Hello and welcome to everyone to the Rapids Report for this May 9th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
And today we're going to talk to our favorite people.
We got Dawn Dissarcy with us and Jake Klingforth from the Wisconsin Rapids Municipal Zoo in Parks and Recs Department.
Thanks so much for being here, you guys. It's good to have you here.
Thanks for having us.
We appreciate the time and all the effort put Andy from your teams into what was going on in our area and all these great things.
I don't want to get in your way too much.
I'm just going to kind of segue between things because we got a lot of great stuff going on, Dawn.
We do? Where do you want to start?
Well, we could start with our soccer camp.
Oh, I think that's a good place. That's a good place.
So this is a British soccer camp that is something new to us.
It's been done in the area, but not in Wisconsin Rapids.
It's held at Rams. It is for tiny tikes, ages 4 to 5.
And then the half day camp for the older kids is ages 6 to 12.
And that is July 14th through 18th.
That's a great event. We know how popular the sport is around here and everything.
And having almost a little bit of a different version of it there, that's kind of cool.
A very unique way to do that. That's fun.
That'd be fun.
And we'll kind of, as we wrap up, get into registering for these and finding out more about how you can be a part of these and get the kids a part of them.
What if that do you want to go to?
Well, we have got some of our camps coming back that we had last summer, basketball camp and volleyball camp.
Those are both held at East Junior High and are, again, different age groups, ages, well,
third to sixth grade for volleyball and then seventh and eighth grade are separate groups.
And then basketball camp, we have got two different sessions of that June 16th through the 19th and July 28th through the 31st.
Those are broken down into four K to kindergarten, first to third grade and fourth through six grades.
A lot of great opportunities for kids to not only get out there, be, you know, experience the different things that camp offers, of course.
But the fellowship and the friendships that they can make and so many of those.
You know, one of the first things you'll hear from anybody right now when it comes to camp and the positives of it is
getting kids away from tack and all of that.
But I think that there's just something that kids are just naturally going to love about camp, even without that.
You know, it's a big part of just getting them out there and getting them to enjoy some summer, getting some vitamin D and all that.
Not into that, but I know we had a couple varsity kids from the basketball team from Lincoln apply for the, to be the trainers, the coaches for the basketball camp.
So it's kind of neat that these smaller kids, the younger kids look up to these older kids.
So it'd be kind of nice to have them there and I think it'll work out really good for those middle ages.
That's such a great opportunity for them to not only learn some of those skills that they're going to need as they get older and everything.
But the, I think we can all remember that feeling of when you realize you're at an age where there's younger people that look up to you.
Right. And your shoulders go back a little bit more and everything.
And there's something that comes with that.
It's kind of a really cool to think about and all that stuff happens with these events and when the kids participate in them.
That's fantastic.
Where are you going to go next on?
Well, let's see here.
T-Ball, we still have T-Ball registration and coach pitch and we are still looking for some coaches for both of those.
Those are volunteers.
Typically they are the parents of the kids that are doing the programs, but they don't have to be.
So, all we require is an application to be completed and then a background check.
You know, and I talk to people literally every week that want to do more in this community or do good in this community.
We all understand that not everybody has dollars and cents that they can donate to different events or anything, but most of us have time.
Most of us have some time in the day that we can take away from and look at and like,
where can I put into my community and there's a lot of different things that I recommend for that.
But one of the things we don't get to talk about a lot is coaching, just being a coach of one of these teams and how much of a big impact that can make.
It sure does.
Not only just because these events really can't go on without them, but the fun that you have with these events and everything too is an adult.
It's the best part of sports to me as a die-hard sports person and I'm crazy about sports.
I always come back to this. It's always been my favorite part of sports is this, is kids playing the games, kids learning all the rules and all the different things that can happen organically through just playing a sport.
Regardless if they're good at it or not or any of that stuff, that stuff's here or there.
It's more so them being involved and figuring out so many things, little life lessons that go involved in such a fun way.
And again, with all these programs that we have a lot of that are heavily weighted on volunteers.
