Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Friday, April 11th, 2025.
Have your host, James here.
We're joined right now by our friends from Central Wisconsin Gift of Life.
Got a great event.
Other scavenger hunt that we're going to talk about in a minute.
First, I'd like to have you introduce yourselves.
Let the audience put a voice to the name if you don't mind.
We'll start at the end here.
Good morning.
My name is Patty Nellis.
Patty, thank you for being here.
Thanks for having us.
Hi, I'm Jill Dillon, and I'm one of the co-founders of Central Wisconsin Gift of Life.
Good to see you, Dr. Dillon.
I appreciate you being here.
I appreciate both of you being here.
Right out the gate, want to say how much appreciate this organization and the work being done in our community.
And bring attention to something like this.
We don't put the spotlight on nearly enough when it comes to our society, I think.
We look forward to this every year, getting a chance to do this.
This is 11 years of the scavenger huntsman going on, is that correct?
That's correct.
That's something.
Before we dive into the event itself in the scavenger hunt,
can we talk about gift of life and what that organization does and the importance of it?
Sure.
Absolutely.
Well, our organization exists to promote organ and tissue donation throughout Central Wisconsin.
And we formed back in 2014 after we saw that there was just a great need,
that there just wasn't enough awareness out there in our area for the great need for organ and tissue donors.
And just doing a little bit of homework this weekend and even throughout the week here about this topic,
it does seem, you know, since this organization has started,
we have seen a bit of a rise in people, you know, putting that sticker on their license
or something along those lines or just even from what I've noticed on a larger scale too,
the conversation has seemed to be out there a little bit more.
And people understanding a little bit more about organ donation.
I even think some of the gray area that might not have been as understood as a little more common knowledge now and that.
That being said, we still need this event.
This event is still very important and there's still work to be done.
I just want to give credit to the progress we've made as a society.
And, you know, I'm not saying that it's correlated with the organization starting up or anything, but it didn't hurt.
It certainly didn't hurt.
It helped a lot and it's noteworthy and appreciate that from not only you individuals,
but everybody a part of this as well as every organ donor out there.
We greatly appreciate you doing that.
I personally was very affected by this at a young age.
My aunt Pat was hit by a drunk driver and we thought was in need of something like this.
So very, very young age.
I heard about this and learned about how, so for me in life,
I think one of the most beautiful things that can happen is when you can take tragedy and do something beautiful with it.
When we've all seen pictures or thought of a rose growing out of a cement or something along those lines, I think of that.
I don't know if there are better examples of that in life than this and what can be done with maybe a tragedy or a loss
and how that can be turned into something beautiful and elegant.
My family, my father has just gone through the last couple of weeks losing his oldest sister and then losing his brother a week later.
One of the only things that's really helped him through this is understanding organ donation and how we continue on and how we can still continue to do good even after that.
I don't even know how to put that in the words.
I don't know how you can really describe that to somebody or explain to somebody.
I know how you guys do what you do because I'm stumbling over the words right now and I'm paid to talk for a living.
But it's noteworthy and it's the reason for something like this.
What you guys, what was seen early on there was so noteworthy and appreciated.
When it comes to the, I don't know if we want to get into statistics or anything like that, but the need for this I think is a good thing to be able to touch on.
Because while I do want to give credit to the work that's been done and the progress been made, again, we still got work to do.
Absolutely. The need is so incredibly great.
In the United States, there's over 100,000 people on the wait list for an organ.
80,000 of those right now are waiting on a kidney, which can be donated through a living donor, which is what my story is and why we started this organization.
So the need is just incredibly great and that's just for organs.
The news are just multiplied above that and you are correct, James, is that Wisconsin itself has actually responded beautifully to all of the awareness that's out there and the education that's out there.
We work very closely with the University of Wisconsin transplant program and they have really gone through the state and really tried to get the education out there.
Wisconsin is one of the top states in the country. We are over 60%, which actually is really high. There's some states are only in the 20 and 30% tiles.
And so really it's really great, but the need is still, it's just incredible.
And that's why we do the work that we do every day. And as you talked about something that the beautifulness and the joy that can come out of tragedy, patty actually has a story.
Her son is the reason that patty is involved with us. And I think it would be great if patty could share that with us.
Yeah, thank you, patty, if you wouldn't mind.
Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yeah, my son Scott died as a result of a motor vehicle crash coming up on 21 years ago.
