
Hey, thank you very much.
Welcome back.
Trucker Thursday, there's a trucker morning out there, 46 in Green Bay, 49 in Ampton, 48 in Oshkosh, which is about as warm as it could be.
The high is only 50, Todd.
It's 48 now.
The high today is only 50.
OK.
All right.
It's a Thursday.
We're with Selena Daryl and Jeremy Beck, rooted, incorporated United States Postal Service, Stamp Out
Yeah, so stamp-out hunger has been a NALC and...
partnership with USPS along with our rural carriers and other corporate sponsors going on our 30 Going on our 32nd year now.
That's awesome.
I've been the coordinator for local title town branch 619.
This is my second year doing this
I've been with postal service for 10 years.
So as a carrier, I was also involved as well
Yeah, so
We have a sponsorship postcards to remind people are going out to all the community members and residential households this week.
Next week we'll have bags that will be mailing out as well and delivering to people.
Our bags this year were sponsored by the United Way of Brown County.
And so May 10th, we asked that everybody have their donations out in the bags that we provide out by their mailboxes by 9930.
And then we'll do the rest either your carrier will come and get it or we also have volunteers that are going out
to jump in I Jim is the expert on this thing I just have to ask you one question after we talk about because I was just reading you know I try to get in 10,000 steps a day and I did that once How do you feel after that great athletic how many steps does a typical
Mail carrier what was the proper term?
I'm not sure I used to say mail man mail carrier mail carrier How many steps do so a walking mail carrier?
I I set my daily goal at 13,000 and I and I double that almost every day.
Oh my god 25,000 steps,
You're the pinnacle of health.
Every step, cause every step, Todd will not bring it to us.
There are times he will not bring it.
I just had to ask that, where it said, if you do 7,000 steps a day, it could add like five years to your life.
And I thought, who walks the most?
And it's like a pulse of work.
You do 26,000?
But there's other jobs that I was... Who wants to live that long?
But
and
non perishable Preferably anything that's not expired or half opened or half used already.
Yes,
that
Okay, I'm just gonna I'm sorry, but I just that's one of my pet peeves Where versus okay, somebody thinks they're doing something nice and we're used to send things to the troops in Afghanistan Iraq all the time and people would bring stuff that was like expired that they had in the back of their
Do you know what I'm saying?
Just a little.
eat expired food.
Right.
Exactly.
And preferably anything that's also in plastic or metal containers versus glass because of transport
want
and like spaghetti sauce to get over everything else.
Right.
on.
Anything that will like last and make meals that will last, you know, a couple of days
like that.
Anything that is.
I
Yeah, we do.
We're always looking for more volunteers.
We have quite a few to help out the day of to help at sort at the post offices.
We always kind of tend to run a little short with volunteers going out to the routes.
So we do have carrier family members and friends coming in.
We also have the pantries that we work with that are supplying volunteers as well.
And we just kind of spread the word to
other family and friends that if they want to come and help
out, stay on that.
If you need
volunteer hours
United Way of Green Bay is also working on getting us volunteers
Yeah, once it comes back to the post office, we have volunteers
taking all the donations.
two, one to drive, one
get out of the car and pick up.
extra steps in that day.
Let's do that.
We do have sheets of signs that
the volunteer
our stamp out hunger food.
any types of pastas or rice or oatmeal, peanut butter,
canned tuna, canned chicken.
Very
good.
You know, anything that.
Anything
Yeah, anything that people could use to make a meal,
does it go?
It goes to all the local food food pantries that we work with that that I work with to coordinate all this so rooted in with Selena is one of them and then we have about
10 other pantries, local pantries that they're all going to be going to within Green Bay to peer and any other surrounding areas.
That's
That's
We don't do enough of that.
We have excess food in our community.
We just
I don't want to go to landfill.
So you've worked on a couple things and I want to talk about both of them.
I definitely want to pick up on the post office, but let's go back to the NFL draft because I saw you yesterday, you were at our place.
What'd you, how'd that go?
What did you pick up?
Was there food leftover?
It was absolutely amazing.
So we had a posse of volunteers that would meet with the catering staff from the NFL offsite.
We would weigh all of the food that was donated and then we distributed.
it to 13 different agencies across
community.
