Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this May 12th, 2025.
Have your host, James Jamail off here.
We're joined right now, very great friends.
From the South of County, YMCA, Aaron Hess is with us.
Aaron, good to have you with us.
Thanks for having me.
It's nice to be back.
I don't know why, but it always feels like it's too long
in between when we talk and everything.
Yeah, well, sometimes I let other staff come over and, you know,
it's nice.
And they enjoy it.
We enjoy talking with them and it makes sense because there's
so much to cover with our Y, that, you know, being able to bring in these
and other individuals to focus on those things.
It's always great, but we love hanging out with you and love having
Ian Studio and we have a lot to get to.
So we'll dive right into things.
I want to kick off, if you don't mind, talking about the five year anniversary.
Uh-huh.
So it's hard to believe that in June, we have already been open for five years.
I don't know where the time went.
It's wild to me.
Not neither of us aged.
Yes, that's nice.
Thank you for that father time.
That building sure hasn't that building looks now.
I will be honest with the audience.
It's probably been a couple of months since I've been in there.
But even with that, the inside, the outside,
it looks like they just opened those doors.
Everybody's done a great job.
Well, whether it's people working there or volunteers.
And I don't mean just at the Y, but certainly with the Boys and Girls Club and the VVA,
um, all of those businesses, all those play,
not businesses, all those places, um, everybody involved.
And especially the people using these facilities,
treating it great.
Oh, yeah, you know, it's been nice to see.
Yeah, we've had good staff, um, good members, um,
so many people just respecting that facility.
And, um, it truly is a blessing to have.
So we are so excited.
So we're partnering with the Boys and Girls Club, of course.
And June 12th is going to be our, our five year anniversary celebration.
So the 12th from four o'clock to seven o'clock,
we're encouraging anybody in the community.
Come on over.
Uh, we'll probably have some fun food.
And we're going to do a little bit of a scavenger hunt.
So that gives you an opportunity to find different things.
And both sides from the club side to the, to the Y side.
And we'll have some fun games and crafts too.
So there's no registration.
You, we just, we just encourage everyone.
If you want to come check it out, check it out and celebrate with us.
Cause, you know, five years, that's a pretty, that's a pretty big deal.
It really is.
Um, especially when you, if you take a step back and, and think about how many
lives that is impacted, how many people have been benefited by it?
Certainly when you look at, uh, health level of things or, or, or something
like that and people being able to say healthier or keeping active or something
like that, um, and, and certainly thinking about the, um, the end of this,
where we know our, our population, we have a bit more of a senior
population in this area and giving them exercise and things to do.
Um, but I don't know that we have enough time, like in the day, not just in
the show, in the day to cover all the different ways that, that, that, that
that building has impacted our community.
Right, right.
It's become kind of a hub for the city.
It's just, it's fun.
Cause when you walk in, you see people just connecting.
They don't have to be an exercise equipment.
They may be there at tables and, you know, just talking about how each other's
doing.
You could be a widow, a widower, you know, you name it.
Like you were mentioning the list is far too long to, to talk about.
But, you know, having those opportunities available within the
why to connect with others, get some of that physical activity in and even
more so get some of that social time.
And it's just huge benefit.
Um, the why the, all three of the nonprofits that are in that building and
sharing that building and everything have in different ways impacted this
community, where, uh, I think you really noticed the impact something makes
and especially five years in when you think about, well, I couldn't imagine
our community without it.
Uh, it's hard to remember what it was like when, when we didn't have some
of these things and everything.
It's really become such a mainstay to the community.
And we haven't even gotten into like the economics and what that is done
and everything and how much that is impacted the community, even if you
just looked at that area and, and how much it has.
And looking at the buildings that have come since then and, and, and you, you
know, one is certainly tied to the other.
So it just really is kind of cool to say, along with all the wonderful things
that have happened there, uh, that we haven't even gotten to touch on, um,
it's cool to be celebrating.
And I'm just wild to think of though five years.
I, wow, that's wild.
Uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have guessed five years.
That's great to see in a great celebration.
And I love, uh, just real quick, really love the idea of, um, we don't, we
understand registration.
