Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Tuesday,
January 21st, 2025.
Have your host, James here.
We're joined right now by CEO of your United Way
of Southwood and Amps counties.
Terry Johns, good afternoon, Terry.
Good afternoon.
Being professional now.
We, yes, we are.
Maybe we're just frozen.
This is a little, but we'll call it a little call of me.
Brains moving a little slow.
We appreciate you being here, Terry.
And we're going to talk about some great things going on
currently with our United Way.
But if we could rewind a little bit to the thank you
celebration that just got done a little while ago,
I'd love to hear about how that went.
Yeah, so on January 8th, we had our campaign.
Thank you celebration.
And that was a little while ago, but you know,
this is a monthly visit.
So there's just some things we want to make sure
that we hit on.
But you know, this is a really important kind
of milestone event for us each year
because we are showcasing the campaign and where we're at.
And honestly, the first week of January,
we're very rarely at 100%, but we're close, right?
And we typically keep the campaign open
for the whole month of January.
And so here today, we are at 96% of the campaign.
So we still are working toward that number.
But that's really a big part of what the celebration is about
is saying, hey, here's where we're at.
Here's what we still need.
But really celebrating of a few different areas
and that is campaign volunteers.
So our volunteer campaign chair for this year
was Shalina Walshager.
And she's from Smurf at West Rock,
which is in the Southern part of our service area.
Just as a reminder to everyone,
I mean, we say it in our name, of course,
but we serve Southwood and Adams County.
So, you know, it was great to have Shalina step up
and say, hey, you know, this is important to me.
I'd love to do this because, of course,
there was more travel involved for her
than maybe somebody in Southwick County who might volunteer.
So she did a fabulous job.
So we absolutely thanked Shalina and got her up there
and made a big deal.
And then she also helped us hand out some awards
and recognition.
One of the things that I think people maybe are not aware of
unless they help coordinate a company campaign
is that we utilize what we call loaned executives.
So these are individuals from the community
that their company has said, yeah, we'll give you time.
We'll give you work time to get on out there
and help unite away.
And why they're really important is because each of these
individuals will take on four or five companies
and they'll help us get material there,
they'll do follow-up calls, they'll pick things up,
just to be that liaison.
Because, you know, the reality is with three
and a half staff members, it just would take longer.
When we can add these, you know, nine people
we had this year, when we can add those in, right?
We can get a, I mean, it's four times,
it's better to eat it, right?
So I just, you know, I'd like to, we don't always
and we did it at the thank you celebration,
but I'd like to just call these people out
because I think that, you know, many of them
have been doing it for a long time
and they keep coming back, which is really important.
So this is just, you know, kind of a rundown
and I think it's important for the individuals,
it's also important for their companies, right?
Like they're really supporting unite away
by making a donation, by having employee campaigns,
but then also giving of the time of these individuals.
So our loaned executives for 2024,
we're Brian Ashback from Proveil Bank.
Jill Finnop, US Bank, Jessica Fox, Aspirus Health,
Chris Inda, next home partners, Sally Kisner
from the Arts Council of Southwood County,
who you're very familiar with, she's a frequent guest.
Emma Krings from Paper City Savings Bank,
Mystique McCumber from Hilltop Affiliates,
Javan Radke from Wood Trust Bank,
and Sharon Zeeman from Edward Jones.
So, you know, that group of people just really,
above and beyond, you know, we figure it to be,
we try not to make it cumbersome,
but we figure it to be, you know,
15 to 20 hour commitment.
And for, you know, that can be significant, right?
When you're trying to carve out that time.
So, you know, our hats off to them
for being volunteers at that level.
Of course, we also celebrated our sweepstakes winners,
which is always fun.
Again, if an individual gave $52 a year,
so $1 a week, or increased their gift,
if they were already giving 52,
they got an additional entry,
and then we just do a random drawing,
and we, and have our winners,
and we were able to get out the week before Christmas
and award those prizes.
So, that was super fun.
We had a winner at Gunderson Mountain View Hospital
in clinic, down in Adams, next-home partners,
doorworks, and Pitcherly Learning Center,
which is part of WRPS.
