United Way of South Wood and Adams Counties Ben Eberlien March ‘25

Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Tuesday, March 18th, 2025.

Have your host James J. Mailov here and I am joined right now by our good friend Ben

Iberlain, Community Engagement Director with the United Way of Southwood and Amps

Counties.

Ben, good to have you in studio, man.

Great to be here.

Thanks for having me, Jay.

It's been a while, it feels like.

It's been too long.

It always feels like too long.

Terry, always taking up all the time.

No, no, no.

She's going to hit me now.

She's going to smack me in the head.

And rightfully so, we are here to talk about the United Way and some great things going

on with our United Way and our community and Ben, I wanted to start off if you don't mind

with the calendar raffle going on.

It's right around the corner.

April's knocking on the door.

It really is.

It's right there.

It's waiting for us.

What can people expect from the calendar raffle this year?

Absolutely.

So, as always, it's a fantastic way to support the community, but you also get a chance to

win some money.

Who doesn't love that, right?

Yeah, that's a great win-win situation.

Yeah, thanks to our sponsors, we've got a lot of great partners in the community that

have a sponsor today, you know, on the calendar, so you can win anywhere $7,500, $150, even,

and then, you know, even if you win, your name goes back in.

So, we've been in the past.

We've had plenty of people win more than once, so it's a fun way to, you know, support the

community, but just so people are aware, you know, exactly what we're talking about.

You can buy raffle tickets anytime, you know, even, I would suggest getting them sooner

than later.

Yes, yes.

But yeah, the calendar raffle runs a whole month of April, and you can get your tickets $10

each or $3 for $20 by reaching out to United Way.

And when it comes to finding out if they won or not, you guys post that on Facebook.

You're a pro.

You've got this.

You've done this before.

Exactly.

Please, you know, like, follow, subscribe.

I'm not a streamer.

I don't know how to do all this stuff.

But yes.

You're right.

Exactly.

Check out our Facebook.

Make sure you're getting updates on those.

Yes.

You can see who wins daily just so that you can keep track of that.

And you'll be, you know, if you are a winner or should say when you win, you'll also be

contacted by United Way.

We'll send out the information on that.

So yeah, absolutely, but you got to play to win.

Yeah.

So get your tickets.

Well, in every year, I try to talk to you guys.

Are you sure you want to do it this way where even if your name gets thrown back in

there and everything, that's such a cool, unique thing about this raffle.

I don't know that there's a ton of raffles that do things like that.

I think that's a really fun part of this.

So you really do get not only your money's worth through that, but as anything we're talking

about with the United Way, 100% of the proceeds go right back into your community.

So you really can't lose at this raffle.

It's one of those raffles where there's no losing, you know, maybe you can win a little

bit more than you normally do, but you already win just by purchasing a raffle ticket.

Yeah, exactly.

I think a lot of time with the, you know, when you win a 50-50, there's an expectation

you, you know, you donate some of that back, right?

Yeah.

Well, in this case, you don't have to worry about it because you know your money's already

been donated.

So yeah, it's a great way to have a little fun.

Encourage you to find out about that more.

We'll give you the information of how to get into the raffle coming up.

And as mentioned, you can pick up raffle tickets at the United Way or they are, can you

pick them up already?

You have to wait until they prefer to say, you can get them anytime.

Right away.

Absolutely.

Wow.

Very cool.

Ben, I also wanted to talk a little bit about the book drive going on and collecting

books.

Yeah, thank you.

As most folks probably already know, we do our great book giveaway in June.

So the week, you know, following school, letting out to kick off the summer and make sure

that we're getting books into children's hands so that they have things to read at home

and prevent that summer slide.

The big thing is we needed to have books to be able to give those away.

So during the month of April, we encourage community members, you know, get some spring

cleaning done.

Instead of those old good condition, gently used children's books that you have or,

you know, grab some brand new books that you want to donate.

There's always fantastic sales on those going on.

So feel free to, like I said, clean out some gently used children's books and donate those

to the United Way.

You can bring them to our office during the month of April.

And then those will be given away to children who can use those during our great book giveaway

events in June.

I recently became a first time papa, a first time grandpa.

I am going to take every opportunity I have to mention that and drop that, but also bring

it up because got me also course buying kids books again, haven't done that in a while.

My nephews are a little bit older, so I haven't had to buy them books in quite a while.

First book I went out and bought was Good Night Moon.

It's the same one my mom bought for me and my sister and my brother when I was little

and everything.

So I wanted to do that for my daughter's little guy.

But when I was doing it, I thought of the book drive and I thought about these things.

And I'm glad you mentioned this about new books because there's a real simple test to tell

if a book is good for the book giveaway.

Does your kid breed the book still?

Is it in good enough condition to where they can still have fun with it and everything?