Well, we're actually still picking up and distributing food.
So as of this morning, we're at about 7,145 pounds of both food and beverages.
So the staff from the NFL is still in Green Bay and they still need to eat.
So if there's extras, we're still working with them.
So it's been over a week now.
of us going and picking up the food.
It's a lot of food.
I mean, we were blessed to have so much healthy food, so lean proteins, pasta, vegetables, salads, sandwiches.
You know, we weren't receiving
the junk, like the hot dogs and the brats, it was all neutral.
Why is
Civic media.
us.
Yes, we had a lot of produce.
One of our food trucks wandering table had some extra food.
From the draft event we did at the Amplify parking lot.
So they donated some lettuce and green onions and some bread.
So we dropped that off over at the New Community Shelter yesterday.
I sort of
Right.
But, like, anyone can... Any food that's going to waste in this community, reach out to Rooted In, we will find a way to come and pick it up, and we will get it distributed throughout this community to feed people.
I
And, you know, we have a menu set up for the month, but it was, well, take that off of there.
Why take this frozen chicken out and do that?
We're going to have leftovers.
We'll call it something different, but we just, you know, a variety of things because there was so much.
That's good food.
I mean, most of it is good food, but there was, we enjoyed
Right.
And
Yeah.
But.
I mean, we've set up all these amazing partnerships and mechanisms to receive the food and then distribute it to other food pantries, use it internally, root it in to make meals.
So, you know, we have the mechanisms to rescue this food and use it to feed our community.
It's going to be moving forward.
It's going to be more important than ever that our community invests in feeding our community.
So many food pantries and agencies have relied on federal funding and a lot of those programs are going to get cut in the near future.
So as a community, we need to rise up just like they did in Milwaukee about 10 years ago to support an organization called Kinship.
The community invested in food security because they realized how important it is that people who are struggling in poverty, food is just a part of that.
Food and shelter, they can't go on and make better decisions unless they have those two things covered.
And you're right.
We've got our letters too saying, look, you know, don't rely on this in the future.
And we're like, okay, people are still going to want to eat.
So we just got to figure out other things.
And thank God, the post office, you guys are doing this event.
I'm sure we'll be a recipient of that.
And there's a lot of other things that we've been very creative the last couple of months looking at that.
But so I want to get back to the volunteers because that US post office thing, because two people to drive that.
And you sign up for like two, three hours or what do you want for commitments on that?
As long as you want.
So if you
Yeah.
Yeah, because, yeah.
Yeah.
One person to drive, one person to get out and get the donation.
Yeah.
And then, or you could just go to the post office.
I take it you
Uh, we do it at Packerland and Coffin's.
Oh yeah, Coffin.
Yep.
have, we have about five, five pantries that are going to be out at Packerland gathering and then another six
right
this.
Keep the good part on the pedal So I'm never minding breaks Let it all hang out cause we got a run to pick The boys are thirsty in Atlanta And there's beer in Texarkana And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes He's found it
started.
And one of the reasons is the distribution.
We have food, and we have food.
We have great people that want to help.
So big opportunity coming up this weekend.
Well, this week, it's actually May 10th.
So Jeremy, just go through that again.
You've seen this.
It's been around for 30 years.
The US Post Office works with the food pantries, and they collect food.
So you're going to get the bags?
So two people drive Somebody's the runner and somebody is in the car So we they'll give you a little map and you say look I'm willing to do this for one two three four hours So we need people partners to do that The other thing that we need people to do is this food gets dropped off at a distribution center either on Coffran or on Packerland and we need help
with that.
That's something your family could sign up to do, or you and your friends.
Are you
And we had 45 kids at a shelter yesterday, washing windows, great kids, but they wanted to get there, you know, some five hours in.
This is a great opportunity to do that.
And how good you're going to feel about feeding our community?
Because this stuff stays local, comes from locals, stays local.
So let me talk when we get this, if somebody's listening.
Yeah, so you can reach out to me.
for volunteer opportunities at NALC 619 SOH at gmail.com.
Just wait, NALC?
Yep, NALC 619 SOH at gmail.com.
The school districts have not historically participated in the Stampout Hunger Food Drive.
yeah, so so for me rooted in we are assigned a pickup time of 2 o'clock p.m.