Yeah, we appreciate the ones that volunteer and we're always looking for more.
And it's just a great way to make an impact in your community. It really is.
We also had something new this year where we had sponsorships for our T-shirts and our hats.
So we definitely want to give them a shout out.
We had econ-electric, crock-atsceptic, ERCO, Solaris, Advanced Technical Medicine and Pinnacle.
All incredible, really great businesses.
Yes, very appreciated.
The only thing better than their products are the people.
They got some great people at every one of those businesses.
And we've worked with many of them, all of them really over the years and good people.
That's cool to hear. And shout out to all of them for doing that.
Yes, it allowed us to buy some newer equipment also.
We had to update some of the equipment. So that was a really nice way to be able to purchase that without having, you know,
to have to worry about the cost of the shirts and stuff.
You know, it's funny. I don't usually sit here and look back and like, oh, I wish I was young again or anything.
Except for this segment. This is the one time where I'm kind of like, I wish I was younger again.
Yeah, boy, somebody of these cool events that are for the kids and everything that are going on.
Let's talk about some more of them, Doc.
So would you want to take our baby sitting class?
Oh, yeah, maybe. Maybe.
Yeah.
You know, I just became a pop. I just became a Grammy.
I mean, I made you to brush up on my skills here and everything.
It might not be a bad idea.
The safe sitter class has been really popular.
And I know that we already have quite a few registrations for.
We still still do have some openings.
June 20th, July 22nd and August 14th are each of those dates.
That's just a one day class.
And that's open to anyone that is basically grades six through eighth.
Is there any cost to that one, Doc?
That one is, you know, everything is based on residency.
So residents within the city limits, it's $40 and then it's 60 for non-resident.
And they will get a nice book to take home with them.
And then like an emergency call list and like a completion card.
And I know just talking to a lot of parents over the years around here.
So many of them rely on babysitters.
We've talked about child care on this network a lot.
And they need for that and everything.
And when it comes to babysitters, they've been an integral part of helping a lot of parents out there.
And there's not a parent out there who doesn't feel better when a kid takes this class.
And has that to go into.
And as important as that is, it's just as important for the kid to feel confident going into babysitting.
Right.
And one other thing about this that I think is my sister actually brought this up.
Is the idea that, you know, even if a kid is not going to do babysitting job,
quote unquote, but they have siblings, you know,
and they're going to be watching their own siblings or something.
That's still a great opportunity to take this class and just, you know,
kind of have some more confidence going into that.
I think that's a lot of the parents that sign their kids up for that.
I think that's what the situation is.
So we're speaking with Dawn and Jake from the Wisconsin Rapids Municipal Zoo
and the Parks and Recs Department.
And I want to get into the crafty kiddos with you, Dawn.
I like the name of that one.
So we have Mary Beth Severin, who we all know as being extremely creative.
She came up with some kind of fun ideas for some projects that she wanted to teach kids how to do.
So we have a beaded window hanging.
That's on June 26th.
We have squirt gun art, which sounds like it will be really fun.
Oh, is there an ancient woman on this?
Is there, because that sounds like a lot of fun.
That sounds awesome.
That's probably let you never see.
We'll see.
That one's on July 8th.
And then on July 22nd, this is going to be another fun one, Nature Paint Dunk.
Oh, yeah.
So they're going to take a little walk by the zoo and then they're going to come back.
They'll be collecting things from nature and then they'll be dunking them and putting them on a canvas.
It's great.
It's not only a great opportunity for kids to do those things, but just getting some of that imagination out there and that creativity out there and having some more reps and doing that.
That's a lot of fun.
Let's get a chance to get outside and then create some art.
And then there's also pressed flowers.
And that one is on August 7th.
They should be bringing flowers to that class with them.
They could pick those up maybe at the farmer's market if they don't have them in their yard and then they have to bring a hammer.
So that sounds fun.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, kids, hammers.
What can go on?
No, no, that's a fantastic idea.
That's a really fun one.
We have an adult class like that as well.
Good to know.
That's the same with the pressed flowers.
Definitely going to ask you that.
