Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Midday Magazine for this Friday, April 11, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
In part two today, we're going to talk to Dr. Jill Dillian from Central Wisconsin Gift of Life.
They got a scavenger hunt we want to talk about. We'll be doing that in a little bit.
Right now we have him with us, Jeremy Schmidt, from a heroes event in Hotel Me.
Jeremy's joined us a couple of times on the air here, so we've talked about quite a few things your business.
We've had some fun getting to know you there at way and talking about that,
but this event is something that's really special to our community.
We wanted to really be able to put some focus on it, and Jeremy, before we dive into the event itself,
what brought you to this event?
Sure. Well, as a Marine veteran, I served in a lot of support capacity,
doing logistics and everything to support the war fighter.
That meant that the Marines that I worked with oftentimes were those who are behind the scenes,
doing the maintenance, doing the convoys, doing what it takes to make sure that those on the front lines
are getting everything they need to win our battles.
Coming back here to Wisconsin and reconnecting with friends and family,
it just seemed that that was the perfect reason to throw an event, throw a party to honor our community.
Our first responders are wonderful folks that do harrowing things all the time for us.
Our hidden heroes, our street sweepers, our cell phone technicians,
our waste management operators, garbage operators, collectors rather.
All those folks are combined what makes our community what it is.
Any one of those things could have something happen to them that will impact all of us.
Truly, it's a really fun way to take a pause and let folks remember that it takes all of us here together to do this.
It's not just the business owners running the town, it's truly everybody.
First off, thank you for your service. Appreciate that.
I come from a military family myself, I've got a couple of Marines in my family and such.
We always like to note that.
I believe in really any community, but in our community just speaking to that,
we could have a different veterans event every day and still not cover enough
when it comes to our veterans or our military, current military members or anything like that.
The only group that would probably follow in that category is our first responders in our EMTs.
This is a wonderful combination of different businesses and walks of life
and giving us an opportunity to say thank you and show our appreciation to these.
Any of these people that we've mentioned there that don't nearly get the shout out that they deserve nearly enough.
But then you add on to the factor that everything you were just saying there,
and we all understand, too, whether we're talking about with our soldiers and our veterans,
the cost of living and how difficult that can be on a day-to-day life,
or the rise of a suicide when it comes to our veterans and some of these things.
We need to be putting more focus on this and events like this help us do that.
And not to skip past it or anything, as Jeremy said, in a fun way.
It's a really fun event. It's a really good way to do this.
So you're really being able to combine so many things here,
and I'm a big fan of that, when you can have a strong cause and something that needs to be heard,
also having a good time. I think this community is very good at that.
With the event itself, what gives us the details of if you don't mind
and what is going to be taking place during the event?
Certainly. So the event is actually going to last about five hours,
starting at around 4 p.m., and then outside with, hopefully,
we're still putting all the last bits together, of course,
but we're going to have fire trucks there, the swap vehicles there,
other types of, hopefully, garbage collection truck, street sweepers,
the city had mentioned that they could bring out.
So the vehicles that the kids and the families are going to want to come and have
a nice outdoor celebration of this event.
There's even food trucks. In fact, I got chatterbox.
She's weighing in, but she's looking pretty close like she wants to come
and invited about a dozen other food trucks, too.
So really want to make this a full community event,
so that four to six frame is that outdoor period,
and then we move into the ticket inside of the event.
So 150 tickets right now,
to basically have an incredible dinner by Chef Angie and her team there
at the hotel meet, and the mayor is going to be coming,
as well as, hopefully, some representatives from the two main groups
that we are raising this money for, and then the guest speaker.
I really mean that I could speak about her all day long,
but is a dear friend of mine. She's a fellow Wisconsinite.
We went to school together going all the way back to preschool.
That's awesome.
And now she has for over a decade owned a snow removal company,
and that does other things as well. She'll be telling more about that.
But truly, one of those hidden hero companies in situations
and last winter, she even dispatched her crews down to Kansas City
and other places around the country when the storms were
doing all their weird things.
That's really cool. That's very cool.
I actually know that she said that I remember that.
I remember hearing about that. That's very cool.
Well, who were talking about Morgan Ferrari?
Yes.
Yeah, I remember hearing about this and her company
and shout out to her and doing that.
And this is another part of this that I love,
because any chance we get, we shout out our veterans,
our current military.
