Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Tuesday April 23rd.
Have your host James Jamie Laugh here.
Welcome into the studio. Our great friend Amy Shide.
She has admitted stated development volunteer coordinator with our family center.
Amy, thanks so much for being here. Well, thanks for having me, James.
You and I care very deeply on this subject. Care very deeply for the family center.
And it's always good for me to mention that I am on the board of the family center.
And I have no journalistic integrity when it comes to this subject matter.
I choose to be very much on the right side of history.
So if you can't tell, I am a little bit biased on this and I don't care.
I want more and more people to join us on this front.
And I think that we do that by showing how much we believe in this.
And honestly, it isn't very often that we have black and white subjects in life.
This is a black and white subject.
I agree with you.
Supporting the family center is being on the right side of history
and being a part of things in change and evolution in this area.
And I'm very proud of what the family center does.
I'm proud of this community, the way it supports the family center.
And one of the ways they do that, Amy, is volunteering and being a part of events.
And that's where we're going to put a little of our focus today,
is talking about volunteering and some of the great events that are coming up.
Exactly, James.
And I would agree with you wholeheartedly that the work being done there is essential
that as the fourth largest domestic violence state in our country
that Wisconsin needs to do better and that the work that is being done there
is essential to changing those negative behaviors that we're unfortunately seeing.
I'm very thankful to this state.
I'm a transplant and all my kids are born here.
My brother was born here, but I'm not a Wisconsinite.
So I'm an outsider and I look at things from that perspective often times.
And I will say one thing if I've learned about Wisconsinites,
Wisconsinites are proud of being from Wisconsin.
Wisconsinites are proud of Wisconsin.
Take some pride in your state.
Let's bring these numbers down, be on the right side of history,
and let's not let this be the next time, the next time after that,
that they take these kind of surveys and these numbers.
Wisconsin isn't finishing in the top five of something like this.
That's something that I would think every Wisconsinite would want
to do something about.
I would absolutely agree with you.
It was disheartening to see those numbers rise again nationwide
and to find out that Wisconsin has the highest number or the fourth highest numbers,
excuse me, of domestic violence homicides.
We know that shelters, like our own,
prevent and bring down those numbers.
So let's get behind those shelters and the work that's being done by trained advocates.
And ways we can do that are by supporting through time and treasure.
One of the ways that our community really likes to make impacts is certainly donations,
whether it is dollars and cents or it is items,
and we're always grateful for that, those things at the Family Center.
Another one is use of their time, taking time out of their day, being a part of events.
And for those out there that have not volunteered at events before,
I'd imagine that you think of something and we tend to go immediately to a job
and thinking of job type things and shifts and something like that.
Well, I'm going to volunteer. I don't have eight hours.
I don't know if I could do something like that or what have you.
I think it's really good to keep in mind that when it comes to volunteering,
most nonprofits will work with you and work with your time schedule
or what your skill set or what have you.
That is very true.
We have volunteers that come in a two hour block once a week.
We have volunteers that come in an eight hour day once a month.
We have volunteers of all different sorts and that is what we need
and we'll work with you whatever you're able to provide.
We are seeing more and more employers providing paid time
for their employees to volunteer within the community.
And one of the disheartening things that I learned last year is that
one of the major organizations in our community was disappointed to see
that those hours weren't being used.
Come in and find out what can be done at the family center during those paid hours.
And I think you'll find it's a pleasant break from the work that you might be doing
at your computer or what have you.
We have many opportunities in all different areas and we'd love to have you.
One of the things that I like to know when it comes to talking about the family center
and talking about the building itself and the people love it and everything.
This subject matter can be tough for people
and it can be a tough subject to even think about in your own head
let alone with other people or taking the time out of your day to volunteer at.
But keep in mind and if you are curious go ahead and check out reach out
to the people of the family center because there are a few places I have been
where there is such a positive energy.
It's such a welcoming positive energy there.
It's I feel a little weird saying this but whenever I've been at the family center
I find myself smiling.
I find myself feeling good and hopeful about things.
I think that you and the team there have done a wonderful, wonderful job
of creating great atmosphere with good people that have a good energy to them.
When you volunteer, when you take your time and those you're going to take a little
of that with you through your day.
I do it every time I stop by the family center or you guys come over here to
have me sign something or whatever.
It stays in my head and I carry with me throughout the day.
And you can't ask for much more than that.
Let alone the fact that you are making an impact on one of the most vital organizations
in our community.
Easily.
Yes.
That is so true.
Recently we had a very active day at the family center.
And I remember thinking, you know, when is 430 going to roll around?
I think we've all had those days.
And at the end of that day, what I carried with me was regardless of how busy it was
or all the things that we were able to accomplish in that day was to serve those that needed
us at that moment.
And what a profound realization that each and every person in that building on that day
was there for a reason.
And it was to serve and it was to do right by someone who needed help at that time.
So and that's from cleaning bathrooms through providing direct services.
And we need volunteers in all of those areas.
Amy, I think that leads us into a great point about this too.
While the family center is oftentimes there are employment opportunities and there are
other opportunities involved that are maybe a little more hands on or what have you.