So, we had those four winners.
We do have five prizes, but we did have one winner
who actually was a retiree from,
retired from the beer and paper mill back in the day.
It retired from Consolidated Papers.
And he said, you know, I'd like to just not,
I'd like to just give the gift back,
not even give it back.
I don't even want, you know, like,
I'm not even gonna accept it.
I just want to let you keep it and use it.
So, you know, and that was in exchange for anonymity.
Right, right, nice.
I mean, fair enough.
And I shouldn't even really, I mean,
I don't know if there was really an exchange,
but he, you know, he just said,
hey, I don't want or need to be recognized.
You know, I appreciate it,
but I want you to keep the dollars.
So, that was really fun.
And again, those prizes are all sponsored.
Aspirers Health Gunderson Mountain View Hospital
and Clinics Next Home Partners Proveil Bank
and Williams Plumbing.
So, they, you know, are helping us with these prizes.
And then, you know, this event just rolls on and on and on, right?
I mean, we're recognizing individual donors,
we're recognizing long, long time donors.
We actually had a donor in the room
who has been given for more than 60 years.
Whoa.
So, that's super cool.
You know, so it's just, it's a really fun 45 minutes
to an hour where we are literally just like, you know,
come on, come on up, come on up, get your award.
And then also our community cornerstone partners.
So these are, this is, you know, company giving
and what that looks like in total for somebody
who is, who is a, you know, big supporter as a company.
So, you know, I just want to thank everybody
and anybody who had a part in our campaign.
And, you know, this might feel or seem repetitive,
but I think saying thank you is really important.
Absolutely.
I want to, you know, thank every single individual
down to the $1 gift, right?
I mean, we have, in our community cornerstone partners,
we have a company's like Don Tarr that give, you know,
over $50,000 and then we have individuals who say,
you know what, what I can give is five bucks.
And all of it, that's the beauty of it, right?
All of it rolls together and puts us today at 96%.
So if you, if you've been a donor in the past
and you just haven't gotten around to it yet,
we will still take a donation.
If, you know, you, if you already gave,
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I mean, I don't know how else to the first,
the first checks went out to partner programs
on January 2nd.
So the dollars that you just gave,
maybe in November are already hard at work.
So that's really, really important too.
So just, you know, again, thank you
and our appreciation goes very deep
and we, you know, look to continue
to grow in 2025, expand on programs
that maybe we introduced last year
in the last couple of years.
We also, you know, sometimes recognize that things
maybe have to end, you know, and sometimes there's,
you know, there's some of those growing, right?
Growing opportunities that mean that we change.
But really, you know, we had an exciting year.
We went through a lot of changes.
We did a whole brand refresh.
So we look, we united way as a system,
look fresh and new and crisp and, you know, new colors
and sometimes that doesn't mean a lot to people.
But, but for those of us who are in it
and doing the work, it's very meaningful
and it's, you know, it's, it revives, right?
And refreshes things.
So, so we are really excited about that
and how that moves forward.
What we're not excited about is that our Facebook
is still shut down.
Yeah.
So this was a meta Facebook decision.
So I mean, it worked, we're working really hard
to get it back up.
But, you know, engage with us.
You can go on our website and get all the same information.
It's just that you have to go get it, right?
All the information that you would have gotten
on social media.
We do have a newsletter that comes out.
We have a paper version and an electronic version
where you can get updates.
We'll send some constant contacts now and then to your email.
So if you feel like, you know, gosh, up until November 19th,
I was hearing a lot from the United Way
and now I don't hear anything, we're trying to fix it.
So I do encourage you though to visit our website
and then you can go to media and you can just, you know,
sign up for newsletters that, you know, right now
that's our best, that's just our best option.
And I think even with the, when the Facebook page is back,
I think that's a great option for people.
It's coming right directly to you.
You don't necessarily seek it out and it's a great resource.
It's a great way to keep up to date.
Not just on the things that you are doing,
but the impact you're making.