That's a pretty good test right there.

Certainly giving a once over isn't a bad idea either.

We are talking about kids and they can be a little bit messy, so kind of adults.

But they can be a little messy with these things, so it's good to go over that.

But if you are inclined and going and picking up a book like I was, we do encourage you to

pick up an extra copy and maybe donate it to the book drive.

We talk about this with whether it's Imagination Library or it's some other things going on

with the United Way and even other areas looking to really keep kids reading and keep fresh

on that reading, keep up to date on it.

So as you mentioned, that summer slide doesn't happen.

This is for many reasons, reading is fun, reading is an adventure, reading is a great hobby

and a great pastime and so many of these things.

And it's also integral to no matter what position or what field these kids go into.

Whatever they're going to do, reading is probably going to be a part of it, whatever field

or job they do when you're donating these books.

You are giving kids an opportunity to have fun, you know, have some avoid that summer slide

and some of those things, but you're also making a direct impact on our future and helping

them build confidence in reading, helping them find love and joy of reading, which can

only encourage them more in whatever field they go into to be better equipped for it.

This is an investment.

It really is.

And it's a fun investment, too, by the way.

It's, you know, it doesn't like stock market or anything where it's boring and you're

just sitting on the edge of your seat the whole time.

You know right away, once you purchase one of these books, I'm getting a return on my

investment.

I automatically do just by a kid getting this book.

I love them mentioned, you know, the engaging, you know, how readable some of the books

are.

I just know from experience that I'd be lying if I said there weren't some chew marks

even on some of our books and not from our docs.

No, and I love that.

And what you mentioned about when you're getting books for your kid, I think that's that's

so much fun.

That's one of my, really a highlight for me when I'm, you know, thinking of books that

man, I really love reading this book with my kid.

I want to pass that feeling along.

I want to give this book.

I'm going to go buy a copy or two or three and, you know, give them to people that I know

are going to love that and man, you're going to have so much fun with your grandbaby.

Oh, yeah.

I can't wait.

That's very excited and reading to them is one of those things that's so exciting.

I'm glad you brought that up because it's also encouraging, encouraging people to be a

part of the reading program when that comes up and reading with kids and everything.

We'll talk more about that certainly as we get closer to it, but that's something that

is another way for community members to be involved with this and helping kids with

literacy and just keeping up on reading and so much of that.

Exactly.

So we'll have, you know, we're just finalizing the details right now, but we're looking,

should have another 10 events this year, spread out across Southwood and Adams County.

So trying to make sure that we're reaching, you know, the entire community and bringing

books to them and giving them opportunities to get, you know, to get that engagement.

And, you know, here's some stories from our volunteer readers.

We've had some stellar volunteers in the past, you know, I don't want to name names, James.

So yeah, but if people are interested in getting involved that way as well, that's a fantastic

way to do that.

And then you do get to pick out your favorite kid's book and bring that to read to the children

before they get to pick from the books to take home.

It's a fun, fun opportunity for you and the individuals out there.

We'll talk about this a little bit more when we get closer to it and certainly want to

remind everybody you can go to you, uswac.org to find out more information about all the things

Ben and I are talking about here, like Community Shred Day, Community Shred Day and other

one of those events that you guys host that is always vital to the community and important

to the community in so many ways where I know people, at least I can think of two different

people that wait and hold these documents until Community Shred Day comes.

I am very certain that they're not the only two individuals that do, as you guys fill

up pretty quick over there.

Community Shred Day is Thursday, April 17th, I want to tell people a little bit more about

this.

Yeah, very popular event.

Absolutely.

So as you mentioned, there's a April 17th and that's going to be between 9 a.m. and

noon reperville banks, so if you want to come out and participate in that, you can bring

up to two boxes for free.

If you have more than that, you can do that, but we appreciate the $5 donation per box

after that.

But yeah, I would come out early, all the documents are shredded, they're on site.

So there is a limit to what they can handle in terms of the total capacity of shredding.

So make sure you get it on your calendar for April 17th and bring your sensitive documents

out for shredding.

It's a great resource for people to know for certain those documents are, you know,

eviscerated and they're done, they're taken care of and everything.

And especially, you know, when I first started talking with Terry and talking with the United

Way and everything, I would say about nine years ago or so, this was an important thing,

it meant a lot to the community and it made people feel a comfort, a calm with this.

I don't know if it's ever been more important than now in 2025.

Not even just because of the fear of losing, you know, your information or your identity

or any of these things, but the comfort of it has never been better for people to know.

I'm not going to some big business or something out of state or trusting some, you know,

visible source or what have you.

I'm seeing it right in front of me happen and I'm going to local people that are invested

in me, invested in my community to make sure that my information is completely sealed

and taken care of.