There's all kinds of stuff that you can do around there that really don't have necessarily
to do directly with domestic violence.
You know, maybe there's a painting job that needs done or the law needs to be mode or something
like that.
It may not seem like a big deal, but those things, when you do that, that is one less thing
on Amy and her team and your team over there's a plate.
And if we can do that, that frees you up a little bit more to focus on the task at hand
and the people that need you.
So you are making an impact even by just mowing that lawn.
You are making an impact in helping this cause.
I would say that's true of any nonprofit in our community that we are not in a position
to pay for things along those lines.
And we do need volunteers to serve those very vital needs.
Law and work, stuffing envelopes for the mid-Europeal, which incidentally we have a volunteer
opportunity on May 28th.
I would encourage you to email me at info at familyctr.org or call the Family Center
business line.
If you'd be available to stuff envelopes, fold and stuff envelopes on May 28th.
That's a need.
If you are a more vibrant person interested in doing more people forward activities,
our touch of truck event is coming up on July 27th.
And we need volunteers for that.
It's now this event.
Now this is one that we got to talk about Amy.
This is such a fun event.
Every year I hear more and more people enjoying it, more and more kids enjoying it.
This is a really good one.
And it's getting stronger as we're going along here too.
We're getting a lot more community support.
It's a fun event.
Can we touch on the details of this?
Absolutely.
That will occur at Grand Rapids Lions Club from 11 until 3.
We're looking for volunteers for setup the day before and to participate in the event
the day of.
We're also looking for vehicles to be on display.
And we'd love any businesses that might be interested to sponsor the event as well.
Either sponsor prizes for the kids games or food for the picnic area or the event itself.
Fantastic opportunities.
We've had about 1,000 people come these past couple of years.
And we hope to continue to grow that.
Some of the activities that the kids really love are going up in the water and light bucket
trucks.
Trucks, you won't see me up there.
Last year they were ricocheting pine cones and whatnot at me.
But it won't be me and the bucket truck.
No, not this year.
Weather permitting and emergencies not occurring.
Every flink will be there and they love to see that helicopter land.
We have a fantastic family, the Macdonald family that comes and does anti-tractor rides.
So in a bevy of ambulances and fire trucks and police cars and the military got joined
on this last year and we had military vehicles there.
Oh, I forgot about that.
Just now I forgot.
That's awesome.
It was super neat.
So cool.
They made a donation one day.
I literally chased them out to the parking lot to say, hey, by the way, would you like
to sign on for this event?
It's one of our, if it isn't already, it's becoming more and more one of our favorite
events in the area.
This is always fun to bring all these people together, especially when it comes to so
many of our EMTs, our firefighters, our police officers, our sheriffs, all these groups,
organizations coming together, us to be able to celebrate them.
I talk about this with Sheriff Becker all the time, building that bridge between law
enforcement and the community.
We need to take every opportunity to do that we can.
And those are all great.
Lifelink being there is a fun thing for the kids as well.
And you never know what can really spark in a young mind of like, wow, that's a pretty
cool.
I want to do that someday or I want to be that or something.
All of these fields we could always use young people to be interested and do.
But all that being said, all of that, it's almost secondary to me with number one being
of course, these kids and they're laughter and the fun of that and them having fun and
kids and families having a good time and everything.
And one A, one B of also, we do all this and Amy, I don't know about you and your team
over there, but I know for me, when I think about this and I'm at the event or I'm driving
past it and I'm seeing all these people, that thousand some people, all these different
organizations, these city leaders all coming together for this cause, all these people believe
in this cause.
That's where we are in 2024.
That's where we are in society where this is not a hushed conversation.
This is not something where we have an event like this, but we don't really mention that
it's a family center hosting it or something like that because we want to keep things,
you know, when I make sure that we're worried about this, we're worried about that.
We're not worried about those things anymore.
We're worried about domestic violence.
We're putting our focus where it needs to be now and all these organizations, all these
team leaders, all these local families and neighbors coming together to show, hey, we believe
in this cause, we support you.
And we need that support more than ever before.
I couldn't agree with you more that it is, I always take a moment at any fundraiser or
at any vigil or any event that we do and just have that moment of peace and looking around
the room and knowing that everyone there is in support of the very important mission
of ending domestic violence and sexual assault in our community.
It is essential that we're all on board with that.
We are in a place at this time where we are staring down the nose of a 70% cut in the
federal funding that funds domestic violence and sexual assault prevention efforts in our
state.
So we've never had a more vital time for fundraising and for needs for volunteers than ever before.
So we really need to see folks coming to these events, doing peer-to-peer fundraising.
If they're interested in doing that, give me a call and I can help them through that.
There are things you do, I guarantee you, in your daily day, that would help us turn
the corner in that deficit and funding and it's amazing how good you'll feel about
yourself when you do.
Yeah, I will just piggybacking off of that, Amy.
I do believe too that I don't think this is a stretch.
Domestic violence affects everybody, it affects everybody.
You may think, well, it doesn't affect me, it's not me, my family, what have you or anything.