Because I think something in that conversation
of all the numbers and all the great stuff
that you mentioned there are there's two things
that really stand out to me.
One, these businesses, these individuals that partner
and work with the United Way, I cannot stress enough
the extra value you get out of that.
Things like this conversation right here.
We've mentioned a couple of businesses
and a couple of individuals that probably wouldn't have come up
in this half an hour otherwise had they not done these things.
That's advertising.
That's free advertising right there you've just got.
I think that it's not hard to make it seem,
whatever you're donating, whatever you're putting
into the United Way, you are getting your money back.
Whether it is in marketing or advertising
or it is just doing good and feeling good
and we talk so much about mental health
and how important that is in this day and age.
Those that are able to donate,
whether it's with dollars and cents
or with volunteer hours, go so far.
And I bring up the volunteer hours
because as long as we've been doing this together
every once in a while things take me back a little bit.
I forget so much that you guys do
and you got three, four people in that building.
It's remarkable Terry.
It really, really is.
It's part of the reason why I admire you guys so much
and I look up to you guys so much
and I love working with you guys so much.
And it also is just as remarkable those individuals
who mentioned help pull these things off.
Those volunteers, those long time volunteers especially.
They stand out, we appreciate them,
want to note them as well.
It speaks to so much of how what we talk
about all the time about community.
And working together.
Yeah, and thinking about and speaking of getting your money
back, getting your money's worth,
getting your investment out of it.
We know we recently just completed it
and we've been putting this out for a few years now.
We just call it our highlights, 24 highlights
and then ways to engage for the upcoming year.
So I was gonna say how to off the press
but it's not even at the press yet.
We literally just finalized this,
but just a few meaningful impact numbers
that I think are important to share
because it validates, right?
If you gave a dollar a week or you're a company
that gave $10,000, you know, whatever it is,
what that impact is.
So just a few of these, you know,
these are like those deep,
close your eyes moments, right?
Yeah.
So imagination library.
So imagination library is a book gifting program.
We in milestone for us in 2024
was rolling this out to Adams County as well.
So we are 100% covered in our United Way service area.
And what's really awesome about that
is that just in the year of 2024,
4,970 books were mailed to children from birth to age five.
Goodness, wow.
So I mean, just let that sink in, right?
And one of the things, you know,
Delhi Parton designed this program
and has very, very specific guidelines.
So this is every child, okay?
So this is not, a lot of our work
is focused on maybe income disparity
or, you know, if someone has a recent challenge
that that might affect their ability
to cover the cost of something.
But, but Dali says, you know,
I don't, she does care about that,
but she's saying that for this program,
I don't care about that.
I want every kid to receive books
if they're in a sponsored area.
So fortunately, our women united
and just general, general members of the community
have said, yeah, we believe in this program.
We're moving, you know, we want to make sure
that this happens.
And so kids get a book in the mail every month.
So if you just think about that, 4,970 books,
it's, it's remarkable.
And, and we're on it, we're in a growing pattern.
So that's really cool too,
because, you know, we just rolled out
to Adams at the mid summer last year.
So we're still, you know, we're still gaining some momentum.
So that is really, really awesome.
Our 211 Contact Center.
We are one of eight contact centers
that cover the entire state of Wisconsin 24-7.
So if you need resources, referral,
you are looking for information,
you want to connect with someone
with on something, you can call 211.
Literally just dial 211,
like if you had an emergency, you would dial 911.
So you dial 211 and, you know, you say,
hey, I need help with food.
I need help, my child needs help with mental health.
I need, you know, whatever that,
oh, I have furniture to donate.
Where could that go, right?
It doesn't always have to be that you need.
It may be that you want to give.
But just our contact center, and again, we're one of eight,
but just our contact center answered 5,110 calls.
Man, another step in 24.
In 2024.
So top needs that people were calling for,
housing and shelter, mental health and addiction,
and then employment and income.
So those are the top needs that folks are calling for.
And then we also are part of the Wisconsin Addiction Recovery
Helpline.
So this is a special call that gets routed through the 211
system, and the resource specialists
have to have another layer of training for that.
