Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this May 22nd, 2025.
Have your host, James here, and we're joined by our great friend, Reverend Beth Habhackers
with us right now.
Beth, thanks a lot for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Always look forward to hanging out and talking with you, let alone if we got to put our
workouts on.
I know.
Be serious today or not.
It is a, I was going to say it is a blessing, and I felt really corny saying that, but it
truly is.
Thank you.
Not only have you joined us as much as you're able to and everything, but the fact that
we get kind of an inside lane to so many things in our community, we're working with you.
And one of those is certainly all winter long talking about the winter farmers market
and promoting that for all of our vendors and ag industry members.
As you guys out there know, that wraps up and we're just starting right there one to
let the audience know about that.
Yeah, we finished up our season for the spring on May 10th.
So if you're looking for us on Saturdays, you're not going to find us.
But the door farmers markets coming up, it'll be here before you know it in June.
So that's good.
And we will be coming back again in the fall.
So once we have those dates set, we will get those out into the community.
But we're also using the Facebook page, the Winter Market Facebook page, to get more
information out about the events I'm going to talk about today and other events happening
at the church as well.
Appreciate you letting us know that and everything, especially with the market for some people
might think that, you know, you don't really have to check the page out with the market
being down.
That's good to know.
That's great.
So what are we going to want to dive into the book bin first?
Sure.
Yeah, we are known as the church that does that book sale every fall and we're doing that
book sale this fall too.
And so we usually collect books and the bin is going out tomorrow.
It's going out on May, what is tomorrow, the 23rd?
May 23rd.
I looked at the calendar.
There you go.
There you go.
And it'll be out through September 15th.
So we collect books all summer.
We've already gotten several calls at the church about that and people have been waiting.
Well, now is your time.
Bring it in now.
And if you're going through books at home, getting ready for rummage sales or things like
that.
If you find that you have books that you don't sell at your rummage sale or just would
rather donate somewhere, please consider donating them to us because the funds really go
to a good place.
We use all of the funds from the sale of the books and everything towards scholarships
and mid-state technical college.
And last year we were able to give at least one scholarship out for a thousand dollars.
That's so cool.
It was, I mean, it's always a joy.
And to get the thank you cards, we get thank you letters from the recipients of our scholarship.
And we always put that out.
We're beginning to put that out at the sale.
So when you check out, you can read the thank you that we get from the people that receive
them.
And most of the students are second career nursing students.
So we're really helping the healthcare industry by buying books and supporting everybody who
loves and has a passion for reading.
And as my mother brought up when I was telling her about this, well, Chimney, you know, I just
saw this article about how dire we are in need of nurses in rural areas and everything.
So you see the domino effect that this can have.
I don't know of many things that how a person could love something more than my mother loves
books.
But this just, it's like enhanced that for her, of her wanting to come to the book fair,
wanting to find some new things to read or some old classics that she loves or something
like that.
This, like, just got a fire in her about it.
And because there's very few things my mother loves more than fun and the cause put together
there and something.
It's a really great combination of that.
Noteworthy to hear about last year is just a great reminder of that.
Our income from last year was $2,350 and 75 cents.
So that's how much and because they didn't have enough people that qualified because we're
specifically looking for second career students, we were only able to give one scholarship.
That money stays in an account for us.
So we're going to be able to add to that this year and be able to give even more scholarships
in the future for somebody that maybe is looking for a new career, somebody that had to
take some time off between high school and going out to figure out their career.
This is, that's the person that we're looking for.
I'm so appreciative to our churches in this area.
And we've talked about this with grace before and everything.
We have so many good nonprofits in this area that are doing an amazing job taking care
of big topics and heavy things and things that we kind of are in our common knowledge.
But I appreciate so many of our churches looking at the gray areas and the things of where
people that are not getting help that could use it or people that are just a hair away
from maybe they qualify for this but they don't, it's noteworthy.
It's really commendable.
I don't say this just as somebody who fell into that category more times than not.
I know for a fact that I'm not alone, that a lot of our listeners are like that and we
get this from the Alice report every year and see these kind of things and how important
this stuff is and it all comes from just reading and loving books.
That's pretty cool.
On the grace side, we just gave $3,000 to two different schools to help pay off student
debt so that seniors can graduate free and clear, get their diploma.
Specifically, it's for food debt and so that's allowing several students to be able to
walk for graduation.
I got no words.
I really don't.
That is so cool.
I didn't know that part of this.
That's really cool.
Thank you for sharing that.
That's what we as a congregation and grace is really looking to do.
Not everybody is a Christian nationalist.
We don't agree with that stance or that mentality.
We believe that everybody has a right to be who they are and so we try to find the needs
in the community.