And usually that is a part of things.
Um, it's kind of fun for this to just be an open thing.
If you're available, great, if you're not, well, you don't have to feel bad,
you registered and you're not able to come, you know, it's something like that.
Yeah.
There are other things we wanted to get to as well.
I know the duck camp has their open house around the corner.
Oh my goodness.
That is this Sunday.
So May 18th from 12 to 2 p.m.
Is our camp open house kind of the same idea.
You're not, you don't need to register.
So just come on over to 10 53 camp road and Wisconsin rapids.
And, um, we have our counselors available.
We have Baxter aren't who's our camp director.
He will be available.
We're going to be giving tours.
Um, and let's say you have your kids signed up for camp and they're a little
bit nervous about it.
This is a great opportunity for you to walk your kid around and help them see
the, the sights and just get excited about it.
If you haven't been out to camp, it's, it's a diamond that so many people don't
know about because it's so well hidden.
You wouldn't know that it's just down the road from Walmart.
Right.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
And, and just being on that beautiful lake, NEPCO and, you know, the cabins and
just, you know, the amount of playtime and amount of programs that are available.
It's, it's like none other.
One of the things, um, and especially to this audience, most people, you
know, the positives and the benefits of being a, you know, being a kid in
camp and when it made the positives and benefits for adults, the parents
for those kids, I, um, I appreciate so much.
What you said there about the kids coming, having a chance, not just
parents, but kids having a chance to go down there and see that it's, it's safe.
It's fun.
All those things, giving them that little bit of a preview before actually
doing it.
And, um, that's, that's, uh, I don't know, that's so, um, above and beyond to
me.
I don't think we do that enough in society where think about, hey, how are the kids
going to react to this or some and not just throwing them into something.
I, I love that.
I think that that's encouraging.
It's also something that we're used to with our Y.
The Y does that a lot, you know, not just thinking of four kids, but
thinking with kids and working with them and finding that stuff out.
That's really impactful.
And it's, it's a great opportunity for these kids to find out how much fun
campus.
Oh, yeah.
It should be something that they can look forward to.
Of course, if they've never been to camp before, there's always going to be those, you
know, first day jitters and whatnot.
We get that.
Oh, yeah.
But we want you to be excited.
We want kids to have just an incredible adventure out there.
And, you know, one thing I kind of wanted to put out there also is the fact that we have
our, you know, we, we talk about our membership for all program for memberships.
The same program applies for camp as well.
So, you know, when you come up, when you look on our website and you see the
prices for camp and you may be thinking, there's no way in the world that we can afford
this.
Well, make that appointment.
Give us a call.
Let us have that conversation with you so we can walk through and figure out how we make
it affordable for you.
But what I find time and time again, people don't know that we do scholarship programs for
camp.
So, if you don't know that and you think your kids would appreciate camp, give us a call.
Let's figure this out.
Let's, you know, let us, let us work with you.
It's hard to say because there's so many things that I love about our why.
But this is easily my favorite thing that you guys do over there.
And it's such a better, again, all the stuff we were saying before celebrating these five
years, a big part of what we were able to say that is because we, that, that buildings
getting used and it's getting used because of this membership for all, it's getting used
because of these things.
There are, hopefully, a lot of families out there that don't need the assistance or the
scholarship and that's awesome.
That's really good to see.
That's encouraging.
But we all know that there are so many families out there that have to make a decision of,
well, do I want to have a why membership or do I want to do this?
And, you know, that can be a tough decision.
The why is taking that decision out of their hands in many ways and like, look, you can
do both.
We're going to make it do, you know, accessible, which again, it's impacts our economy,
helps out our community, keeps our community healthier.
So many things that I hope we can all take them as we're celebrating these five years.
Take a breath and take a moment of appreciation and kind of like, wow, yeah, that, that is
really impactful.
Oh, that really does go a lot farther than I realized.
This membership for all is a big part of that to me and, and thank you for mentioning
that it's included in camp as well.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, it's one of those things, you know, so at South of County, why I say we are
just so committed to being able to reduce barriers as much as possible, you know, we,
we want to do everything that we can do on our end to make it so that if camp is something
that you or your child would want to participate in, let's figure out how we can help you out.