So that's good to know.
And speaking of adult classes, we wanted to touch on that a little bit too.
Yeah.
So we have a plant markers class.
These are also taught by Mary Beth.
The plant markers are rocks.
And you will bring pictures of plants that you know you want marked in your garden.
Maybe it'll be herbs or whatever.
They're very cute.
There's some pictures of them in our activity guide.
So that's on June 26th.
On July 22nd is kind of a similar thing, but it's brick books.
And you are to bring books, you know, either a picture of your favorite book or your actual book.
And you'll paint two of those.
So that'll be a fun class.
And then on August 7th is our pressed flowers.
Very cool.
Yeah.
That's going to be a lot of fun.
Those are all at the zoo too.
And before we dive too much into zoo events and some of that, there was two other things I did want to mention.
One of them, the women's self-defense clinic.
Yes.
I love that we have this in our area.
I think this is not only a vital and important class, but I've known so many women that have taken classes like this
and just had such a joy with the people that they're in the class with.
As adults, we get less and less opportunities to meet new people and to be out there and everything.
And you know, there's certainly a lot of important reasons for a class like this.
But I think one of the fun things about it is also that fellowship that happens.
Definitely.
I had a call from somebody who said, you used to do a self-defense class.
Do you think you could get that back again?
Well, I wasn't sure if I could get the instructor back, but we got him back.
He's a retired police officer.
So he's definitely familiar with self-defense tactics.
So he has a suit, I think it's called a red man suit.
They're training suit.
Yeah.
And he will let these women practice pretty hardcore on him.
So I think that'll be part of the fun of it.
Yeah, sure.
But they're going to learn some good techniques as well.
And it's just, again, very similar to what we were saying with the baby sitting in the confidence,
the reassurance, some of those things that anybody, every individual deserves to feel.
Yes.
And it can really come from this class.
It's a really important one.
And again, it begins June 19th.
June 19th is one of the classes and the other is July 17th.
Excellent.
There is so much going on.
Don, did we touch on the majority of things you wanted to hear before we died with the Zoom?
We touched on a lot.
Yeah, we did.
We have gymnastics classes as well.
Most of those are getting very filled up.
That was wonderful.
And then I don't know if we want to talk about aquatics later on.
We'll talk about it first.
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and dive right into it.
Sure.
I want to make sure we got into that.
Yeah.
We can wrap up with the Zoom maybe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we have our regular water walking lap swim.
That sort of thing.
Those are Monday through Thursdays.
They can be registered for now or they can register right at the Aquatics Center when we open up,
which is on June 6th.
Water walk starts on June 9th.
We have a good amount of swim lessons as well.
Those are in the month of July.
A lot of those have filled up as well, but we do still have space and we are going to be offering private lessons as well.
So if there's any interest in that, just give us a call.
We'll get you on a list and then we'll have an instructor get in touch with you for those.
We got a lot of water in this area.
We sure do.
And we like to use it.
And we like every one of us as parents want to feel confident with our kids out there.
And the more they know this stuff, the better that you feel about that.
And the more fun they can have this summer, really take advantage of all these great lakes and parks we have around here.
Oh, yeah.
Water safety is very important and this is a good way to get kids a little more comfortable.
Well, and I know a couple of friends that their kids took this class and they immediately became crackins.
And that's pretty cool.
That is great.
That's pretty cool.
They found a love of swimming and they wanted to be a part of the crackins program and everything.
It is.
It's a fun one.
Shout out to them.
So we can talk about that as well.
We do have a summer program for the crackins.
And because a lot of our families really enjoyed the practices at the Aquatic Center,
we're having more practices at the Aquatic Center.
So I hope that the weather cooperates.
But we have two days a week.
We'll have practice over there.
So that'll be a lot of fun.
And got a lot of special events going on over at the Aquatic Center this summer.
You do.
We do.
On June 12th is our first one.
And that one is United Weekend Food Collection Day.
That's a big one.
It's a big donation day.
Yeah.
June 19th, which is the same as the zoo at the Whale event.
But that's Pirates Life Swim Day.
