Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report.
Probably brought to you by Crockett Septic for this June 25th, 2025.
Have your host James here and I'm joined by some of my favorite people.
We have the ODC with us and Lee Peck is here and always good to have you with us.
Thank you for having us.
And you brought Ashley with Ashley.
It's always good to see you.
Thanks for being here, Ash.
Thank you.
Great to have you guys here.
We have so much to talk about.
I don't want to waste too much time just rambling.
Let's get right into it, Ann.
We have community day services that we wanted to update everybody about.
Yeah, yeah.
So we just wanted to share a little bit about some of the other services, maybe that people don't hear too much about at ODC.
They wanted to just share like what our community day services is really all about.
Sometimes people think it's just people coming to our building and just
hanging out and doing an art or craft or you know watching a movie but really we are really
working hard for immersive community inclusion for our folks.
And so really, you know, odc is the hub, but people come there and then they we are always going out and doing activities and connecting to the community.
One of the really cool things that we we just did, we held on Friday, the 20th, was a formal dance.
So I know that there's dances out there, but we had the opportunity for people to get all dressed up.
and what was really nice about it is that we had people from all locations that are involved with ODC come together and just have a really great time.
Ashley and I did all the decorating and had a nice photo booth.
So if you go check out our webpage,
there's a
nice post out there with all the pictures and wanted to just really shout out to beer in town hall for being so supportive and easy to work with.
We also had Van Patrick from awards and more that was our DJ for the day and then also wanted to shout out to Wendy Haas with Mary Kay who
helped all the ladies with some of their makeup and then just some staff from odc that helped with also hair and makeup.
And so it really was awesome.
We had a lot of people donate dresses and had some really fun dresses.
And, you know, men's outfits and so really made it a nice, nice special event.
So
it looked like a lot of fun.
The Facebook post is great.
It was nice work and I love the beer and town hall.
It's I've been spent there many times there and it's a wonderful place for anything really, especially something like this, perfect for something like this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You mentioned something there that even reading the post, doing a little homework for this, I hadn't really thought of and the idea of you and other ODCs from other
other ODCs from out of town and stuff and you guys being able to be in the same room together.
I'm sure that you communicate from time to time, but just even that in general.
And there's a different type of camaraderie there with this industry.
I imagine that in itself was pretty impacting too and felt pretty good.
That's cool to hear.
Yeah, yeah, it was it was really excellent.
And I, you know, just brought everybody together and we try and do more and more of that as we can.
So it was it was pretty awesome.
And Ashley and I and we got it
had our pictures out there and we were looking pretty snazzy.
Definitely.
And I would say too, how well it looked and well it was received, guys might have to keep notes about this for next year or something like
that.
Definitely.
Well, people were asking already, can we start doing this once a month?
And we're like, well, we don't know if we'll do that.
But people really enjoyed it and loved getting together and seeing their friends from other locations as well.
So it was really cool.
great.
You
guys do something else as well with the I'm sorry, did you have some idea?
Okay, I was excited about this because it involves two of my favorite nonprofits, you guys and our library.
And I love McMillan.
I talk about it whenever I can.
The craft craft new and at McMillan library, you do this on the fourth Wednesday of the month that looks like
fourth Wednesday of every month at craft or noon.
at McMillan Library, starting at 1230.
It is open to the public.
ODC actually sponsors the craft every other month, and so we are sponsoring the craft, which this month, or in July, I'm sorry, on the 23rd.
And we'd love to have more participation, but people would need to go on the library website and register for that.
As I talk about our community day services, it's really about
you know, connecting folks with our communities as well and making it some inclusive environments.
And so we really are focusing on, you know,
connecting to the community inclusion, volunteer opportunities, you know, learning, learning skills that otherwise people may not have the opportunity to learn, but doing it in a way that's fun and interactive and yet as part of the community and giving back as well.
It's another any and every event, everything that you guys do that does more that it builds that bridge that much stronger.
And these events are fantastic.
And especially
doing them at like McMillan at a, you know, a local hub in this where you do have so many different people from different walks of life coming in and out.
