Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
Have your host, James behind the mic, and I am joined right now by our good friends
from Encourage.
We have Kim Shields, Donor Service Manager with us.
Kim, always good to see you.
Great to see you.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for being here, as always.
And as usual, Kim brought a friend with her.
We have Kelly Rochart with us, executive director, child caring, and Kelly, always good to
talk to you.
Yes, same here.
Excited to be here.
Thank you.
I appreciate the time so much, and we're going to take the first beat of the show here to
talk a little bit with Encourage, catch up with you guys, Kim, but we'll be with you in
a second there, Kelly, so no napping, no, no, no, no, no, no, but, Kim, let's talk a little
bit about scholarships real quick and get an update on that, if you don't mind.
Sure, that would be great.
So our scholarship application closed at the end of January, and we were super excited
with applications that have already been submitted.
We're going through the kind of the data scrub process right now, and review begins shortly.
So it's an exciting time, a busy time, but we just want to thank all of the applicants
that had submitted an application, took the time to do that.
I know it's a lot of work, and we really appreciate it, and especially to thank the donors
that are providing this funding to make these scholarships happen.
And in addition to the funding, I know we've mentioned this, and it can't be mentioned
enough, but there's support and belief in our students, their future, and the power
of education, is just incredible, so thank you donors.
And if I can real quick, I don't want to interrupt your flow here, Kim, or anything, but
we've been doing this for a while together, and I don't know if I've ever gotten to
take a moment and appreciate you and Encourage so much.
Our audience, myself, we hear it in your voice.
One of these things you talk about, the excitement and the energy and the passion you
talk about this with, it's like it's the first time you've ever talked about it, every
single time.
It's encouraging to the rest of us, it brings the rest of us into it as well, and just
is excited.
I really appreciate that passion, that to me is not necessarily a job requirement, but
you bring it to the job, and I really do appreciate that.
Oh, thank you so much.
It truly is such a joy to be able to do what we do.
So thank you.
It's very kind.
It's a really cool thing to be a part of, I imagine, too.
Absolutely.
It's just kind of even a whatever size of a part you are of this, just to be a cog in
the machine of this.
This is going to be really cool.
There's also a short recent grant, grants that we wanted to highlight too.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I don't know if people are following our social media or not, but we did provide kind
of an update on some of our January distributions, and distributions are made possible by donors
that have a real specific passion for a particular organization or an area like youth
through the arts.
You know, they have a thematic area.
And so from these, doesn't need a grants, they're able to invest, and from our investments
are pooled investments within courage, we're able to provide annual grant support.
And it's just a wonderful way to be able to support our community long-term.
So it's really meant for the long-term sustainability of these organizations, and it's so important.
That latter part is really key to this, yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
So in January, nearly $250,000 in grants were awarded, which is absolutely incredible.
Oh, yeah.
So when we look at some of the local organizations, Assumption Catholic Schools and Assumption
High School, the funding that they receive supports, obviously the school system, but
one of them in particular supports tuition assistance for students to be able to afford
to go to the private school.
My little brother was benefited from that, and was able to go to Assumption because of
that and everything.
And it was a complete game changer for him.
That is amazing.
Thank you for sharing that, that's incredible.
I will make sure to share that story with the donors who established that, so thank you.
The Boys and Girls Club, we had a nice little check presentation, which we've never done
before, but really wanted to highlight the amount that they're provided every year.
And that's from various funds that have been designated to support them.
It's all pooled together.
So it was the check itself was $104,282.
And that was just for this year.
So today, when we're looking at our unrestricted donor advised and these designated funds, it's
been nearly $2.28 million that we've been able to provide to our local boys and girls.
Is that incredible?
I mean, the youth support and helping make their lives better is incredible.
It's an incredible investment.
It really is.
Yes, absolutely.
So just a couple other local ones to highlight, the Center Wisconsin Cultural Center.
We have a designated fund to support them.
That was $9,481.
So almost $9,500 this year alone.
So to date, when we're looking at the different types of funds, it's nearly $390,000.
And think of all the wonderful things that the Cultural Center has.
And then we have a brand new one.