So we'll have some fun against fun events going on then.
We're going to try this was kind of Jake's idea.
The July 9th duck race.
Yeah.
See how that goes?
We'll see how that goes.
Yeah.
This should be fun though.
That'll be good.
You're fake, fake ducks.
Don't bring it.
Don't bring your pet duck.
Don't bring your pet duck, everybody.
But that's going to be fun.
I mean, we will have real ducks in the pool.
Yeah, that's true.
They might be gone by them.
July 25th is going to be Christmas in July.
And Santa is going to come and visit.
So he'll be hanging out there.
From what I understand, it's Santa's like that one day in the summer
where he gets out of the house and gets out and has some fun and everything.
Yeah.
It's a chance to really see Saint Nick kind of strip down a little bit.
Just more relaxed.
Well, I mean.
He's going to be in the zoo.
He's going to be in the zoo.
I could not have word of that word.
So right.
It's just a very, very just Santa relax.
Said to happen fun.
Nicely done by you.
That'll be fun.
It's going to be a great event.
And that'll be on Friday, July 25th Christmas in July.
Yes.
July 30th is going to be our baseball and softball player swim day.
If they are wearing a team hat or shirt, they'll get an entry for $5.
This one, I think, is going to be unique and fun.
Cardboard regatta on August 12th.
Yeah.
We're working on all of the details for that.
But there will be prizes.
And hopefully we won't have too many sinking boats.
But I guess we'll see.
That's going to be really cool though.
Yeah.
August 17th is our season past customer appreciation day.
That's something we've done every year at the end of the season.
And then we're also going to have some raptors promotions coming up.
We don't have the dates quite for those, but we're working on that.
And then we'll have gone to the dogs, of course.
But we don't know exactly the date for that yet.
We'll let you know as soon as we have those dates.
For sure.
We, of course, the home of the Wisconsin Rapids Raptors here at WFHR.
Every hit, every pitch, every win of Raptor baseball right here where it belongs.
And we'll tell you about that event as we get a date.
God, Jake will be joining us at our assistant GM.
And we'll make sure to hammer that down for you.
And speaking of the rafters, Wisconsin Rapids Parks and Recs have their rafters night on Friday, July 25th.
Remind everybody about that.
This is a great family event.
It includes one reserve seat, one rafters head, a meal voucher.
For only 18 bucks, a tea ball coach and ball, ball participation encouraged to wear their t-shirts for the game.
It's going to be a fun one.
We love the combination.
Them being right next to the park just makes sense and everything.
It's a great combination.
They get to throw out a first pitch, too.
One of the players.
Ooh, I think you're forgetting that.
I don't want to brag, but I've gotten to do that before.
It's such an exciting feeling.
That's really cool.
I shut it to the rafters, of course, being a part of things as they always are.
Let's take some time to talk about the things going on in their zoo.
Got some really fun events going on over there.
Yeah.
We'll start talking about the zoo here.
We're opening up May 24th, so this Saturday before Memorial Weekend.
The doors will open in at 10 o'clock in the morning.
We're there currently now getting things ready.
Powerwashed.
I wanted to just send a shout out to America.
They were here on Wednesday.
I think about 12 of them.
Employees.
They did a bunch of volunteer stuff for us.
They helped us with mulch, litter pickup.
They had a branch clean up, so.
We'll shout out to every one of them.
This doesn't work without you.
We appreciate you so very much with that.
One of the fun things, and there's a lot of fun stuff going on over there that we're going to talk about,
and Dawn already touched on some of the events going on over there with the rock painting
and makers by Mary Beth and everything.
I'll shout out to Mary Beth, by the way, she's all awesome.
But one of the cooler things that I think you guys do is zookeeper for a day.
That is such an awesome idea.
Such an awesome event.
Tell us about that one a little bit, Jake.
Yeah, so I think this is year four of it.
It is already.
I think we just keep adding more dates for kids to register for this.
So this year we got 23 dates that we picked out.
Usually Thursdays and Tuesdays work out the best for us.