That's, it's really great to hear.
It's wonderful.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And if you don't mind, I was very, I was interested about the Wispat grants and it sounds like you guys got a couple of boat trips coming up that sound really exciting.
I'm wondering if you have room for a skinny Italian or if you have,
you could
just slide me in there somewhere.
I bet if we asked Ashley or David or
remark, they would say, absolutely, we have room.
So yeah, you know, we also talk about, you know, connecting people to other communities as well.
A lot of folks don't maybe have, you know,
A lot of people are having financial hardships right now, and people with disabilities tend to not have extra dollars to do extra things and explore things.
And so, WISPACT is a grant that we received, and we received several of them, but one of them is for people to explore Wisconsin.
And so, it's really unique in that those grant dollars need to be spent on behalf of the individual with a disability.
coming up here, we have some boat trips scheduled in the Dells and Wapaka, you know, and I think about it and those are things I haven't even done.
And so it's really about giving people the opportunity to, you know, explore some different things.
So, and we couldn't do that without those grant dollars because, you know, ODC wouldn't have the funding to be able to support that and many of the individuals wouldn't have
have the opportunity to support it either?
Well, you know, especially with the cuts and a lot of the things that have been happening at the national level and everything, it's hard not to have that pop in my mind when we're talking grants about anything.
And the first thing I think of when it comes to this stuff is, well, would we notice if this was gone, said thing, whatever it might be?
And immediately, yes, with something like this, how do you put a price on a life experience that you'll never forget?
How do you take that from somebody or something like that?
To me, these grants, these kinds of funds, these things just need more of our dollars, need more of our attention and everything.
I'm happy to hear that and hopeful for the future when it comes to more opportunities like that for the clients over there and just people in general
when it
comes to this stuff, especially our nonprofits.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
We're thrilled because we couldn't, we couldn't do it without those dollars.
And so it really, and you're right, like, you know, they'll experience that people, you know, that's, that's invaluable to people.
So
We encourage our listeners out there, the best listeners in radio, to get their calendars right now because we're going to go ahead and talk about some events that are going to be coming up in the next couple of months.
So you can plan for these, put them on the calendar and you got plans already set for August or October or something like that because there's some really fun things going on.
And Ashley, I wanted to talk to you about one of them, the sensory friendly skating event that's going to happen at Skate City Thursday, July 24th.
This is an event that's a lot of fun for people and a really special
event
yeah yeah um it's it's gonna be sensory friendly and which is great we're trying to do more of those events so that more people can participate in fun community events because if people have sensory sensitivities then they don't always get to you know participate in an event like this and so the like the
The lights won't be flashing and the music will be quieter and most of the arcade games will be turned off so then that gives people sensory sensitivities just the opportunity to enjoy like a fun day of roller skating.
It's really, I appreciate the breakdown of that, Ashley, really nicely done, especially if there's people out there that are curious of what that means and everything.
It's a newer, not new, new term, but a newer term for some people and some individuals.
So new that I was wracking my brain and I was trying to look around to see how many other events are similar to this or like this.
And this is really only one of the ones that's like this.
So I just real quickly want to take a note to thank you and the staff for even thinking of this for our community.
that people need this.
Unfortunately, a lot of the times in life, the individuals that need services or need events like this or something are not heard or not seen.
And it's so nice to be able to be in a community and to have an event like this.
I made sure to mention to a number of people that I know that friends of mine that have children that really would love an event like this to make sure that they knew about it.
Because one of them, one family knew about it already.
I guess they follow you guys on social media.
But one family didn't have heard of this.
And that's a family that
wouldn't have known that this is going on.
And two kids, actually, that wouldn't have gotten the ticket in.
And it's a really great idea.
And I hope we have more events like this in our community.
I think, especially with the success of this, and you guys really championing this, another thing that the AODC is doing.
It's a really fun idea.
What are the dates and times again for it,
Ashley?
