Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic
for this August 27th, 2025.
Have your host James here, we're joined by our great friend Lisa, Lisa Rouse from the
ODC, our local ODC here, and Lisa next slide for me in here.
I'm so glad to be here.
I got a little sidetracked, like I told you, I told you, I saw the wrong name, I almost
said it.
Lisa, we've loved having you guys a part of our open house.
I wanted to thank you and the staff for coming down.
That was really nice, we had a lot of fun with that.
Now, I'm looking forward to next year and others coming up, especially considering how
busy you guys were over the last couple of weeks, just wrapped up your run, walk and
rock and roll.
Yeah, so run, yeah, try and say that, everybody always said, gee, why'd you name it that
And then I can't even pronounce it.
The run, walk, rock and roll out at Rooted and Red was this last Saturday, and we dialed
up some great weather for everybody.
So you're welcome.
You couldn't have asked for a better day, it was just gorgeous out.
Had over 600 people come out to Rooted and Red that day, a number of people came early
at three o'clock and walked around the beautiful cranberry beds out there and went on
wagon rides, just a gorgeous day to come together and really focus on the mission of what
ODC does.
I heard great things from people, I had a friend that was there, not only enjoyed all
the hay rides and stuff, but really thought that the staff and the clients of the ODC, it
was great to be around and talk to and everything.
This individual is not from around here, but came down and enjoyed it and it was talking
about the use of raving about that part of things.
Yeah, it was really neat.
One of the things we really went after this year is the inclusivity of having, and we
invited other people that do what we do and just having our clients there.
So they were out selling 50-50 raffle tickets and they were helping with basket raffles
and they were at the welcome table and just interacting with people.
And just getting that interaction and finding out that maybe it's not as scary as you think
it is and that they're people, right?
I think sometimes there's this idea like, I don't know what I'm going to say to them
or I don't know how to act with them and you just be yourself and you can be yourself
and it's so much fun.
This is one of those areas that I've covered when I'm talking with the ODC a lot over the
years.
And the ODC has been integral in helping me with and it's certainly my family and I've
mentioned before about my patty and stuff, but even on a personal, a more personal level
on that and it's hard to get more personal than that, but growing up I was around every
creed under the sun, ever religion under the sun, that's Chicago, that's the melting
pot that it is.
But it was not around a lot of people that are like the clients of the ODC and with that
I noticed when I got here and I'm going to sixth grade and my buddy Jeremy Osborne
shout out to Ozzy who has cerebral palsy, I was overcompensating for him.
I was going out of my way to open doors and some of these things and while well intended
I'd never even thought about if Jeremy wanted this, wasn't until I was sleeping over at
his house that I got realizing, oh, I'm making a fool of myself in some ways.
Jeremy doesn't need that, this is sixth grade that this was going on and even from then
on, I still struggle with this.
It really has only been in the last handful of years, having the ODC clients come in and
talk with them more and everything that I feel that I've gotten to a much healthier place
with this, but not to a place where I ever want to take my foot off the gas, you know,
I want to always be aware of that, that blind spot I had and to not make up for but make
good of it and to do something with that.
When we talk about these events, we talk about them being certainly ways for a nonprofit
to make money, to keep the lights on, that's an important part of this.
Certainly showing businesses, the community, that these individuals are not only amazing
people, but could be amazing workers for your business and that.
Yes.
It's also a nice part of this too with all of that being done, that these clients, these
individuals get to be out and get to be, you know, with anybody else and doing other
people things and stuff, that they should be able to do and encourage to do and everything.
That means I think as much, and I know that it's just talking to some of the clients and
people over there at the ODC, can mean just as much to them as it does us as a community,
having fun and enjoying it.
Yeah, absolutely, giving them a chance to do all of it, like they should have the chance
to do all of the things that we get to do every day, why not?
And we always talk about the power of ability, like they have the ability to do these things.
Like you said, like let's not sell them short, first of all, and kind of remove, we joke
around like about that existential dread of, I don't know what to do, I don't know what
to say, I don't know how to act, I don't know, and just remembering that they're people.
And you, I think the more you interact, just like you said, the more you interact, the
more you understand, the easier it becomes, and that's really what it's all about is.
And so much of life is repetition and the more you do it, the more normal it becomes,
the more it did.
So the more of these events and the more of that kind of thing, you can experience out
there, encourage you to do, best way to do it is to be a part of things over at the
ODC when you see them having events, or if you see an opportunity to be a part of things
over there, taking the lead and doing it, also heard the bands were amazing, great music,
shout out to them.