And I think we, here at the station, I'll say,
we could all do a better job of this,
but we try to do our best at representing our EMTs
and so many of the people that are in those industries.
But we don't talk nearly enough about snow and removal
or our garbage collectors or any of this or recycling collectors,
all these things, industries and jobs that you would know
if they weren't there.
You would notice right away.
We look quick.
So it's such a great opportunity to shout these people out.
Then to have Morgan there to speak on this really adds to it.
It really gives it, I think it brings it home
for anybody that it might not.
I was so thrilled yesterday, too,
and Emily reached out from the mayor's office
and gave the final, yes, he wants to do it.
And even wanted to be the one to introduce Morgan.
Because it just really shows that the community
is wanting to come together for this.
The least surprising thing I've heard all day.
It's not, he's such a good guy.
And he wants to be a part of all these events.
Not surprised he wants to be there to introduce her
and everything. He's a good guy.
And it shows how much he cares about this area
with things like that going above me on.
This is something that it's a great event.
Sounds like a lot of fun.
But Jeremy, if you don't mind, we're winding for a second.
I imagine this did not happen overnight.
This took a bit of work to put together and everything.
I want to shout you and your team out for being able to do that
and all the people that cooperated and helped out with it.
How long have you been working on this one?
Well, we probably put it together.
The initial, let's do this maybe six weeks ago.
And then got the engine going as fast as possible with that.
That's impressive.
That's impressive.
I didn't expect that number.
Okay, maybe I was wrong.
Maybe this is the second most surprising thing of the interview.
Well, well, I wanted to get something going in the spring
before the summer, you know, madness.
I mean, because come summertime Wisconsin Rapids just floods
with festivals and everything.
So I wanted this one to be a little separated out from all of that.
Yeah.
I love that idea too.
And it's a good timing.
I think that's smart.
It's a good time.
And you got a lot of people that are just itching to get out of the house,
cabin fever, all that.
So events like this, we love being able to look forward to and go to.
And I appreciate you sharing that on a couple of levels.
One, I think it's always great to shout, you know, people like yourself out.
As much as we're shouting out all these individuals you're saying,
I like to shout out community members like yourself that take a goal
above and beyond and go the extra mile for our community.
So, but I also know that there's people out there that think of things like this.
And I think oftentimes when you sit there and like, oh, I got an idea.
I think this to make a great event.
Oh, I can never pull that off or I can never do something like this.
I imagine you had some doubts at times during this process.
But six weeks later, which is again, just insane.
Here we are.
You're on the air talking about the event.
And we're going to we're looking at a great event.
A great day coming up again.
April 19th.
We'll talk more about the details in a little bit.
But I want other people to know that this can happen out there.
I want them to know that our community can't have enough events like this.
And if you have a thought, if you have an idea, I say jump on it.
Get on it and see if you can make it happen.
And you'll be on the air here talking, putting up with my questions like Jeremy is.
It's a great note.
And I appreciate you sharing that, Jeremy.
Yeah.
Anything else about the event that we wanted to make sure to tag on this one
and make sure people knew?
Oh, absolutely.
Well, I mean, so first off, I want to give our shout out to our contributors.
Because we've got some very interesting ways it's been going on.
So Ergo Worldwide has been one of our major contributors.
The other nice wonderful thing that gets to be said for everybody coming to this event
is the hotel needs contribution is the food.
So 100% of those ticket sales are going to our two benefactors for the event.
And then a little known company called Sanslicer is helping doing the promoting and outreach.
I hear good things about them.
I hear really good things about them.
Good people.
Shout out to the hotel meet.
Shout out to the hotel meet.
A long time wonderful business in this community that is put into this community.
And over multiple ownerships, I think, is noteworthy.
It's something we've always appreciated.
And man, what a great place to have an event.
What a great place to have an event.
Love the hotel meet.
Well, and the hotel is not even going to be the only one helping us run the event.
Mid-state is going to be, you know, we reached out and they're going to have some of their students volunteer.
They're time to help with the operations that evening.
That's a great and again, not surprising.
Mid-state continues to put in this community and invest in this community the way they do.
Things like that where they get the kids involved and students involved or something like that is really important too.
And as long as we're talking about this, you want to dive into something else here, a couple of other important groups.
Absolutely.
So the two benefactors of this event are focus, which as a community focus is probably the premier symbol for our community of what it does feeding our communities.