It's Thursday, July 24th, from 10.30 AM to 1.30 PM.
and it's seven dollars per person and that includes admission and quad skate rental and inline skates are available for an extra dollar and then it also comes with one hour of unlimited pizza and soda buffet and it's open to the public all community members are welcome we're trying to get a lot of people who
could benefit from this to come to this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I genuinely believe that there's so many more people than we even realized that really could benefit from this and enjoy this.
It's going to be a really fun event and a really good time over there.
I don't know.
I've been to Skate City a lot.
I don't think I've ever.
It's always a good time over there.
A shout out to them too for hosting this, having this event and all.
That's great.
Nice work, Ashley.
Nice work.
You always do a great job in here.
I wanted to talk to both of you about a couple of other things coming up as well.
The Run, Walk, and Roll at Rooted in Red is coming up August 23rd.
That is one of your signature events, one of the bigger events that you guys do
over there, Jan.
Yep.
So that's one of our fundraising events.
I just wanted to just mention like the sensory friendly skating event.
It's not a fundraising event.
It's just a community event that we're putting on.
And so it's just, you know, we're trying to make that, you know, reasonable and so that people can participate.
So, but with that being said, we also, you know, do some fundraising to
help
support some of our programs.
And yes, Run, Walk, Rock and Roll is our is our largest fundraising event.
It is scheduled for Saturday, August 23rd.
It's at Rooted in Red again this year.
We will start our walk, run, or roll around the marsh so people can walk, run.
It's
a great idea.
If people use a wheelchair there's wheelchair access and last year and I think we'll have it again this year There were wagon rides available as well and so at three o'clock is when we kind of run walk and roll around the marsh and kind of check that out and then We have music scheduled from four to six.
We have the antennets and then from six to nine p.m.
Is southbound It is a free and open to the public event however We will have there will be some food trucks there.
We'll have raffle baths
baskets, large raffle prizes, wine liquor poll, 50-50 raffle, and then people can also purchase an event t-shirt.
And so, again, free and open to the public, but opportunities to support ODC through various...
projects we have on site.
I have a shout out to Rudin and Red, great people over there.
And I cannot encourage the community enough, especially say you want to be a part of the event, but you can't be.
Get one of those shirts.
I still wear mine.
I just love it.
It's always good.
They're always good shirts.
Always comfortable.
They always I love the design and
everything.
They're very cool.
And as I see other people in town like myself wearing it, you are advertising and showing support to the ODC with those.
So it's not just cool.
uncomfortable, but it's also a great billboard for one of our great nonprofits in the area.
And this is really one of the more fun events that the community has when it comes to these kind of events.
We have a number of different, you know, run, walk kind of events.
This one, though, it just seems to bring people from all different walks and really, no pun intended there,
all
the walks of life, but a lot of fun.
And it's very, very cool and unique of the event itself.
Really looking forward to it.
Sure, we'll talk more about it as we get a little
closer to it.
As we get closer, definitely.
It sounds great.
Certainly one of them mentioned this as well, not only for the fact that it's an event and it's coming up in August, but it's another example to me of the ODC doing so much work where, hey, what do you guys need?
And you guys are asking us what we need.
And that's such a wonderful thing to see from not just the ODC, but the history of the ODC in doing that.
And you guys are hosting a blood drive coming up.
Yeah, so we consistently have been hosting Red Cross Blood Drives over the last couple of years, typically on a quarterly basis, but wanted to mention that we've got one coming up again Wednesday, August 13th that will be held at ODC from 10 to 3.
Watch our Facebook page.
We will post an event out there and it has the link where you can go and you can just sign up ahead of time and
you know, every drop of blood helps people.
And so we're happy to help and you're right.
Like, you know, we've been fortunate to have...
lots of support from the community.
And so we really want to do our part in giving back to the community in ways that we can as well.
I mentioned this all the time with our blood drives.
You know, I know it looks really cool to be a superhero, but that it's a tough life.
And you got to come up with a catchphrase and a logo and all that stuff.
And all the good characters are taken.
You could be a superhero just by donating blood.