Yeah, shout out to the Antonance, of course Pam Ross, very special connection to ODC obviously,
and then Sarah Holt, is in our mental health clinic as one of our coordinators, our operations
coordinator.
So again, they have, that's pretty near and dear to their heart, as far as performing,
and they do such a good job, and such an awesome following, their harmonies, they're just
amazing, and so fun to listen to them.
And then of course, woo, woo, on self-bound, so yeah, they're always a great draw, and
again, so much fun, so much fun, and people who all know them, and for them to come out,
and for the second year in a row, the Antonance and health-bound doing our event.
You're really, it's noteworthy to these bands, especially when you look at the life
of an artist, and you know, you really have to, you have these gigs, and have them really
pay off in a lot of those things, and taking time out to be able to be a part of an event
like this, a big shout out to them, and certainly all the people, all the individuals involved
in this community for making it successful.
Yeah, so a few people, we're just going to give some shout outs to a few people.
So of course, our venue rooted in red, if you've never handed a chance to go out there,
beautiful venue.
Beautiful area.
Great people to work with.
We could not pull this off without them, so super appreciated.
Every time we go winding to them about something we need, they're right there to help us out.
They're so accommodating, and making sure we have graded paths for wheelchairs and stuff
like that.
They're just handy cap drop-off, golf cart back and forth to your car, all of the things
that make an inclusive event like this successful.
And of course, our sponsors, our big headliner sponsor, which was Falker Brothers out in
Marshfield, faithful givers to ODC when it comes to sponsoring.
They just understand what we do and why we do it, and our faithful givers.
Our ongoing sponsors were Nason, Phil, Dairy in Marshfield, and paper city savings right
here in Wisconsin Rapids.
Big thank you to all of them, and again, so this community of making that successful,
we're looking forward to next year's, and imagine you guys are already thinking.
Oh yeah, just talked about it today before it came over here.
Looking forward to that.
We'll be covering it and talking about it with Lisa, when that comes up.
We are speaking with Lisa Rouse from the Opportunity Development Center, our ODC right here in Rapids.
While we are here at the tail end of August, I know for me every day I'm thinking about
Halloween, Lisa.
I love Halloween.
I'm a sucker for it.
I can't help it.
It's one of those things that any opportunity to talk about it, I will.
So I'm certainly going to jump at the fact of talking about one of our favorite new things
around here in this community, and granted, it's been around a couple of years, but just
in that short amount of time, it has become something that people look forward to, and by
people, I mean people I don't even know, and I didn't even know they knew me are asking
me, hey, dude, did you hear they're going to do the haunted house again this year, and
all that.
So Lisa, the community is wondering, are you guys going to do it again this year?
Absolutely.
Right up.
For all of those people out there that enjoy Halloween and are all things Halloween and
have probably been to spirit Halloween like 18 times already.
Yes, this is for you.
ODC's free haunted house, our theme this year is called Dreadmore Keep, and it is all about
the classic horror movies, the Frankenstein and Dracula and all of those.
It's coming up October 17th through the 18th, and then that Friday and Saturday, we
start at 6 and we try really hard to end at 9.30 and get all of the people through.
We're excited about it this year because every year we try to do something a little different,
so it isn't the same old thing.
So completely different path, completely different theme, so you won't see any of the same things
that you saw last year, and one of the fun things we did, but we tried to do it last year,
do something specific for the kids, and we are really, really amping that up this year,
and we have Dreadmore Cove for the kids.
So not a scary experience, but a very separate, very intentional experience for the kids
this year too.
What a creative and fun idea.
I've never heard of a haunted house doing something like that.
That's really cool, and it's really listening to your community.
It's a win-win right there with that.
I love the creativity of it, and the fact that you guys hear the community on that stuff.
That's really cool.
It also speaks to why this is so successful.
I know even some members of our staff look forward to it in part because they can bring
their kids to it and everything.
Yeah.
So we try to do the scary things for all the people that enjoy getting the pants scared
off of them, but we also try to do something for the kids so that they can still have that
experience of going through a haunted house, but not making it scary and also interactive.
So yeah.
And I know when it came to the beginnings of this and coming up with this idea, part
of the intention was a thank you to the community.
Yeah.
This is a community outreach, which is why we keep it free.
This is not a fundraiser.
This is our opportunity to say thank you to all of the people that support us, and let
you know what we do.