But we had had the conversation. I worked at the time with Wisconsin State Patrol's Bureau of Transportation Safety.
So that's kind of what part of my job was. And so we had the conversation one night, said, what do you think about being a donor?
And he said, well, yeah, he said, it's not like any of it's going to do me any good ones. I'm gone.
So we had had that conversation. So that morning in the hospital, I didn't have to wonder what his decision was.
I could go ahead and give the consent. And unfortunately too much time had passed. He had actually died so that organ transplant was not a possibility.
However, bone and tissue was. And as a young, strong, healthy young man, he was a prime candidate for bone and tissue.
And the reporting factor on bone and tissue is all voluntary by the docs. And so while we have some information, we don't know if it's complete.
But what I can tell you is that there were 58 different bone and or tissue implants that were prepared from Scott and were transplanted into 44 different people ranging in age from 37 to 85.
Across 16 different states. So yes, he lives on. He lives on. And that, you know, there isn't certainly isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss him like crazy.
But I know the value of of his gift and what he did. And he continues to live on.
Thank you for sharing that, Patty. I appreciate it. And giving not only the story to our listeners there, but I think a reminder, not only to appreciate each other and love each other every second we get.
But also to have this conversation. It's something that we like to touch on anytime we get together.
Absolutely. Whatever your decision is, but make your wishes known so that have the conversation so that your family does know so they don't have to wonder at that point in time.
I also appreciate the details you gave us there about some of the time sensitivity with organs and some of this. I think that is hopefully increases the likelihood that people have this conversation because of how time sensitive all of this is.
And how, I mean, difficult, how difficult humanity life can be sometimes we're on a half a second you've got to go from feeling I imagine the worst feelings in the world than any of them being can go through.
And then a second later, having to make a split decision or a heavy decision. You have this conversation ahead of time. Hopefully there is no saying that it's going to be easier or smoother, but that part of this is a little bit smoother that part of this gets done.
You are absolutely correct. Yes.
And a perfect example of it. So again, I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate your involvement in this. It's great. Dr. Jill, you touched on your story before and I apologize.
We've done this for a while. So I sometimes, whoa, I already know. But we have got new listeners out there. And I imagine people that would appreciate knowing your reasoning behind this and you touched on it a little bit already.
I actually, in my office one day, I had a patient in that told me that he was going to need a kidney. And I just heard the words spoken to me to say tell him you'll give him one of yours. And those were the words that started my journey.
And in the end, after we went through a very long process of evaluation, I found that I was not able to donate to him. His name was Lonnie. Lonnie did go on to receive a kidney from a deceased donor in January of 2011.
Lonnie just passed away a couple of months ago, but his kidney was still going strong after all this time after 14 years. So it was pretty amazing.
And I went on then to a friend of a mutual friend, Sarah, needed a kidney. And so I went on to donate to Sarah and Sarah and myself and Sarah's cousin Kathy.
After all of everybody was healed up and everybody was feeling good, we looked at each other and said, what can we do?
You know, something needs to be done in this area. And there was a lot of work being done in the Wasa area.
And we had participated in a hunt, a scavenger hunt similar to what ours is with that organization. And they eventually decided that they were going to not be able to go on with their event.
And so we decided to kind of take it over here and start our organization here. And so again, got connected with the University of Wisconsin transplant program.
They sent somebody to help us out. And we got our organization started from there.
Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. And I appreciate that because there's so many different stories and so many different kind of ways we can approach this topic.
Well, you both give us two very different ones, but very unique ones. And also, I think, relatable ones, ones that whether you have or you haven't found yourself in that position.
I think a lot of people have an early feeling or a gut instinct to want to do good and want to help.
Not everybody follows through on it though. I really appreciate that. And again, the details of this too, because this is a topic while it is common knowledge, I think, about organ donation.
The details of it are not. And I think any chance we have the touch on some of these things, whether it is time sensitivity with organs or the idea that it's not where our bodies are not one size fits all.
It's important to remember that sometimes in this process. And I think it's all it's not worthy to the idea of well, it didn't work for him.
You didn't just kind of like, well, okay, and you know, and move on with your day or whatever you kept looking you kept searching and kept that thought in mind.
I don't think you're alone in that when it comes to donors, but I do think it's noteworthy and creditive or something to tip our head to and thankful for when it comes to this.
This, this drive that people have in them to do good, this push that we have, this calling that we have to want to put into our communities and do that.