I don't know if it's this event has ever been more vital to our community than now in 2025.

And again, the community shred day is Thursday, April 17th, nine to 11.

This will be taking place over at our friends over at Proveil Bank.

Appreciate them and want to thank, of course, Bank Account Corp and Proveil Bank for sponsoring

this, being a part of this event and helping our community stay feel a little more comfortable,

a little safer.

We're speaking with our friend Ben from the United Way of Southwood and the Amps Counties.

And Ben, one of our favorite times of the year, I know for you and I, is building these

teams and getting more and more prepared for that.

This big event coming up.

Yes, the teams that you speak of are united we can, so for folks that aren't not familiar

with the event, they say it's a food sculpture, food drive, food sculpture event.

It is such a fun time.

We work with a bunch of fantastic community partners who put together a team of volunteers

that design a sculpture that they built entirely out of non bearishable food items.

And it is incredible the creativity that people bring to the table and some of the sculptures

that we've seen.

And it's even more amazing when you realize just how much food is involved and how much

food is leveraged for the food programs in our community.

We're lucky to partner with the rafters because this all takes place at Witterfield.

So it's a really fun time.

We get, you know, these last year we had, I believe, seven teams.

I was going to say, was it 17?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had a good turn out.

It was fantastic.

So anybody who attends the game, the rafters game on that night, this year's event is

going to be on Tuesday, June 17th.

So anybody who's attending that game gets to come by and see the sculptures in person.

And then we have some amazing community judges that come out and, you know, award based

on most nutritious and most creative.

And then the folks that are, the fans that are in attendance get to vote on their choice

for just their favorite.

So we then provide those words on field during the game.

So it's a really fun time.

We get to, you know, get those team members then out on field, which, I don't know, not

everybody can say that they've been on field at a rafters game.

It's pretty cool.

It is.

It is.

It's a great feeling.

And I have to say, too, when it comes to this event, it's a perfect place to have this

at Witterfield with the Wisconsin Rapids rafters.

Something we talk about with our River Kings and rafters all the time.

We love competition.

We love winning.

We love these individual sports and everything.

But this community shows its love, even what they love truly is an organization that cares

about its community and puts into its community.

I think the rafters, River Kings, walk that line perfectly of being competitive and wanting

to win while also put into their community.

There is no one is ahead of the other.

It's 1A1B when it comes to these organizations in the way that they treat the community

and winning and just competition in general.

So with this event, yes, we're coming together because we want to help out those in need.

We want to help those that are one of the my oldest causes for me and my family is helping

those in need with hunger.

It's the number one goal here.

But there's also a little competition between these nonprofits and some of that and everything

that the individuals like myself that are fortunate enough to judge on these things or

the community and those in attendance get to judge on.

So you have a little fun competition involved with it.

We'll also knowing that there is no losing in this regard.

Whether you win one of these cool awards or not, you've already put, you've already won.

You put into your community.

For every person that comes to the game and wants to see the rafters come home with

a W, you already won by bringing a non-perishable food item.

You helped out a community member, strangers helping strangers, neighbors helping neighbors.

That's what this is all about.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the donation item as well.

So the rafters, incredible.

They're doing a really, really fun giveaway, basically, if anybody wants to bring a non-perishable

food item with them to a game, donate that to the rafters for, you know, to be contributed

to our United Weekend event, starting with opening day until through the 17th, you can

bring a non-perishable item as a donation and you'll get a free ticket for the game on

the 17th and come back on the 17th of June and see all the sculptures in the event.

And yeah, they mentioned, you know, how amazing it is as a partner organization to have

a team and, you know, it feels, you know, it feels amazing to be able to partner.

But for those, I mean, we have, you know, businesses, other non-profits, we have churches

and just community members that form groups.

So I mean, if you're thinking, oh, you know, this doesn't sound like, I can't, no, there's

no excuses.

Anybody can come out and put a team, grab a couple of friends or family, it's a really

good time.

All you've got to do is, you know, collect some food or, you know, go buy some if you

want.

You got a specific design in mind.

You need a lot of red cans.

You can just buy a couple of flats of cans and, you know, make your design come to life

and then, you know, feel good as people are coming through and admiring all your hard

work.

And when I talk to people about this, especially when my mom was working in McMillan and

they would talk about this and they were looking forward to this.

But there was some, you know, a nervousness too, but oh, I don't know, we're going to create

or something like that.

I can't stress enough.

You really, I promise you, once you get together, the ideas will flow.

You'll come up with something.

It's so much more important to be a part of the event.

And I do have to say too, to businesses, to nonprofits out there.

There is no better PR you can get than associating yourself with a nonprofit.