So I wanted to have that one kind of be the community, you know, part of the Venn diagram, if you will.
But then the Wood County Sism team, that one, when I found out about that, it was what they do is after a dramatic event where first responders have to, you know, do what they do for all of us.
This team goes out and helps with the debrief and reaching out to, you know, those first responders if they need those additional resources.
And for me, and I have no problem saying this even publicly, but after going to war a couple times, you know, you deal with those things.
So I'm thrilled that Wood County has something like that for our first responders.
It's the, I could not even put in the words the work that that team is doing and how important it is to our community.
And I always like to take this note because we get so caught up in life and so busy.
I like to, and we take shots at our society all the time.
I'm proud of our society.
I'm proud of that we are at this place and where we realize how important something like that is, and that we're getting better and better about that.
I want to come to mental health when it comes to taking care of each other and looking out for each other.
It's a great organization and a great group.
We just had focus in this week on Midday Magazine talking with Mary and talking about the great work there.
And the audience has heard me for years talk about how important this topic is to me and hunger is to me.
It's something that affected me and my family quite a bit growing up.
And it's one of the things that I, for one, I think that is so universal when we talk about issues or problems,
whatever verb you want to use.
This is one that touches all lives.
Hunger doesn't care what initials and what you vote or how rich or poor you are or where you came from or anything like that, hunger affects everybody.
And every community, almost every neighborhood, is affected by that.
And especially in the last handful of years, really going back to the pandemic, we understand this.
Terry and I talk about this with the United Way a lot.
And the events they do for hunger.
The work that Mary and the team at Focus are doing is some of the most important vital work in this community.
Not just because it's dealing with hunger, but dealing with families, dealing with kids.
Whatever you think of an adult is your own business.
But no child deserves to be dealing with these things.
No kid asked for any of this.
When you're helping focus, you're helping kids.
You're helping the, yes, you're helping families.
But I want you to focus on the kids part of this because that's an investment in our future.
That is the future. I double checked before the interview, Jeremy.
Kids are still the future.
And when you're making investment in that, there aren't many better, greater things you can make an investment in.
Then on top of all that, it's an event like this where you're there, you're having fun, you're enjoying yourself, the kids are having a good time.
And in the back of your mind and the front of your heart, you know that you're putting into your community.
You're putting into two organizations that are constantly doing work for this community to keep it moving.
And don't get a shout out nearly enough.
I love that that is all happening.
One thing I wasn't sure of, and I'll be honest with the audience, I was going to ask you about off-air first.
But I heard some notes from you beforehand that I didn't need to ask.
100% of the proceeds.
Yes.
This is something that is so vital to people in this day and age, especially Americans, I'll say.
You know, again, I hate to bring up pandemic and stuff.
But this really, one of the positives coming out of that I think was people really wanted to know
when I don't need a dollar, how much of that dollar is going to this cost.
They do their homework nowadays to be able to share that with our audience and let people know that right away.
That's a credit to you, everybody that helped organize this, especially, you know, want to shout out the hotel meet again.
Because that's a lot for them to do.
That is pretty darn cool.
And it just feels good to say, I want to keep saying 100% of the proceeds.
It feels good to say, that's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that.
Of course.
Yeah, I could not have asked for a better gift from the hotel when I, you know, pitched that to them.
It was one of those things where it was and shout out to them as well.
It was an immediate no-brainer for them.
So, you know, this community is definitely one community.
This is something that we actually touch on from time to time on the morning show and even here at Civic Media.
The idea of, you know, what kind of business do you want to be?
What kind of event do you want to have or any of these things?
Are you in this to make money?
Are you in this to finish in the black?
I'm nothing against that.
That's fine.
But that's a different style than, okay, I want to keep the lights on.
But I also want to impact my community.
I also want to make a difference.
I want to do some good.
I want to be able to look in the mirror and feel good about myself.
I want to be able to look in my community and feel good about it.
And events like this or what the hotel meet just did with this event are a perfect example of this.
It's not just the above and beyond.
It's understanding that finishing in the black isn't everything.
And there are certain things in life you can't put a price on.
I've mentioned the hotel meet up.
I'm out of my way to mention them five different times.
They didn't pay for that.
That's free advertising they're getting.
Now, do they need it?
Not really.
But it all seriousness, there are plenty of businesses that do.
And I'd go out of my way to mention those businesses when they're a part of things like this.