I know I mentioned when we were talking about new funds this past fall, but the Center
Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, they host concerto competitions.
And so there's a cost that goes along with that with music and everything to put the performances
on.
Which this January, we had the first designated distribution for that.
That's wonderful.
Which is absolutely incredible.
So again, that's arts and music and really that the youth orchestral students that are
still promise.
Oh, yeah.
Which is incredible.
Yeah.
The support for that is amazing.
Yes.
And then we look at some of our regular grants that we can do through our unrestricted
funds.
So a lot of that support that we had been receiving through those wonderful anonymous
matching grants provides that unrestricted support.
And that helps us to do our work and helps us to do our work in the community.
So when we're looking at that, we look at the United Way help guide.
And so we've been able to provide that since inception back in 2009.
It's been almost $16,000 over that entire time to put that on.
But it is just such a privilege to be able to partner with United Way to produce that
help guide, print it, and have it available to so many residents in need.
To think of how many people that has probably helped over the years.
I don't even know you can come up with a number, you know.
That's incredible.
That's really something.
And my understanding is that last year all of the brochures were distributed and they're
used.
They're well used and well needed.
And we have Terry CEO of the United Way on with us a lot.
And we talk about this and how those kind of grants the impact that they can make and
help them do the work that they are doing.
So you see non-profit supporting non-profit and helping each other and arising, tired
raising all boats.
I have been on the air many, many times any chance I get whether I'm talking at the cultural
center or talking to Sally from Save of the Arts or anything and how important it is
to fund the arts in this state.
In general, wherever you're listening to us, but especially in Wisconsin, because once
again, Wisconsin finished dead last and funding the arts last year.
We want to change that.
We want to update that and make that a lot better in 2026 and going forward.
We have so many great creatives and artists in this state to support let alone in central
Wisconsin here.
And we all know the economic impact that has and artists have and artists come back here.
William DeFoe is still coming back and doing interviews in Wisconsin the years and decades,
decades later and helping the tourism in this state, too, while he's at it by the way.
That can be that we could be funding future William DeFoe's here.
We could be funding future symphony artists and that and so many other things.
And the funding is important when it comes to that and people know how I feel about the
arts and that.
But as we're wrapping up with you, the funding towards child care is almost times a thousand
to that.
Absolutely.
And we just kind of wrap up with a grant involving child caring.
Yeah, so we have been really fortunate, like I said, with all the support through all
these funding initiatives that we're able to do.
So we've been able to support child caring over the years through our various funds and
not only in addition to the money aspect, but when we had greater capacity and we had
funding ourselves, grant funding ourselves to be able to provide training programs.
Kelly, who is our guest today, she was a wonderful, wonderful participant.
She had participated in everything possible, which we greatly appreciate and just expanding
her knowledge from board governance to leadership to different types of opportunities and
how to support our community.
So we really appreciate that.
Appreciate you, Kim.
Thank you for that update on all those things.
Thank you.
That's wonderful.
Especially anybody that needed a good story of the day, you just got like 20 of them.
There's so many good things from that.
And we're going to talk with Kelly a little bit now and I have been, Kelly and I have talked
a lot already and the audience has heard me talk about this.
I'm a bulldog on this topic when it comes to child care in our state.
I think nationally we could have a deep conversation out of this well, but just putting the microscope
on Wisconsin here and focusing on that.
I had representative Kruegen last week and there's a lot of talk about illegal immigration
and this and that and my question for him was, well, when are we going to get to child
care?
You know, we got plenty of issues out there, but some are more time sensitive than others.
And I believe that the number one issue in our state is child care.
I feel like this is the first and foremost issue we should be focused on.
Every new politician, everybody just getting back in the session.
This is the number one thing that should be on your docket.
And I can make a great argument for this and I don't have to like bend my arm to do
it either.
It affects every single aspect of our economy, of our lives.
There are so many people out there that could be in the workforce right now that are
not able to be because of child care and so many other things that Kelly could word without
my passion and me getting out of soapbox.
Kelly, thank you very much for being here.
Thank you, James.
I so appreciate your passion and advocacy around early childhood.
Thank you.
And then it comes to child caring.