And we have requested two 1,000 pound totes of food
So we will load up one tote into a trailer and then bring it back to our office.
The trailer.
And then I will need volunteers after 2.30 p.m.
to help us unload.
a thousand pounds of food from the trailer into our office.
Got it.
And then we will go back to Coffrin, pick up the second tote of a thousand pounds, bring it back, and then we will need people to also unload again.
All right, so what's
the cut?
Selina's one of the smaller pantries, like we have some pantries that are getting like requesting 10 totes.
Wow.
10,000 pounds.
Right.
So hopefully last year, between the two offices in Green Bay, we got about 60,000 pounds.
of donations and that's on the lower side.
Right.
So
had upwards of 100,000 pounds of donations on previous.
For boot it in for any volunteers.
And if I end up with too many volunteers, we will find a
And I just want to say something.
What you just said, throwing out those numbers.
That kind of like illuminates the need in this area that we who are, you know, middle Americans don't see and you guys do.
And for your people, your walkers, your postal people who have all the respect in the world for, you guys see it, don't you?
I should say you men and women see
it.
Yeah, in our communities, we kind of know also what's going on with our communities and we also see the need.
I always walk down.
Okay, go ahead.
But what's your point?
But what I'm saying is, I've actually told Jim sometimes with some of these neighborhoods I walk through, it's like, holy crap, I walk down such and such street.
That's a...
That's a tough street.
You weren't in work title town.
Everything is phenomenal when you walk
Oh,
I've only been in Green Bay for about three years.
I was an Appleton beforehand.
So
and I just really want to give a huge shout out to the United Way Brown County.
We did not have bags the last two years because we did not have funding.
And it's been proven that when their bags distributed in the community, more people donate food.
So we're so excited to have this opportunity to get the bags out there.
So please fill them up because people need the food
between the postcards and the bags It's a visual reminder to the community.
Oh, yeah me Selena Darrow Selena at rooted in ink.org Okay, and our website is www.rootedinink.org We're on Facebook Instagram and LinkedIn.
All
Yep.
I would love to see whole foods so beans canned protein peanut butter Pasta rice not seasoned rice rice that people can actually cook with those sorts of things all right
Thanks so much.
Appreciate
back
From
All right, so 9.30 on the 10th.
You put those bags out and it's stamping out hunger and they're gonna collect
Don't know 60 70 80 thousand pounds of food, which is tremendous if you think about that and it's gonna go to 13 distribution points in our community.
So this is an opportunity You see people sometimes on the street or you see people you hear people are hungry This is an opportunity to help and much as you want to put in there, and I'm sure they'd be okay
Couple of these students want to do that and just drive around, sign up for an hour or two or three hours, because I know you got to get your 15 hours in, or just do it because...
You want to do it.
And then we need people when it comes to the distribution sites on Coffin Road, as well as on Packerland, we need people to help there.
And so all the information is on there, but this is a great, great thing for our community.
We do it annually.
You know, you don't have to do whatever.
We're just going to your cupboards and fill a little bag.
That's how you got to do.
All right.
Let's talk about something else.
Becky Sorensen from on Broadway Incorporation and everybody that comes in here on on Broadway.
What's the first thing we say to every one of them before we do anything?
All
Thanks for having me on this morning.
Good
you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was not in charge of it, but I was there helping and running the beverage tents.
I also manage our volunteer program.
That's going to be a cooler part, too.
From what that place used to be versus what it is now.
And I was telling this, this was, you know, possibly by mistake or whatever.
But the way the stage was set up the other night and you had that band on.
OK.
And I live right upstairs of you could.
OK.
The sound that came across the water.
from that, you built that big pavilion or whatever, and that sound coming across is incredible.
That's awesome.
were.
They were pretty stoked.
Kind of a stacked lineup with lots of different genres, something for everybody.
And those headliners really did bring the crowd and we were, yeah, we were pleased.
Yeah.
Yeah, the crowd was great, and Lake Park really is so lovely.
We worked closely with the City of Green Bay to bring some enhancements to the park specifically for that event, but hopefully we'll stay and continue to
It's getting there.
That needs a lot of work.
I mean, you need permanent restrooms there.