So 410 of our calls actually came through
the Addiction Recovery Helpline.
So that's, you know, that's pretty awesome too.
And, you know, in all and all with that,
we also had a new 211 director start in September.
And we only have two 211 staff.
So, I mean, this is great work, and it's meaningful work,
and, you know, pretty remarkable.
89 local students participated in the finance
and investment challenge bold.
That's really awesome coming up again in February.
So looking forward to having local teams do that,
but, you know, it's a fun way for high school students
to showcase what they know, just about personal finance,
because, you know, some people teach that to their kids,
some people think finances are none of their kids' business.
You know what I mean?
Like they just household finances, they leave out.
So this is, it's a cool, it's a quiz bowl kind of style.
We, it's hosted out at Midstate Technical College.
We work with a company out of Madison called Asset Builders,
who do these, these investment challenge bowls
all over the state, and then the winning two teams
get to move on to a state competition.
You know, so there's some layers of fun competition
for the kids, but it's also just really,
it's really refreshing to go there and observe
and see what these kids know.
It's, you know, it's remarkable.
So that's, that's really awesome.
And then one of the things I just want to touch on,
James, is, you know, as you may recall,
this year we started, this year, last year, 2024.
We started our diaper drive, right?
So it said this runs, and we're doing it again.
So I'm, you know, talking about it like it's a happening thing.
So this runs Mother's Day to Mother's Day, right?
Community, baby shower, kind of idea.
But we're limiting what we collect.
What we're looking for is diapers, unopened.
They need to just diapers, wipes, unscented, preferred.
I'm just telling people in case you see a sale.
And then, and then creams.
So, you know, like A&D oipement, deced in,
you know, like baby rash creams.
So those are the three different things
that we are collecting.
And again, Mother's Day through Father's Day
at the United Way office.
And then those will be distributed to local programs
who have identified or who encounter a need.
Last year, we distributed to first choice
pregnancy resource center.
We distributed to the family center.
And to the food pantry.
Because they, you know, do have families.
And they'll just ask when they have a supply of diapers,
it's not something that they,
I mean, I think they try to stock, but it's expensive.
So sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't,
but they might just ask, you know,
hey, do you have a need for diapers?
Or there's a, I think there might be a checkbox
on the form, I'm not certain.
But that's something.
So we want to expand that.
And we also recognize that there are some other,
you know, perhaps direct service organizations
that could use some of these things.
But 2024, 14,961 items collected.
Wow.
So that's really awesome.
But it's just scratching the surface.
Like we know we can do more, right?
So we've applied for a couple of grants
to help supplement this.
But it's also just a, you know, plea to the entire community
that from Mother's Day to Father's Day,
from now until forever, well, maybe not forever.
But from now until indefinitely,
we will be collecting diapers and wipes
from Mother's Day to Father's Day
so that we can get those out to the families
that have a need.
Dipers are expensive and we recognize that.
If you don't have a child in diapers,
you know, you might be like, whoa, that's expensive.
Or you might be like, oh, you know,
I've been there done that, right?
But sometimes if we're just out shopping,
it's a little bit easier for those of us
who aren't in diapers that we, you know,
we're not in that stage with our kids
that we can just be like, oh, yeah, I could,
I could spend 20 bucks on some diapers
to pass along to somebody who really might be,
really might be struggling right now.
To that point, Terry, if people are hearing this
and they are in, okay, I want to do it right now
while it's fresh in my mind,
can they drop these off early or just hang on?
You know, they could.
We don't have a ton of storage.
So I mean, if you're like feeling really generous
and you're gonna buy like a hundred boxes,
don't bring them to us yet.
Because we just really don't,
we really don't have a lot of room.
But I mean, we could take an occasional one,
or even if you pick it up, you know,
you might encounter a sale, if you pick them up,
you could just maybe hang on to them till May.
You know, we would, we would really appreciate that.
So again, that's upcoming and then, you know,
two things on the docket that I just want to share
and I know we're probably close to wrapping up.
But one is our calendar raffle.