I guarantee statistically we know this, you know somebody that does.
Basically, we know that people in our community are dealing with this and therefore it affects
you.
It affects your taxes, it affects your work, it affects going to the store and getting
an item or something like that because you don't know who is dealing with this and struggling.
And if they are struggling with this, that is taking over their life and they aren't
able to do the work that they want to do or what have you, whatever that might be.
If there are children involved, I don't believe I need to get too in depth on that.
One of why it's important that we are tackling this subject and getting on this subject when
it comes to kids and the future of our country, the future of our cities and all that.
This affects everybody.
This is one of those topics where everybody needs to be involved on this one, everybody
needs to be on the right side of history with this one and aware of these things.
If you want to be a part of an event like this too, I should mention, I think that it's
noteworthy too, I talk about this all the time when nonprofits work together with other
nonprofits or something and how much it is to be able to sell your event while piggybacking
on another or something like that.
But it's almost a completely different category with the Family Center because when you are
supporting things with the Family Center, all the things Amy has touched on are vitally
important and true.
Along with you are showing that you are on the right side of history.
You are showing that you believe in this cause when the River Kings, when the Raptor
support events over here, we feel that much better about going to these games.
Because I know that organization has people and it's to care about this subject.
We support organizations that support the Family Center.
We put into those organizations.
We look out for each other around here.
That's Midwest mentality.
And if your business is attached to the Family Center with one of these events like touch
a truck or something, that's what you're showing.
You're not just putting your business out there, getting it seen by a thousand people
or some odd number of people when they come to these events.
You're also having that piggybacked on top of it.
I don't think you can put a price on something like that.
We're very blessed with the number of sponsors that we do have in participants in this event.
But we always have room for more.
And James is correct and a thousand people walking through that gate.
And just to touch upon your comment about children, I would mention that this past year,
over 4,900 nights of stay occurred at the Family Center.
That number continues to rise.
That's 35 children that were housed within the Family Center last year as part of families
up as part of 44 families.
The length of stay is increasing.
But we do see a change with partnerships in our community coming with that.
Landlords that are more positive about assisting us in helping victims become survivors
and move out and be able to better live a violence-free life.
Different organizations in our community focus ADRC.
There are so many, I couldn't list them all, all these organizations that we partner with
and are building and forging even stronger relationships with.
We're so blessed.
We're speaking with Amy Shade from the Wisconsin Rapids Family Center.
Amy, I know we touch on touch a truck.
We'll be talking about that a lot as we're getting closer and closer to the event and
encouraging people to attend to be a part of it.
Was there other things you wanted to touch on as well?
I just want to mention as far as volunteering is concerned, as we earlier touched on, there
are a myriad of opportunities that vary in time and the amount of time that you would be
spending on site or off site participating.
Not only do we need volunteers at events such as this, we need cleaning volunteers.
We would love to have someone who's passionate about the work that's being done, be trained
in to take crisis calls.
We have opportunities that would be just a couple hours a week.
We have some that would be a little more hands on and then we would have some that are
only a couple times a year.
If your passion is being around people, maybe events is your thing.
If you'd like to be, if you're a sort or an organizer, maybe donations is the area
for you.
If you are passionate about domestic violence and sexual assault, we'd love to see you
volunteer to be trained in and participate up in shelter or on our crisis line.
So please reach out info at familyctr.org or 715-421-1559 is how you would reach me.
Just one last note, and this is just James talking here, not anybody else.
Amy touched on something earlier that I don't think we've been able to talk about nearly
enough in news and that is the cuts that are talked about being made to organizations
like our family center, that we cannot allow, that we cannot let happen.
And we have a voice as Americans, we are able to vote on things and vote people in that
are going to support the causes we believe in, pay attention to who you're voting for,
pay attention to who is in their pocket, and pay attention in this year in particular
as we are in an election year.
So be sure to be supporting the people that support us, support your communities, and
that believe in work that is like the work that is being done at the family center.
Amy, I cannot thank you and your team over there enough.
Please say hi to everybody for us.
As we're letting you go, if people have fault questions, want to be a part of maybe some
of these events, how can they get in touch with you?
They can reach me by calling the business line, which is 715-421-1559.
Our Facebook page, I respond to any comments made on that page, and please do get on that
page, and like that page, there's lots of fun things coming up, and this past month
being both sexual assault awareness month and child abuse prevention month, you'll see
some exciting relationship-building activities that have occurred this past month and are
still occurring.
You can also go on our website, familyctr.org, or you can email me directly at info at family
ctr.org as well.
I encourage you to do all that everybody, be sure to bookmark that page, it's a great thing
to follow, great way to keep up on the family center, and also uplifting, a lot of times
I find it that way, and keep in mind that the family center has a crisis line, 715-421-1511,
that's 421-1511, any time, day or night, an advocate will assist you.
And again, that website that you can check out, familyctr.org, familyctr.org, be sure to
bookmark that.
Amy, always appreciate the time, thank you again so much.
And we appreciate your service as well, James, thank you.
We'll be back with more Midday Magazine tomorrow, right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM, WFHR,
we are locally grown radio.