I don't know if you're going to put a band shell on there permanently, but that is going to be a great place for Green Bay someday.
But you got to keep at it.
And I know that some of your proceeds go to support the park.
Correct.
So all the tips that were brought in from the beverage tents will go towards that development
Yeah, so we are coming up in June.
We're starting our third year of the Levitt Amp Green Bay Music Series.
And we are super excited.
It's a 10-week concert series from June 1st to August 3rd.
So it'll be a free concert weekly in Lake Park.
Thanks to Mrs. Levitt.
Or what's Levitt?
So the Levitt Foundation was founded by Mimi and Mortimer Levitt.
They're based out of Los Angeles.
Nobody's called Mimi.
I didn't Auntie Mimi.
Nobody's called Mimi and Mimi anymore.
Mimi, yeah.
Well, okay, yeah.
and Mortimer have passed.
It was run by their daughter, Liz, who actually also passed away last year.
now they're changing, they're restructuring some things.
It's now going to be called the Levitt Family Foundation.
But they award a grant to many, probably over 30 communities around the country, small to mid-sized, specifically this-
It is, yeah.
And there's a whole application.
process, I don't know if any of you guys listening remember a few years ago, we did a whole like campaign to vote to get this grant.
And we did, we got
is.
matching
it's a three-year grant.
So each year, the foundation gives us $30,000, which we then have to match.
I will say the majority of that goes to paying for the artists.
course.
because it's 10 weeks, we have two artists each week.
But yeah, so we're in the third year of this grant program and hopefully gonna be renewing for another
They don't tell us, they don't give us an artist roster or anything like that.
They have specific criteria.
So really the goal of,
the Levitt Amps series is to bring kind of diverse new types of music that people might not be used to hearing, but featuring up-and-coming artists, people that have professionally released music, and really featuring those folks that are kind of rising to the top.
And so they have criteria that we have to meet, like a certain amount of... Can
is a free event, free to the public.
We have food trucks and a beverage tent there, but we encourage folks to bring chairs, bring a picnic.
We really want this to be an inclusive...
of space for everybody, for the whole community.
So
kick off?
June 1st is our first.
That's
up.
Yeah, it is.
It's month,
so month away.
You know what?
I'm going to tell young kids about growing old.
Bleep happens so fast.
I remember being at a meeting.
It's like, well, for the NFL, it's like a year and a half away.
And now it's past us.
And you're talking about June.
It's like, OK, that's coming up.
I know.
Life doesn't slow down when you're planning things.
And you guys
well.
Yeah, event after event, right?
Yeah, so we... Because
Yeah, so we do have a planning committee.
It's made up of different community members, kind of around the city, from different backgrounds, different, you
you know, maybe now's the chance.
Trucker Thursday?
Is that your event?
Okay.
I'll bring that to
down.
Well, I don't have a pen.
Correct.
Traveling Suitcase is
Yeah.
I know.
Oh, great.
Well, sorry.
And who is that?
Wayne Newton.
Yeah, so Traveling Suitcases, our headliner from June 1st.
They're from Wisconsin.
We've had kind of a pared-down version of their band, a duo or trio, perform at some of our other events.
So we're really excited to have them back.
And then our opener is Maddie Batsley, who is a Madison-based artist.
And that's at four o'clock,
Yes, it's four o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday.
Yeah.
David Yang, we are really excited about him.
He's been writing his own lyrics since he was 16.
And
Social media, TikTok.
Yeah, but he kind of blends, you know, those hip hop, rap, R&B and some traditional Hmong music, because he is a part of the Hmong community
well.
But we are actually partnering with Maeve Passion, which is a new nonprofit kind of in the area, to put, to extend that event, to make it all, we're calling it a Hmong music showcase.
Oh, well, you know,
Yes, there are two exceptions.
So we are rolling our Sunday concerts into a couple of the other events we have going on this summer.
So the Ignite Market, the first one is on June 21st, and that's a Saturday.
So we will have kind of the Levitt Amp Green Bay Music Series stage at the Ignite Market.
Yeah, I'll just go through the headliners.
We've got Traveling Suitcase, David Yang, Melody Angel, who's a blues rock musician.