How does child caring help our community, Kelly?
Yeah, child caring has been around Kim and I actually used to work together at the R&R
20 years ago.
But the child care resource and referral agencies like us have been around 30 plus years
in the state of Wisconsin.
We're here to support quality early care and education by empowering those individuals
who care for a nurture kid.
So we're here to support child care providers.
We're here to support families.
We really help anybody who has an interest in coming into the field of early childhood.
We can help with finding position at a child care center.
We can help people who want to offer child care in their home.
We're here really to support those individuals make it easier to provide child care if you
have a passion for young kids.
And then we're also helping families.
So if you're maybe not interested in providing child care, but you are a young parent who
has kids and you need to work, which many families do.
We're here to help you find quality child care that best fits the needs of you and your
family.
So we not only help families find care, locate the openings in child care.
We also have programs that help families pay for care because we know that child care
affordability is an issue.
It's very, very expensive.
And so there are lots of great programs locally as well as, you know, at the state level
to help pay for child care.
There's so many, you know, good people out there that are looking for avenues.
So where do I go?
I want to have a career, not a job.
I want to put into my community.
I want to do good and come to child caring as a resource.
This could be my future.
This could be my career.
I think somebody that kind of give you a hand with that, whether it is where to go from
there from high school or on or even as if you're older and you're well out of high school
or college and you'd like to get into child care and get into this field.
They're there to help Kelly and her team.
And then there is the parents out there and the people out there that, I mean, I think
all of us can relate to a little bit.
Even if you aren't a parent can relate to the idea of I have prepared, I have read health
self-help books.
I have practiced changing diapers.
I am ready to go and then that kid shows up and you're like, oh God, oh, I forgot everything.
I don't know how to, I don't remember their name.
What is going on?
The world is upside down.
It is so, it's just such a great thing to be able to have that in your pack pocket,
child caring and have an organization like you guys are there, Kelly, where parents
that are questioning things, parents that are just maybe even need somebody to just talk
to and just be able to vent about something.
And I don't sure about this, well, it's just going to be okay.
Every kid does that, you know, and whatever the case might be.
Yes, absolutely.
I love that we have people that answer the phone.
We are accessible through social media.
We have experienced staff that have, you know, knowledge of child development and they've
all worked in child care programs themselves, so a lot of great support among our staff.
And those good start grants are give every reason for an incentive for people to be able
to get into this industry, which we really do need and we need more and more of.
And it kind of leads us into the current landscape of child care and how does that look, Kelly?
Yeah, you know, I would love to come on and talk with you, James and say like, hey, we finally
solved the affordability and the accessibility issues with child care.
Unfortunately, the issues that Kim and I dealt with 20 years ago are still present and things
that we're working through today.
So, you know, we're still working on the cost of care because, you know, child care is
not supported in any other ways, really, but the private pay of the families utilizing
the care.
So, it's very expensive, so we continue to deal with costs as high as 200 to 50 a week
to pay for, you know, quality regulated child care for a family and that's for one child.
So, again, the cost of care is still a significant issue.
We've dealt with this just significant decline in the numbers of regulated programs.
We've lost over 50 percent, I think in Wood County specifically, we're talking about
a 60 percent decline in the number of regulated programs over the last decade.
And most recently, with, you know, COVID in the pandemic, when child care providers were
deemed essential to the workforce, obviously, because you need good child care to work,
you have programs, child care centers who continue to have closed classrooms because
they can't find staff.
So, while the average, you know, pay of child care providers has increased slightly as many,
many other professions have had to, you know, raise what they're paying people, we still
are dealing with underpaid and underpaid workforce, right, like in very little benefit
and wages for our child care providers.
So that's what's leading to this shortage of child care workforce and closed classrooms
among our child care programs.
So that, you know, the state of child care today is still in need of much support.
We need more community collaborations.
We need more people talking about it and advocating for the needs of our, you know, youngest
citizens.
Well said.
Speaking with Kim Shields from Encourage and Kelly Boshart from Executive Director of Child
Care and Inc., and Kelly, who are the Wood County Child Care Task Force members and
what is their focus?