That voice is relentless in many ways and will not stop until we are out there doing some good. That's great. Speaking of doing some good, we have our scavenger hunt.
We're going to get into right now. And I was just hanging out with Terry John. She co-hosted a morning show with me, CEO of our United Way of South, One of Them's Counties.
And Terry was very quick to mention how her and her team did the first year of this event and how much she loves the event.
It was on air. She was talking a little bit about it. If you guys could have heard her off air, loves this event.
And I hear all year long people talking about this event. For once scavenger hunts are fun. I think they're a little nostalgic and they kind of, you know, are enjoyable.
But they're also such a great opportunity for people to not only have some fun, get a team together all that, but maybe even, you know, see businesses and see parts of your community that you didn't know were even there.
You know, I mean, there's so many great levels or layers to this event, along with, of course, bringing funds and awareness to such a great organization.
Let's dive into the event. What number is this? Is this officially number 11?
It's officially number 11, but of course this little hiccup in our worlds in 2020 stopped us from doing it in 2020.
So it is actually event 10, but year 11. So we're just calling it our 11th. Yeah, absolutely. So this is year 11, absolutely.
What before we get into the details of the event, one of the notes that you passed over was the amount of money raised with this event.
I'd love to be able to touch on that real quick.
Yeah. So really over time, you know, that we've been doing it all these years. The amount is varied. We started out very small.
We grew to very, very large the year just before COVID in 2019 was our largest year. And then backed off a little bit and have kind of gone up and down since then.
But, you know, I don't know that I even have went through and added everything up, but I know we are over $200,000 that we have raised in about a time.
That's impressive. That's through this event and a few others that we have.
It's very impressive and such great work being done with that. I appreciate you sharing that.
When it comes to the event itself, it's coming up Saturday, April 12th. It's right there. It's right around the corner.
What is the event? How does this event work? What are the details of it? You'll get right into that.
Okay. Well, if you're going to participate in the event, you grab a few of your favorite people.
You all need to fit in one vehicle and come on out to the ridges tomorrow, around 1030 is registration.
10 a.m. is registration and just be prepared for an awesome and fun day of doing all kinds of crazy wild things and doing it for a wonderful good cause.
I will let the audience know that we're not only speak with Dr. Dylan and Patty here from the Central Wisconsin gift of life.
And we're able to do this thanks to our great friends over at the Wizard's Visit Wisconsin Rapids Bureau. Shout out to them.
I tried everybody to get hints and tips and everything from them and get just an idea of what they expect.
Nothing. They are locked down. They're not letting anything out.
I would love to know this will be a fun conversation to have after the event of all the logistics and working all this out and everything.
We'll get into that maybe that conversation some other time. But I do imagine this takes some building.
Is this event like the next event start the day after this from last event the time that it takes to make this happen?
We do take a little break.
Well we do a Raptors game every summer but we start up our planning in the fall.
Patty and I were actually just talking about how it's becoming pretty wrote, pretty routine for us because we kind of know what we're doing now.
But we try to change it up right because we do have some teams that have been there every year and so we don't want to do the exact same thing every year.
So coming up with the list is the most challenging but I do want to point out that this year actually we have the most sponsors we've ever had between community businesses and community families and individuals.
We have 30 sponsors of our event.
Our sponsors all go on the back of our t-shirts which is wonderful because people wear those shirts for years to come.
And so we get lots of advertising for our sponsors. Our sponsors also get a stop on the hunt or a shout out if they're not in our area.
And so a task on the hunt will be related to each sponsor.
So you know for instance they'll have to go into the business that is the sponsor and do something fun and crazy in that sponsor.
And what we're hoping is that not only will they that day visit the sponsor they might not have a lot of time to spend time shopping there that day or purchasing something that day but we're hoping that they'll say oh wow I didn't know that this place existed before.
And so I'd like to come back here in the future and spend money in this place and so we're hoping that that's really going to be one of the things that will be good for our sponsors.
And that's that's something that we target every year.
We make sure that the sponsors do receive a shout out in our hunt list.
I talk about this a lot when we're talking to businesses out there.
I've done my homework on this when I've been in this business for over 20 years and I've studied sales and marketing for a long time have family members involved with it.
There is no good sales or marketing person out there that could give you a price tag on good beyond.
You can't put a price on something like that.
When you attach yourself to something like our nonprofits are doing like an event like this.