Bridget calls me Baby, which is Alton Indy, Radio Free Honduras, which is kind of Latin Americana, Parker Barrow, Blues, Infused Southern Rock, Shamar Allen, which is hip hop and kind of New Orleans Jazz, Fox Crossing String Band, which is an all-female bluegrass band, and Indigenous, which is Indigenous in 90s.
Rock and then Lemon Bucket Orchestra to close out the series, which is a Ukrainian folk punk
That's
Thanks, guys.
You're
civicmedia.us.
It
was the dark of the moon on the 6th of June and a Kenworth pulling logs Cab over Pete with a reefer on
I
I'm doing well.
I am a little bit Irish.
little bit.
thanks.
cool.
Yeah, it's exciting.
You know, the whole part of the element of the Levitt Amp Grant program is to bring programming to maybe some underutilized spaces in small to mid-sized communities.
And so I think it's been really great to help program that park.
And it's just continuing to get.
programmed more and more.
And we've got, you know, the Draft City Music Fest was kind of the first time that we took the development project kind of public.
So, yeah, there's some cool stuff happening
Yeah.
So likes Memorial Park is right off of the Main Street Bridge on the, you know, west side of the river, right by the depot.
right?
Donald Driver.
Yep.
Donald Driver Lane.
That's the one.
Yep, his statue.
Absolutely.
It's, uh, you're not closing the bridge for these, are you?
Oh, no.
Okay.
Right.
But they're still well attended.
Yes, they are.
And there's plenty of parking.
People can park over here.
It's obviously free parking on weekends.
They just walk across the bridge or there's plenty of parking.
There is plenty of
parking in the park itself.
Actually, there's a huge parking lot.
So when we keep that open,
And that's really why we do it for pedestrian traffic.
So, yeah, and it was great on Wednesday night when we did the fireworks.
People were lined up on the bridge watching the, watching the
I'll be honest with it.
The night Musk was in town.
Okay, horrible night.
I mean rainy and windy and the wind coming off the bay and I was light up start I was taking pictures and I must have seen Potentially five or six near tragic because people were there was no you know anything
They were just running right across here and other people were
Good.
I'm glad to hear that.
Across
Yes, yes, and it does depend on the size of the event too, but typically.
All right, so we got, there's 10 of these, how many did you say?
Yes, 10.
10 events and we want to think to love it.
family foundation for matching this grant, helping us utilize maybe spaces that could be utilized more in the downtown.
Absolutely.
And they have the focus on the artists that are kind of coming up.
I think that they need that.
It's competitive, right?
And it's a lot of social media and to play in front of a live audience, there's nothing like it.
And that's nice of you to reach out.
I love the variety of music you have.
I mean, that was a good community to put together.
Who else brings in this eclectic of a lineup?
Yeah.
And the cool thing is too, that it's all original music, right?
And we have so many cover bands here and we love our cover bands.
They are
near and dear to us.
But sometimes it's cool too to hear some new original music that maybe
wouldn't normally listen to.
on?
Yeah, we kind of tried to hit the, maybe, folks that are finishing up at church and brunch or people that are coming back from their cabins
in the afternoon.
Okay, and I don't know about you, but one of the first things I wanted to when I visited was like go through like the Soho district Yeah, I think you guys are like could be a mini Soho district.
Have you been there?
I have been to Soho.
What do you agree though as far as like kind of like eclectic?
What?
things.
Yeah, I would say that that is that is a great aspiration.
It
getting there.
I also do want to give a quick shout out to our presenting sponsor, Fox Communities Credit
We do, so we've got a couple different opportunities.
As I mentioned, I run the volunteer program as well as direct the special events.
So we have beverage tent serving opportunities at all of these.
We also need help setting up and tearing down.
We use the Park's mobile show wagon stage and it takes some labor to set it up and tear it back down.
Yeah, it's pretty big.
Yeah, I would say that there's a grassy lot kind of north of the park proper that technically isn't part of the park.
Yeah, so if you're interested in getting involved in any capacity, joining a committee, we've got a hype team that helps spread the word in the community.
You can reach out to me.
My email address is Betsy, B-E-T-S-Y, at onbroadway.org.
Otherwise, all this information is on our website, which is at downtowngreenbay.com.
A free
Okay,
You gotta give me a pen.
Back after this.
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