Same thing with the membership.
If it's something that you would want to participate in, let's figure this out, you know, that's
one of the things that was, you know, nonprofits, we are very good at getting creative, we're
very good at being fiscally responsible so that we can get every penny out of that dollar
that we spend so that we can make sure that this works and even better, we have incredible
donors in this area that, you know, they donate to the Y regularly because they've got
that, you know, they have a passion for nonprofit, they have a passion for this community and
they see the good stuff that we're able to do.
We are talking a little bit about the camp open house and everything and you, I think
in touch on this a little bit, but the mother's son scavenger hunt, I just wanted to go
back to that for a second because just touching on the mother's son part of that, I always
think that's fun.
But scavenger hunts, just love them, just love them, they're a lot of fun and this is
another part of the event that we want you to be a part of everybody.
So in an example of what we're talking about here, of nonprofit making the most of everything
they can of their, their budget, I think things like that are noteworthy when we're talking
about the open houses or some of this stuff, every, you know, every successful nonprofit
because they're still here.
I don't mean that to be blunt or, or, you know, harsh or anything like that, but I, it's
a credit to the Y and to some of our community that has so many strong, great nonprofits
in it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, no, I was just going to touch on the mother's son.
So, so mothers and kids and whatnot.
So yeah, this Sunday also is our mother's son scavenger hunt, it's from 10 to noon.
So Tracy Verouink, who oversees our community events, she's planning this and doing a phenomenal
job.
And it's just fun because it gets moms and their kids all, and their sons all over camp
as they're doing the scavenger hunt.
And then the nice thing after that is it leads right into the camp open house.
So let's say, you know, you want to check out camp open house and let's say you want to
have a little bit of fun with your son beforehand, it's kind of a two-for-one deal, right?
I want a great way to get people to literally get people to check out the whole camp with
the hunt and dragging, you know, pulling them over in this direction.
That's a great idea.
Yep, track your steps.
You'll get your steps in.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, that too.
This is going to be a moment.
Now, with this, we do need to register for this one, the mother's son scavenger hunt.
Yep, because that'll help us figure out how many supplies we need and all that good stuff.
You can register.
You can find out more at their website.
That is SWCYMC.org and we'll get to, we'll mention that and Aaron's contact information
before we wrap up.
Speaking of, we're almost, we're almost to the ad here right now.
I know how busy you are, so I appreciate the time.
A couple of other things wanted to get to was, some are membership, wanted to talk about
that.
Now, you've touched on it already with the camp and some of that, but just one more time
reminding everybody that there are scholarships and there is membership for all, no matter
who is out there listening right now, we want you to be a part of things at the Y and
crediting that.
I know that my mom and I have talked about this a lot as a kid.
There's so many services that I would have been benefit from that we could not afford.
It's part of the reason why this means so much to me and I know, but I also, I've known
people in the community that have been able to go to the Y and on a consistent basis because
of this program.
So just, while Aaron and I and whenever we get together with the Y, this comes up and
we talk about it, what we could really use is everybody in the community making sure
to spread the word of this.
Make sure that everybody knows about this and everybody knows that this is an option
for them.
But that even the people that we may not have been able to reach yet in the past five
years know this and understand it.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And kind of tying into all this, so this summer we're offering a membership promo.
So if you want to join the Y and let's say you're only available, let's say you're a
college student and you're only here in the summer, well, you don't want to be tied into
a six month or one year membership or anything like that.
So what we're offering is if you join anytime between now and the end of August, there's
no joiners fee, there's no cancellation fee, you're going to pay for the month that you
know that you're going to use the Y.
So and then for those of you, let's say you're in the area right now and you want to join
between now and end of May, if you join, then we're going to give you the month of May
at no cost.
So we're kind of excited about that.
We know that there's a lot of college kids that come back in the area, you know, your
parents, your guardian, so we hanging out in the basement all day, no, right, right,
right.
No, but no, but see, so we want, we want to make this an opportunity for those who are in
the area, maybe short term, but we don't want anyone to feel like you're tied in.