Even if you are a nonprofit, associating with yourself with another nonprofit, the amount

of not only good PR you get, which you cannot put a price on, there's no PR team in the

world that can tell you, hey, spend this a bunch of money and you're going to get good PR,

nothing can give you that other than actually doing it.

Being a part of that is a great opportunity.

Community members coming by and seeing your business there, it's free advertising, man.

I mean, it's business 101, marketing 101.

It's a great opportunity for that and all those things.

And then you went on top of that.

These individuals were talking about community members seeing, hey, that's a business,

that's a nonprofit that puts an art community.

That's a place that wants to be, a rapids to be a better place, that wants to help out

those in need.

All of this stuff, any marketing executive will tell you, you can't put a price on that.

So you're all of those things along with just feeling good, the fun competition of this.

It's such a great event and I cannot encourage you enough to be a part of it.

Then are we already collecting, we are collecting teams right now, right?

Yeah, anybody that is interested in, somebody get team registering, please contact me, reach

out to United Way.

You can register anytime now through, as we get closer to the event.

But if you register by May 1st, you'll actually even be entered in an early bird drawing.

So we'll get you an extra package of tickets for your team to enjoy the craft river or one

of the other ticket packages at the right after.

So you can go to a game later this year and celebrate your victory then.

One other thing I just want to, on top of the positive, there's a lot of different

positives for teams to compete and participate in this.

But you and I talk a lot about Alice, right?

And so I think that's just something that I'm never going to stop beating that drop.

And just the fact that we often just think of poverty as a smaller portion of our community

that is, it is what it is, right?

But what we don't realize is for every household in Wood County, in our community, for every household

that's in poverty or living at an income level that's below what the federal guidelines

are for what they consider poverty.

There's another two additional households in our community that are struggling to get

by either living paycheck to paycheck or not making ends meet.

So when you put those together, I mean, you're talking a third of our community that at

times are maybe experiencing hunger, those are families and the households and individuals

that you're directly impacting.

We're so lucky, so fortunate to have such strong community and partners and participation

in this event that since 2013, we've leveraged over 83,000 pounds of food.

I mean, that's incredible.

That's to be coming in the ballpark over the 100,000 mark, man, that is incredible.

And just to piggyback, I want you're saying there with those families, the majority of those

families statistically have kids.

And this goes right back to what I was saying about literacy and investing in our future

and everything.

These kids are getting food that they might not get otherwise, which helps their brains,

helps them grow, helps them become a better, you know, become adults and all this other

thing.

It's a domino effect that you're impacting here just by tonating food, just by a can of

food, what that can do and where that can lead.

It's a great point by you as well with the Alice Report.

I appreciate you bringing that up.

As we are wrapping up, Ben, I did want to remind everybody about our community help guides

that are available.

Thank you.

Yeah, we got, we're ahead of the game, I think, this year we've got our, we really, it

is a priority for us to get that information out in the community, make sure that it's

updated.

And so that information is available to folks who might need that as soon as we can every

year.

But so everybody's aware our 2025 help guides are available.

They're out there in the community.

So if your organization or your company do whatever it is, you know, if you don't have

them and you feel like, hey, this would be a great resource.

We want to have these brochures, these information, it's a free resource for the community.

Let us know.

Reach out to the United Way.

We can get just some help guides and you can have them at your location for folks who

might come through and need whatever it is.

It's kind of a compendium of a real quick list of all the various resources that are free

in our community.

So it's a fantastic resource.

Let us know if you need them.

And especially to anybody new to town, I think these are a great resource for you, especially

for your new to town, as well as 2-1-1.

I encourage people to spread the word about that one too and if you know anybody new in

town, get them one of these help guides, get them, let them know about 2-1-1 and let them

know about our United Way and all the great work that they are doing here in town.

Then if people have follow questions, one of them more about some of the stuff we talked

about today, how can they reach you?

So free to give us a call at United Way, the number at the United Way office is 715-421-0390.

As always, you mentioned 2-1-1.

If folks aren't sure what they need or how to get connected with the resources that they

need, all you got to do is dial 2-1-1 from your phone.

It'll connect you with somebody at our local 2-1-1 call center or contact center and they

will guide you through that.

They will have a conversation with you.

It's not like talking with a robot.

No, no.

This isn't AI.

You get to talk with a real person in our community that can speak to the resources that

exist here.

I can speak to how helpful it is.

It's helped me out at least a couple of times, I encourage you to bookmark that.

Bookmark the website, www.uswac.org, keep in mind 2-1 is your resource that is available

to you and be sure to follow the United Way on social media, share their posts on your

page.

You just never know who might see them otherwise, encourage you to do that and continue

to support our United Way, those that support us.

Ben, good to hang out with you.

Man, we'll talk again real soon.

Thanks.

It's always great to be here.

And we'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM

WFHR.

We are locally grown radio.