Because that's an investment.
They chose good PR.
They chose doing good in the community over finishing in the black or dollars and cents.
And I appreciate that so much.
So we go above and beyond ourselves to try to shout those businesses out like that.
Like the hotel meet.
Yeah.
And truly to Erko Worldwide too for what they did.
Yeah.
Because what I haven't been able to share just yet is I've only reached out to the few of the businesses that I could.
And because of these short turn around, knew that the response may not be too high for this first go around.
I'm hoping to do this event several years over.
I was going to ask you that at the end.
That's how good Jeremy is.
He did this at the other interviews too.
I have all these questions.
And you answer before I could even ask him, you're good.
You're good.
That's great to hear.
That's encouraging.
And as something I would have said privately to you, but we'll just share right here.
I've done this for a while.
And I remember when Doves Nest or Bluegrass at the Lake or some of them when they first came in here and were first trying to build up some momentum and some talk about these events.
And now they're gigantic.
You give it time and you stay with something.
These events, this community responds to them.
And it sometimes just takes a little word of mouth, little getting used to the event.
I almost guarantee you, you do this again next year.
People are going to be asking you, hey, you're doing that event again next year.
You're doing this community loves these kind of things, especially when it ties in these causes.
It's encouraging to hear that you're thinking a big picture like that.
Not surprising at all, but good to hear that you're doing that.
That's great.
Anything else we wanted to touch on is we're getting close to the end here.
I don't believe so.
I think you mentioned, let's just go on over some of the details so that everyone knows how they can get their tickets.
Yeah, well, how can they get the tickets for this event, Jeremy?
So in multiple ways, you can either go to the hotel meets website or you can call the hotel and purchase over the phone or you can stop on in.
There are tickets then for you to pick up at the front lobby once you make your purchase.
They're $50 a seat.
And like I said, all of it's going to sysm in focus.
And keep in mind that 150 guests, that's all we can fit over there.
So you want to make sure to get those tickets right away.
And then you can have the comfort of knowing, hey, I'm already covered, I got that set taken care of.
This is going on again Saturday, April 19th, 4 to 9 over at the hotel meet resorts and conference centers.
So you know, it's going to be a good location in a great time.
The hotel meet has got some other great things going on over there.
Wednesday, the 14th, 16th, they got the Wisconsin County style line dancing.
That is going to be fun.
That's going to be fun.
Country line dancing.
Country line dancing.
I say county.
I don't know what county line dancing would be.
Country line dancing will be going on Thursday.
The 17th, Jim Mitchell, the astounding hypnotist.
He's very good Friday.
But the next couple of Fridays, they'll have a fish fry over there with Brian Betke.
Some really cool events happening at the hotel meet.
I encourage you to reach out more and find out more about what they're doing.
You can at their website.
Be sure to head on over there for that and follow them on social media as well.
They do a great job over there.
But hotelmead.com is the website if you want to check that out.
And again, this event is going to be exciting, going to be fun.
But Jeremy, throughout the process of this, we've talked about there is some wiggle room.
It sounds like if there's somebody out there, a business or something else like that,
they would like to be a part of the event, help with the event in any way.
Volunteers.
Can people still reach out to you and with that?
Oh, absolutely.
We're looking more for some more food trucks.
And if anybody wants to contribute to sism and focus and just have, you know,
their contribution be above and beyond the tickets.
We're more than happy to, you know, pull everyone's resources together to present that to them Saturday.
And Jeremy, if people do have follow up questions about anything we talked about today,
or any of the businesses when you joined us, you know, on a morning show and stuff,
how can they get a hold of you, man?
Oh, get a hold of me personally?
Well, if they need to, if you'd like, otherwise, it's just a way to find out as far as the bit,
as far as getting a hold of the company or the event, I'm sorry.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
Yeah, all of the information for our event on the 19th is on our Facebook page.
It's on our hotel-mead website.
And I've been posting multiple posts a day, spotlighting all of the hidden heroes throughout our community.
So have a little fun reading those over the next several days.
It's a great idea.
That right on.
That's a good idea.
It's always good talking to you, man.
And it's great to have you in.
Looking forward to hanging out again real soon.
Thanks again for everything.
Not only joining us on the air here with the businesses of yours
and encourage people to find out more about that,
but also an event like this.
Appreciate it.
We'll talk again real soon.
All right, thanks again.
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.
