much because she was an older lady.
I've been less than good when I'm eight years old.
And now I'm 75.
No,
she was very nice.
I did appreciate her saying that.
But
you know, it's kind
of strange.
Yeah.
So we serve all over St.
County.
So whether you're in the East End, West End, everywhere.
So
one more time, we got a bowling fundraiser coming up.
for senior companion programs to raise money.
That's what it's for.
It's a week from this Saturday, Saturday, August 15th at the Lane's on 20 and Washington Avenue there.
Registration time, 3.30, bowling time, four to six.
There's two hours of bowling, shoe rental.
You got pizza.
That's the only thing is, it's the only business, the only sport I know where you got to get special shoes.
Yes.
Yes, special shoes.
They don't want
scuff marks.
I love
their alley.
You got pizza, soda, dessert, a 50-50 raffle, raffle baskets, and just sounds like a lot of fun.
You got casual bowling bingo.
Yes.
We have some games, some fun games going on.
And if
you want bumpers, they'll put it on there so you can't bowl a gutter ball.
Right.
Right.
I'll have
the bumpers.
Hey, we're going to podcast this later today.
If you missed any of our conversational podcast, it's so...
So you'll be able to hear it.
Jamie, thanks a lot.
Thank you so much for having me, Don.
I appreciate it
so much.
Jamie Freeland, who's not only the executive director of Senior Commanding Program, she's also working for Racine County Eye.
I am.
I am.
They're both pretty important things you're doing.
They are.
And I love it.
I'm truly blessed.
So playing music on the radio, I'm helping society.
All right.
Thank you,
Jamie.
Thank you.