So we will, for the month of March,
be selling calendar raffle tickets
on mid February to the end of March for April.
So if you're not familiar with the calendar raffle,
for us, we're doing it every business day.
For the month of April and you win,
whatever cash is shown on that square.
So the minimum price is $75, the top price is $200.
We're giving away $2,400 total
and that's all again sponsored.
So whatever we make on selling those tickets
and they're $10 a piece.
So I mean, it's quite manageable.
But whatever we make on selling those tickets
goes directly into the campaign, right?
So that's what it's used for and directed at.
So we will have those for sale.
Probably when I visit next month, you know,
we'll have some and we can, we can really promote it
and, you know, people can stop by and that kind of thing.
And then the other is power of the purse.
We will be March 11th having our power of the purse event.
This is, it's huge.
It's exciting.
It'll be at Bullseye Golf Club.
This is a fundraiser for our women united,
early grade learning and literacy,
primarily focused on imagination library,
which we talked about earlier.
So we do some fun stuff.
We have a pasta buffet.
We have a purse silo auction, you know,
raffles networking, all of those fun things.
So that is coming up soon.
Tickets will be available on sale.
Hopefully by the end of this week,
we're just working out some website bumps
with getting that form up.
And then we will be ready to roll on power of the purse.
So we've had people asking about it.
So I just wanted to get that out there.
Save the date, March 11th and jump on and get your ticket.
Speaking with CEO of your Nutaway of South Winningham's
County's Terry Johns again,
and Terry, we did a great job of rewinding,
talking about some of the things
currently going on and some things upcoming.
But one thing that I hope was noteworthy
to the audience, especially longtime listeners out there,
well, all these things we were talking about
and you brought up the diaper campaign.
And that is something that is relatively new
that the United Way has done.
And it just speaks to me so much of what the United Way
and why we are so thankful for the United Way
and how much we would miss you guys if you guys were not here.
How important it value it is that we're about 4% away
from getting our goal on the campaign.
And I bring this up in part because of that.
I'm not going to lie to the audience.
It's part of the reason I'm bringing this up.
But when we empower you guys, you empower us
and we work together on this.
And it's such a wonderful relationship
that exists in our community.
So can not encourage people enough to donate.
And let's say we get a little bit more
than we expect it with the campaign.
Who knows what more of the United Way could do
if we give them the power to be able to do it?
Absolutely.
And I'm very thankful for that motivation from you to folks.
But that is true.
I mean, we will, every dollar we have,
we put to very good use and invest back in the community,
whether that is through funded partner programs
or through our own initiatives that are staff lead.
And again, watch for that highlights page to come out.
You'll see the 2024 stats, but then also all the ways
to engage in 2025.
So we are just looking forward to seeing you,
talking with you and connecting on the community level.
And so if you are interested in more information,
reach out.
How long does the campaign go until Terry Hill?
Forever.
I'm just going to forever.
We usually try to wrap up the end of January.
You just have to have a date because it would go on forever.
At some point, you just got to have a cutoff date
and say, OK, anything we get, I think February 1st
is a Saturday.
So let's say starting February 3rd,
we're going to just put towards the next one.
Because at some point, we just say, hmm, that one's done.
We're starting the next one.
So typically, we go with end of January,
and I don't anticipate doing anything different this year.
Now, if we were short like 1,000 bucks,
I'd keep it open just to get that thought.
Sure.
Sure, right?
Good idea.
I love that.
But just in general, end of January is the cutoff.
So you've got, basically, two weeks.
Yeah, keep that in mind, everybody.
You still have time to be a part of this year's campaign.
We encourage you to do so and encourage you
to reach out to the United Way.
Anyway, you can for any needs you might have with 2-on-1.
Or you are the website, you, uswac.org.
Be sure to check those out and sign up for that newsletter
as well.
It's a great way to keep up to date and everything going on
over there.
Terry, great to see you.
Thanks for the time.
We'll talk again real soon.
Sounds great.
We'll have more Mindy Magazine for you coming up right here
at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM.
WFHR, we are locally grown radio.