It is the definition of bang for your buck. It is the definition of getting more out of your than you could ever even expect.
Not only are you doing all the things that Dr. Jill touched on there but you're also showing the community where you stand by this.
You're showing the community that you're a part of not only the community but a part of this event and that it matters to you.
You're showing your humanity and I think especially in this day and age that goes a lot farther than we could ever really figure out or find the numbers to back up or anything like that.
Shout out to all those businesses and I imagine that you've wrapped that up for this year but there is always next year.
There is a business out there listening that would like, hey I should have been a part of that.
You should have.
Next year you can be because as we've just found out they take a half an hour off and then they're back at it.
We do try to, along those lines, we do try to make our sponsorships reasonable.
We have reasonable levels so we have a $250 level, we have a $500 level and we have a $1,000 level.
Now if people want to go more than $1,000 they're welcome to.
But the $250 level we find is really reasonable for a lot of small businesses or families or individuals who might want to sponsor the event but maybe can't afford that higher level which is certainly understandable.
James I think that one thing that I really want to make sure that we point out is the location, the venue for the event is the ridges golf course and banquet facility.
And I want to point out that they donate their entire facility to us for the day.
We started way back when at the Rapids Mall which is no longer standing.
So we don't even have that.
We move to a little bit larger venue and then we moved over to the ridges.
And since day one, Todd and Michelle Goska have just said you've got it.
You've got our venue for the day and we just so appreciate that because it allows us to just get in there and spread out and have our event start and end there.
And they really don't end up taking much from that in the end. I'll tell you.
And so we really have to give them a big shout out for that.
As a note to what I was saying before to businesses out there when it comes to being a part of these kind of things.
I couldn't tell you how many times I've mentioned the ridges on the air over the years because of events like this.
And every chance I get I shout them out.
I don't believe they're spending a penny on advertising with us and they don't need to.
They don't need to because that's what this is all about.
When you do things like that, that's another additive advantage of these kind of things.
When we talk about it on the air, I'm going to mention them every chance I get.
I'm going to shout them out every chance I get.
And I can make the argument to my owners and all that.
And I have before that that's again good PR.
It's all what we're doing here. It's why we're here.
We want to keep the lights on.
We want to keep this nonprofit going, of course, and certainly.
But it's bigger than that.
And once you get that, I think it all makes sense.
To anybody that, you know, I know I got a couple of friends.
I wouldn't mind being a clown car.
We could all get into one vehicle.
Can people still be a part of that?
Can teams still join?
Absolutely.
We can't guarantee that we'll have a t-shirt for them because we did have to order them in advance.
But yeah, certainly can still come on out tomorrow morning with your team and join in the fun.
And the best way to find out information about the event and everything.
I know you guys got a great Facebook page.
Should we send people over to that?
Certainly the website, Central Wisconsin Gift of Life.
It's all one word, Central Wisconsin Gift of Life.
Either those sources be a pretty good place to go.
Yes, absolutely.
And we do want to shout out all the businesses that all the sponsors that are a part of this.
I greatly appreciate every single one of them putting back into the community and being a part of something like this.
That is bigger than we can really put in the words.
It's another one of those events.
Anything you wanted to touch on in the last minute we have here before we let you go.
If you don't mind, our other three platinum sponsors would be at our $1,000 level.
And that would be Freedom Carpeting and Countertops.
And they have sponsored us quite a few years now.
Most of our years actually, they've been our sponsor.
And Marshfield Medical Credit Union.
And then also Urtle Trucking.
And they have been a sponsor for a few years as well.
And so we appreciate every single one of our sponsors.
But those are our platinum level sponsors along with the Regis Golf Course.
Get your friends together. Head on over to the Regis tomorrow.
It's going to be a really fun time.
Things again kick off.
Registration at starting at 10 o'clock.
We need everybody to be present by 10.45.
So we can have them out the door by 11.
The hunt goes from 11 to three.
After the hunt, come back to the ridges.
We have raffles.
We have silent auctions.
We have walking tacos.
We have a cash bar.
We have prizes.
We have team prizes.
We have all kinds of fun.
It's $25 per person.
We did, like Patty said, we can't guarantee a t-shirt at this point.
But $25 a person to get your team together.
It's a day of a great fun time.
Thank you both again for the time and for sharing everything you have.
We look forward to talking again real soon.
And we'll have more midday magazine for you next week right here at 975-FM1328M, WFHR.