You don't even have to worry about all that other stuff.
No need to wear a cape or anything.
Just go there donate blood and you're a hero.
right like that.
And as to Ann's point, we have something that we touch on on our morning show a lot.
Since last summer, we have been had a shortage in blood and everything.
So all hands on deck.
If you're able to, we appreciate you donating and we'll tell you more about that as we get closer to it.
And I don't know if you guys remember this about me or not or know this about me, but I just love Halloween.
It's my favorite holiday by far and away.
Any opportunity to talk about Halloween, I am going to take it and you guys set me up really
because we're going to talk about the haunted house coming to the ODC.
Noteworthy to the community, one of the more famous haunted houses in this area.
This one is really well attended.
Very well attended.
We had, gosh, this will be our third year.
And I think we had over 2,000 guests that came.
Seth and I were just talking about it.
We're just blowing away.
It happened months ago.
We're still blowing away
by those
numbers.
It's so cool.
Yeah.
And the team that plans it, they've been working on it since
since we ended the last one.
So I know they have a lot of ideas again for this year, really wanting to have a couple of tracks of a kid friendly area, sensory friendly area, and then also kind of the haunted area so that it's open for again, you know, available to all community members.
And it's a free event as well.
And so I think that's really important.
I know we've gotten some feedback from people on sometimes the line gets long.
And so we're really doing our best to figure out how we can move things along a little bit and have some activities outside for people and things like that.
And then I also so the dates for that this year are October 17th and 18th from six to 930.
But also wanted to share that we're also potentially looking for community members
or
organization
that might want to help and participate in the event by maybe taking a section of the warehouse and creating their own haunted area.
And so we're also looking for volunteers also to help with either set up, tear down, looking for potential candy donations, being an actor or a guide.
So there's a lot of opportunities.
to get involved with the haunted house if you so choose.
you better sign up.
Yes,
I really feel like I really feel like I not only have to I feel myself being pulled to it and everything like there's too many things there's so much that I could do with this.
So
I've got the participant application right here for you.
Perfect.
Everything is on our website.
If you go to our news and the events tab on our webpage, you will see information on run walk rock and roll and also haunted house and would love to have
some more community involvement.
Well, as I was touching on before, the ODC does such a great job of being there for the community.
Here's an opportunity for us to be there for you guys or to have you back or however you want to look at this, more so than any of that.
I know that I talk to people almost every week that don't have a lot of money, but they want to help.
They want to do things.
We got such a good community.
I mentioned volunteering all the time and specifically volunteering with, you know, our nonprofits.
I recommend that first.
and foremost as a way to really impact your community and I think have some fun.
I don't know if there's a better example than this.
I really don't.
I'm a little biased about that, as I said before the interview.
But it's a really cool way to not only know that no matter how hard you work, you're going to laugh and enjoy it even more.
And at the end of the night, when you're thinking about this, you're going to think about the memories and the fun that you had, some of the costumes you've seen.
And whether it's in the back of your mind or the front of your heart, you're going to have that good feeling of doing something good.
Um, that's, you know, I don't know how you can make this event better.
That certainly does
it.
You know,
putting that cherry on top really does it.
Um,
and did that registration form, uh, that is available online?
You mentioned?
Yes, it is.
Yeah.
All
right.
So I had no time like the president.
You can sign up for it right now
and
be all ready to go.
And, uh, as this is being planned or, you know, already in the process.
Yes.
And we've, you know, a lot of the folks that helped us out last year, they've already connected with us, but, you know, we're always looking to, to have more help and have more fun.
So.
Yeah.
And it is a really good time with some really good people over at the ODC.
If you want to find out more and reach out to them, you can do that by going to their Facebook page.
It's a great way to do so, as well as odcinc.com.
Correct.
Yep.
Sounds great.
Ashley and thank you very much for hanging out with me today.
Appreciate it.
Really good to see you guys.
It's always great to be here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you to the best listeners and radio, all of you out there for listening to another edition of Crockett Septix Rapids Report here at WFHR.