Maybe you don't know what we do.
That's one of the neat things of being inside the haunted house is listening to people go
through it and our super scary warehouse and go, what do they do here?
Like what is this for?
And this place is so huge and I never knew it was this big.
So hearing the comments of just putting us on people's radars, maybe didn't know who
we are, what we do and why we do it.
Which certainly has a lot of value to it and a lot of greatness when it comes to just understanding
more of the our nonprofits, some empathy in there.
Absolutely.
But the other part of that too where I make this personal because I know that it's not
a reach for anybody out there listening to imagine themselves in a very similar situation
if they haven't been among themselves.
We found out about the ODC when our family moved here in part because of my grandparents
were in a bowling league with another individual that was being seen by them.
Otherwise, I don't know if they didn't own about the ODC.
It's important that we spread the word about these things.
We talk about it.
We try to do a real strong job here at the radio station.
I know that we can.
Thank you.
I know our great friends at Wisconsin's Rapids Community Media do an amazing job over there
too.
There is social media that you guys do a good job with.
But all that said, we all know word of mouth.
That goes so far.
It does.
Spreading the word about these events with the ODC and maybe even more importantly, these
services that they offer over there, you just don't know who might be able to use those
and what life might be changed from that.
Right.
We just talked this morning about you, you get this idea in your head about, oh, it's
people with disabilities and I'm so glad that that service is for that there for them.
However, you never know when that might touch you, when you maybe you're in some debilitating
accident and now you're in a wheelchair or now you need services like that and to have
a place that you know about that you can go to where people are there to help you is
so important because we just don't know what life holds.
It's such a great point.
It's such a great point, Lisa.
And with that and with, of course, piggybacking off of the idea of this being if remaining
a free event, we know that we, that doesn't happen easy.
We as a community want to be able to help any way we can.
Are there items you're looking for to put this house together?
There's a complete list.
So we pull this thing off in a week and there is so much to take care of in one week.
So we have one week to set up.
So we look for volunteers to help us set up.
And then on our website odcinc.com, you can go over to the news and events and the drop
down takes you to all of the things we've done this year and towards the bottom is dread
more keep.
And on there, I will have a list of things that we're going to need and it can be just simple
things like black sheeting or glow sticks or just those things that, that little details
that we need to, that we could use some help getting, that we wouldn't have to purchase
then.
And that helps make this haunted house successful.
So that list will be there.
One quick thing about that that I think might be interesting to people, I know that we've
done this a lot in theater, especially community theater where we're looking for items.
Hey, we need a wheelbarrow or something like that and somebody brings it.
And that person is sitting there in the audience and just staring at that wheelbarrow.
I know.
Just loving that the wheelbarrow's odd state.
Yeah.
You can have a little of that with the haunted house in this and kind of being a part of
those things along with of course, you know, just any help that you're able to give with
that.
What a cool thing not only be able to experience the haunted house, but to have a little,
you know, one of your, your fingerprint on it a little bit.
Yeah, a little bit of vested stake in and what we do and how many people we reach with
it is really cool.
Are we looking for volunteers for this event as well?
Yeah, so set up.
We have had some great VTO with setting up like Delta Dental and some of these companies
that provide VTO.
So we're in really good shape for set up.
What we really need is if you're one of those people that love to dress up, you love
the Halloween gig and you just want to lead people on our path through the warehouse.
We try to do about groups of 10 and just lead them through so they don't get lost and
they're not running off and you can do it in costume.
We don't have to say anything.
You're just leading groups who are really looking for those people.
So guides and actors during the event is what we really need right now.
Well, we're going to do our best to help you out with that and maybe even more so than
you might realize that we're going to try really hard on that one.
Because we love what you guys do, we love supporting it and being a part of it anyway
a week and especially when you're able to join us.
Again, thank you to the staff joining us for the open house, Lisa and it's always good
hanging out with you.
Thank you for the time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Also have follow up questions.
I'd like to know more about some of the things we got to and everything.
What is the best way to get in touch with you?
So the best way it is to email me, it's L for Lisa, L-R-O-U-S-E at O-D-C-I-N-C dot com.
And that's also the website you can go to to find out more O-D-C-I-N-C dot com.
Be sure to follow them on social media and share their posts on your page and never
know who might see it otherwise.
We'll talk again real soon.
Thanks, Lisa.
You bet.
Thank you.
And I know the addition of WFHR's rapid support probably brought to you by CrocketSeptic.