Yeah, thank you for asking about that.
We have been so fortunate in Wood County to have a group of people coming together for
the last couple of years, really as a result of a grant, a strategic planning grant that
was received by the Wood County Health Department.
So that allowed us to pull together members of a lot of different sectors.
So we have child care programs represented on that task force.
We have the Chambers represented.
We have Synergy.
We have Health Department, lots of Health Department support, Mid-State Technical College,
the public schools, United Way, just a broad range of people coming together to really
try to figure out how can child care be supported at the local level?
That's excellent.
Thank you for that, Kelly.
I appreciate that.
And what are the ARPA funds specifically supporting?
Yeah, so as a result of our work, our task force, we were able to, it took us a long
time.
I'm not going to lie.
This took 18 to 20 months for us to work with the Wood County Board to request funding
through the American Rescue Plan Act dollars that each county had received as a result
of the pandemic.
And way to go Wood County Board members who saw that child care needed help, and that
they were able to sit down with us and really let us help to define what that could look
like for child care.
And so one of the areas that we, as a task force, really the Health Department, received
the funds, the funding flowed down to child caring as the local Resource Unreferral,
the local 501-C3 organization helping to support child care.
And we were able to put some very significant amount of funds into these capacity building
grants.
And so we have an opportunity for really anybody who's interested in opening a child
care program to apply for up to $100,000 grant to support the efforts of opening a child
care program or for an existing program.
I mean, we have many great, you know, group child care programs in the Wood County area.
And if so, they were interested in opening additional slots at their site or opening
another site, these would be there to support them.
And so $100,000 is a significant amount of money to help, you know, jump start a child
care program.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Incredible.
Incredible funds.
These funds are being put to incredible work, in vital work.
And Kelly, before we let you go, just one last question.
What are you hoping to see for Wisconsin legislators' priorities, including state budget requests?
Yeah.
I love that question, because that's truly important to see a significant change in our
child care system, you know, is the advocacy piece.
And you mentioned a representative crew.
We have been working tirelessly to meet with legislators within our 10 county service
area to really talk about one important program that's been around the last couple of years
as child care counts, which is a subsidy program that's been keeping our programs alive,
our child care programs alive for the last couple of years.
And so we know that Governor Evers has that in his proposed budget, state budget.
So we are working on advocating for that program.
We also are doing some things that might be less controversial than that.
That seems to be a point with some of our legislators to support that.
But we're also very interested in problem-solving other supports for our child care providers,
like helping support our child care resource and referral network, helping make it easier
for people to go through the regulation process, supporting our families through having
more family support services, like through our family resource centers, is another piece,
and really the last piece for our advocacy asks are around supporting children's mental
health needs.
Because we know that another result of the pandemic has been an increase in everyone,
especially our young children needing more support around mental health.
I think this topic, and I think nowadays, it's never a bad opportunity to remind our politicians
who they work for.
And I think that this is a great topic to be able to do that with and remind them that
we are the bosses, and this is what we want done.
This is what we want accomplished.
We're tired of waiting.
We get it done.
Get it done, whatever it takes.
Let's get these things handled so that we can, that it's the greatest investment you
can possibly make is in our future and taking care of our kids and helping the people that
take care of our kids and et cetera.
It's isn't a leap.
This isn't controversial.
It shouldn't be controversial.
And if there is somebody out there as a politician, it is controversial to you, you're
not getting my vote.
You are not getting my support.
I will go on the record as that.
And I'm not alone.
I got a nation of people behind me on this one.
We are, again, we are the ones we, the people.
We are in charge and we want you to do something about this.
Kelly cannot thank you enough for the time.
Kim, thank you so much for the topic and everything else that you guys bring to the table here.
We want to remind you that you can find out more about childcarrying at childcarrying.org.
Go ahead and find out more about Kelly and the great work they're doing over there and
how they can help you.
Childcarrying.org.
And, of course, if you want to reach out to Kim and the gang and encourage, encourage
cf.org.
Encourage cf.org.
Thank you both for the time.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you Kelly.
Well, have a more midday magazine for you coming up on 975 FM 1320 AM WFHR locally grown
radio.