So it's just, it's just a fun membership option.
Yeah, it's a really good idea, good idea.
Yeah, yeah.
And then of course, let's say you come in and you want to do the summer option, but
maybe that summer promo is still, maybe that's still too much for the pocketbook.
It's the same thing.
Come in.
Let's talk about that membership for all program because with a membership for all, we're
able to go off your income, you never pay a joiners fee.
You never pay a cancellation fee.
So we understand that with our membership for all, we understand that people coming in
asking for that, they, they want to and they need to be mindful of where they're spending
those dollars just like the why we have to be mindful of how we're spending our dollars.
So we completely understand and we acknowledge that, we honor that.
So we might, we make this program so that it's doable for just about anybody and we just
love having these conversations because I feel like, you know, we kind of get each other
when we talk about it.
Yes.
100%.
You're, you're careful with your finances.
We're careful with ours.
It's a related ability right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love it, especially, and I think it brings more and more people in too.
Just the honesty and the transparency of all this conversation.
It's a betterment for everybody.
You mentioned college kids, I think, right away of lifeguards.
Yeah.
I just, we got, we're doing some hiring over there.
We are.
We are.
So we are looking for lifeguards and swimming lesson instructors.
So if you love the water and even if you're not lifeguards certified, we have lifeguards
instructors at the Y that can get you certified.
And then of course, you know, with our swimming lesson instructors, we're always looking for
people who, you know, appreciate being in the water and want to work with kids and even
some adults that want to learn how to swim better and be safer on water.
If there is people out there listening that might be good for these positions or they
know somebody that might be, is there anything that stands out that like, okay, this makes
a good lifeguard or we could use people that are, you know, inclined to help others.
You were touching on a little of this already.
Right.
So with the lifeguard course, so if you're not certified in it, then you go through a
swim test, which is, you're going to, I don't have a completely memorized part of it is
swimming is swimming 50 yards and then shredding water.
And then you do that a couple times and then you get a break.
And then the other part is you're going to swim to the end of the pool.
You pick up a 10 pound brick and then you're going to swim it back.
So you want to be a strong swimmer.
You want to be someone that you've got some endurance and someone that is able to go down
nine feet to pick up that 10 pound brick and swim it back.
So but let's say, yeah, and let's say you're a good swimmer, but you don't know that that
endurance part and especially the brick is up your alley.
Let's talk about teaching swimming lessons because, you know, we're able to do all that
training in house and we can set you up so that you can be successful.
And we appreciate our lifeguard so much and they make summer safe, they make it fun and
we need more good ones, encourage you to find out more and learn more and become one.
And you can do that by reaching out to Erin and her team, whether it's their website or
Erin, do you have some contact information people going to reach through you directly?
Oh, yeah.
So reach out to me directly.
My number is 715-818-6017.
You can always email to is my last name, Hess at SWCYMCA.org.
My contact information is also on our website and as well as Julia DeGroote, who is our
aquatic director.
Yeah.
So.
You can find that at the website, SWC, SWCYMCA.org, SWCYMCA.org, be sure to follow them on social
media as well.
It's a great follow, great way to keep up the date and all the cool things going on over
at the Y.
Erin, we appreciate you.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
We want to say a big, big thank you to our friends at Tri-City Services sponsoring this
segment so we can hang out and talk with Erin and talk a little Y.
Visit our friends at Tri-City Services by local support, local, like our good friends
over there.
And a big thank you again to Erin, Hess from the South of County YMCA for joining us.
Keep in mind everybody, we're going to be having a new episode available for you at
2 o'clock Monday through Friday.
This week, we're going to be talking with tomorrow, the Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of
Commerce, and then Reality Radio with David Farmboro on Wednesday, our friends, family, family
natural foods will be in, along with Encourage, Thursday, UW Extension Wood County, and we'll
go to Rome with our friends at Visit Rome, and on Friday, we'll wrap up our shows with
Wisconsin State Senator Petra Teston and talking with the group out loud from Marathon
County.
All that coming up on the Rapids reports streaming exclusively right here at WFHR.com.