So again, these kids can go in there, feed the animals, groom the animals,
pick up after the animals, and just kind of see what it takes to be the zookeeper for the day.
So it's very neat.
Very hands-on.
I don't think there's an adult or a parent or a teacher.
Anybody out there, guardian anything, that how do I teach kids responsibility?
How do I teach them the importance of this?
And we can talk all day and endlessly and get blue in the face of how important this or this is.
It's through actions that they really do learn these things.
And when they're seeing one of these animals that their animals dependent on them
and them feeding them and stuff, that clicks right away for them.
And who knows where that takes them.
Maybe a couple of these kids turn into zoologists or veterinarians or something.
Fantastic.
We can always use more people.
But regardless of wherever they go with their lives, the empathy and the responsibility that comes from this.
There's no words for that.
That's such a cool idea.
And it's fun, fun, fun.
Don't want to get past that.
It gets so serious sometimes.
It's a fun event too.
It's a fun event too.
It's a fun event too.
Yeah.
Like the staff are great with kids and residents.
It's a $20 fee and then non-residents.
It's a $30 fee to sign up for this.
And I think there's some openings left.
Or is it full yet?
I would have to double check.
It's really close to being full.
If it's not.
There might be a couple dates left.
Find out, reaching out to the Parks and Wildlife Department.
We'll let you know how you can do that before we wrap up today, everybody.
Burning by ear sounds fantastic.
And I have to warn you.
My mother may show up for this.
She loves it.
She really loves these kind of things.
That's great.
Big fan of it.
That's coming up Tuesday, June 10th, Jake.
Yes.
So we've been doing this for a couple of years.
They congregate at Helen Tells.
They kind of get a plan together.
And then they start walking down the bike trail all the way down to Seneca.
And again, they just listen for birds and take notes.
And it's a cool thing.
A lot of people show up for this.
Oh, for those that don't know.
We are us and Akusa.
We've got bird cities all around us here and everything.
And there's so many amazing birds.
And there's supposed to be.
If I have this right, I'd encourage you to look it up to make sure that it's accurate, everybody.
But I know my mom and I were reading an article about how this...
There may be even bigger influx of birds this year than in years past.
There's just been a heavy migration back here.
I couldn't tell you exactly the reasons why.
But there's more birds that haven't migrated than winter's past.
That are come here now.
That used to come here.
That haven't been for years.
I don't know where they were.
Had a nice summer play somewhere in Florida or something.
I don't know.
But we're even bigger influx this year.
So all the more reason to be a part of birding by ear, Tuesday, June 10th.
And I bred that two James.
It was because of the...
It's a little bit of do with the climate change.
Like we're not giving as much snow as we had in the past.
It's been kind of seasonally warmer too lately.
So past couple of winter.
So I think that was a big part of it.
It's going to really work out for bird lovers.
Yeah.
That is going to be a very cool one.
The eye heart art face painting and Casey twist balloons.
Shout out to both of them, love both of those groups.
And they're going to be coming down to the zoo too, Jake.
Yeah.
So Saturday, June 14th and Saturday, July 19th and August 16th from one to three.
It's free.
So come down and get your eye heart art.
Yep.
And there's Casey Twistens online.
And the Casey event in August 28th.
Okay.
All right.
A big fan favorites.
Yes.
A great way to put it.
Yes.
Big time.
No matter what event they're a part of, everybody loves when they're there.
And that's going to be fun.
That's going to be fun.
And free.
And free.
Keep that in mind, everybody.
Speaking of free, I love scavenger hunts, you guys.
I love them.
And the zoo scavenger hunts and story times are coming back.
Yes.
So I'm Carrie from the McMillan Library is going to be helping us with the story of time at the zoo.
Those are usually June 12th, 19th.
July 10th and the 31st.
August 7th and August 21st from 2 to 230.
Which is they sit there read books about animals.
And it's just kind of neat.
Yeah.
To learn.
And such a fun way too.
The fun facts, all the cool things that come up of that.
To encourage you to be a part of that one, everybody.
And doing a two more events that I wanted to wrap up with with you, Jake.