What are the needs that are out there and then how can we walk alongside the agencies that
are helping, how can we support families?
What is the whole that's there that we can possibly start to fill there?
The book sale just fell into our labs at the church and we've been thrilled to be able
to continue to offer it.
It really does.
The people that come have a good time coming.
Of course, we're going to have our hospitality center with homemade goodies again that will
be there.
The sale itself is coming up in October.
It's a Thursday through Saturday.
It's October 9th through 11th.
If you want to start marking your calendars, mark them for that date.
We'll get you the exact times and more information about that as we get closer and yes, we will
be back on to remind you that that is coming up.
But right now, we're really looking for books, all kinds of books.
The things that we don't want are magazines.
We're also not looking for any textbooks like from college or anything like that.
But if you've got some novels, even if you have biographies, some nonfiction, it could
be about gardening, it could be about dancing, those religious books, whatever books you have,
we also really are looking for large print books because we have so many older members
of our community that can't afford to buy brand new books.
For a dollar, a book, you can get a great deal there.
They get to continue to read.
And if it's a large print, it's a size that they can read.
So we're looking for those.
We'll also accept games, we accept CDs, DVDs, those kind of medias as well.
And we, again, we'll be having you back on before this and everything to be able to
talk about it.
And again, the book bend itself is going to be out tomorrow.
It is.
It's right outside of you.
Our address is on 1st Avenue South.
But the corner you're looking for is the corner of Goggins and 3rd Avenue South.
And that's where our parking lot is.
And the bend will be right outside of the glass entry doors.
And it's out there 24-7.
So if we're there, the office is usually open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
If we're there, you are welcome to bring it in and we will make sure it gets to where
it goes.
If we're not there, that's why the bend's there.
You can go ahead and still put your books in the bend and we will receive them.
We sort through them throughout the summer and into the fall so that they are ready for
you to come and peruse and buy in October.
And when it comes to when we get closer to it to Beth, we'll remind everybody we could
always use volunteers for this and make plans for that as well, everybody.
Speaking with Reverend Beth Habhacker from the Wisconsin-Rapis-Maravian Church, as we're
wrapping up, one of our keys to summer is brought fries and talking about those.
One of the hit on that a little bit with your butt.
One of the traditions we have and people look for us, we are the only brought fry stand
on the west side of the river on July 4th.
So if you're hungry and you plan to watch the fireworks and everything from the west side,
come to the Wisconsin-Rapis-Maravian Church.
We will have brats, we have hamburgers, we have chips, we've got all sorts of home-baked
desserts that you can purchase.
And we also at our congregation, the parking lot is reserved for handicapped parking.
So there'll be a handicapped portapoddy facility there as well.
So again, we're looking to meet some of the more unique needs of our community.
But come on out, you'll meet a friendly face, say hello, we'd be glad to greet you,
and get a good meal.
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be one of the best brats you have all summer.
Because not only the area location, but so many of the things we've talked about today
that you're helping make accomplish me, I make happen.
That's fun, that will be looking forward to it, we'll see you on the 4th as we get ready
for an enjoy.
And then in August, we're going to be doing our combo again, which we started last year.
We'll do a Brotfly and rummage sale all together on August 2nd.
So look for us, we're not sure if we're going to be in the back or we're going to be out
on the corner by where the farmer's market will be.
But on August 2nd, we're going to be combining two of the big things that we love in our community
and we love in Wisconsin, a Brotfly and a rummage sale.
So well said, that's one of the most true sentences we'll ever hear on the airwaves here,
that's so true.
We're looking forward to it.
All of these things that are going on, we're certainly going to be talking about them
as we're leading into them throughout the next couple of months.
But Beth, if people have follow-up questions, we'd like to answer it right now, we'd
like to reach out to you right now, how can they do that?
You can call my cell phone at 715-213-2362, that's the church cell phone.
So usually that gets me if I'm on vacation or something like that, that will be with
a member of the congregation to be able to answer those questions.
You can go to our website, www.meravian.org.
There's a bunch of information there, it also lets you know when our worship services
are.
Now, and this is a reminder to my own congregation, we're transitioning to our summer hours.
So worship is at 930 on Sunday mornings.
So if you're a member of the Meravian Church, remember Sunday 930.
Yeah.
930.
Hopefully, hopefully that got the message out there, that's great.
And keep in mind everybody, Beth is, you know, bopping around here at the studio is a lot
too and everything.
So there's other opportunities to reach out if you need to.
And we do have a Facebook page as well, so you can look for us on Facebook.
I appreciate you, Beth.
Thank you so much for the time.
Thank you for letting me be here.
And thank you for joining us, everybody, for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report.