And we love everything that's happening at Helen's house.
All the cool things that are going on over there for kids.
And the encourage programs, of course.
Yes, can't do this without encourage.
Huge supporters of the zoo.
So we got the zoo's art, which is a highly favorite for many people.
I would be Wednesday, July 23rd, 11 a.m. and then 1 o'clock.
Then David Stokes comes Wednesday, August 20th at 11.
And then again at 3 o'clock.
So I highly suggest people come and see it.
It's fairly a lot of people show up for it.
So it's good.
Big thank you to Kim and all of our friends over at Encourage.
And all the work that they put into the community and everything going on there.
Big thank you to them for that.
Yes.
And then we can't forget about our bringing the ocean to Wisconsin.
Yeah, I wanted to wrap up with this one, you guys.
I think I've mentioned before, one of my bucket list of things is to see a whale in person.
It's just something I've always wanted since I was a little kid.
I spent a lot of time in California and missed them.
Never got to see one saw dolphins, all kinds of things.
Never saw a whale in person.
Now it's going to be a couple feet from me.
It's just a little block away of this thing is going to be.
How cool is this?
It's going to be, I think it's 57 foot inflatable blue whale that kids one at a time can walk through.
See what the inside of a whale looks like.
And then they'll have tables set aside on the inside of Helen's house with different artifacts, bones, teeth, just.
What an amazing experience.
And there are things like this at a lot of zoos up and down the state.
We've got so many great ones.
And encourage people to attend to every one of them and check them out all summer and everything.
There's not a bad one out there.
But when it comes to local and it comes to our neighborhood and our area here.
Where I grew up in Chicago, you got the Lincoln Park Zoo, you got the Brookfield Zoo.
I was not near either one of them.
I'm closer to this zoo than I ever was to any zoo in my life.
And I know this in part because I used to take my kids there.
And it's how my daughter fell in love with lemurs.
It's so many different things that just in my little family, what we experience from this zoo.
I know that everybody out there listening has very similar stories.
And it's all the more reason why we encourage you to be a part of these things, take these things and appreciate them.
It's a very unique thing that we have in this area.
And here with this event, this exhibit alone is something that you're not going to find anywhere else.
It's such a cool idea and such a great eye-opening experience for these kids.
That's a great one. When is that again?
That's June 19th, 10th, 30th to 4th, 30th.
I hope so.
Meet you there.
Rain or shine.
Hopefully if it rains, we can put the whale.
Should fit inside of Helen's house.
Wow, really?
Oh, cool.
Oh, yeah, I imagine it coming.
Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
That is really cool.
The library also just a shout out to them because they're going to have library or library.
We all related activities.
Kind of passing activities whenever that week.
During the week.
So very cool.
And again, big shout out to Helen Mead for sponsoring this.
Again, we can do it without them.
All of these things, it takes a village to make them happen.
And so we're always appreciative to volunteers and anybody that wants to give an extra hand to any of these events.
If you want to do that or find out more about some of these, how can the gang out there reach you guys?
They can email us, give us a call.
Our office number is 715-421-824-0.
Our email address is parks department at wirapids.org.
And then we also are online.
www.activityredg.com or on the city's website at wirapids.org.
Understand that this interview is not really time sensitive.
You can listen to it all summer and find out great things.
But as we are at this note, leading into Mother's Day and everything this weekend,
I feel like we set people up with Mother's Day too.
I mean, there's a lot of great things here you can get in.
Just playing, hey mom, this is from Mother's Day coming up.
We're going to extend it here and everything.
A lot of great stuff here.
We cannot thank you guys enough.
And you, the staff, the teams, all the volunteers, everybody that comes together to make this happen.
Thank you both for the time and everything you put into the community.
Thanks again for having us, James.
Appreciate you.
And we'll talk again real soon.
I mean, real soon.
Real soon.
We'll be talking.
Find out more at wirapids.org slash parks and recreation.
Go over there and bookmark that page and keep up the day and all the cool things going on in our area.
We'll be back with more rapids report right here at wfhr.com.
