Hello and welcome to the Rapids Report on WFHR, proudly sponsored by Crock Acceptic.
Today is Friday, October 24th, 2025.
I'm your host, Melissa Kaye, billing in for James J. Mayloff.
Today I'll be speaking with Linda Brost, the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Central
Wisconsin.
That's who she is with, welcome, Linda.
Hi, good morning.
How are you?
I'm good, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Did I pronounce your last name correctly?
Yes.
Okay, good.
Yeah, very good.
Now you're with the Aging and Disability Resource Center and for listeners who aren't
familiar with what the ADRC does, I'm going to give just a little bit of background here.
So the ADRCCW started in 2006 with an intergovernmental agreement between Marathon and Wood
Counties.
Now three years later, the agreement expanded to include Langland and Lincoln Counties.
So since 2010, the ADRCCW provides consistent aging and disability resource center and
older Americans act services throughout the four county region.
They have offices in Antigo, Marshfield, Merrill, Wassa, and Wisconsin Rapids.
Now the service is offered by the ADRCCW cover a wide range and there are honestly too many
to list.
But notably, they'll assist with housing, health, and health insurance.
They offer financial services and mental health services just to name a few.
But Linda, you're here today to talk about the food and nutrition assistance specifically
meals on wheels.
Yes.
We have a lot more about the need for the violent years that I can also talk about the nutrition
program.
Okay.
Well, before we launch into that, you are the administrative specialist with the ADRCCW
tell our listeners a little bit about what that entails.
Oh gosh.
I am one of about, I think, seven people that work the same job as I do in our service region.
But we're most of the time, the first point of contact for customers, whether it be answering
their phone calls or welcoming them when they walk into the office.
And then we refer them based on what their needs are.
We, with the phone calls that was a little challenging for me when I first started because
the Wisconsin Rapids office was responsible for managing all the toll free calls that came
in.
But I had to get really creative to figure out how to quickly look up customers like if they
were meals on wheels customer, you know, and not skip a beat and let my callers think
that I didn't know what I was doing even if they lived in the antigo region.
So that was probably, that was, that was a challenge, but I'm glad that it was done
that way.
But sometimes we can not schedule appointments for people.
Right now, we're in the middle of the open enrollment season for Medicare.
And for that, we've been scheduling people to meet with a specialist to go over their
plans.
We afford the data specialist, we enter all the information regarding on wheels on wheels
and dining participants, but probably the phone and managing emails is probably the biggest
part of my job in addition to the nutrition services.
But we also provide assistance to our staff that's here, our specialists, to try and make
their jobs a little bit easier.
I also help manage our monthly newsletter called Choices.
In addition to explaining to talk, I like to write and I like to edit and when they
figured out I could also do that, I was kind of inherent to that as well, which I absolutely
love to do.
Oh, good.
A lady of money talents.
Yes.
Oh, so how can people sign up for that newsletter then that you said that comes out once
a month?
A few area businesses, including pick and save because I've seen it there, the newsletter
is distributed to some businesses in the rapid area.
I think the hospital and the doctor's offices sometimes get them.
Otherwise, it's available at our office tree.
We keep a handy supply right outside our office door, if people they don't want to come
in the office, but they want to browse to see what information we have.
So we keep a copy there.
If somebody wants a subscription to get one in the mail, they can call us and we can direct
them on what to do for that.
I believe the yearly subscription is $12 a year, which covers the postage.
So we're not making anything on that.
So we have that.
We also have our resource directory for the region.
And we keep free copies of that as well are in the community as well as at our office.
And that contains an index directory of resources in the community ranging from food pantries,
transportation options, housing options in the area.
It's a really great resource for people to keep on hand, even if they don't think they
need it.
Usually, I think everyone as we age, they're going to end up taking a look at that resource
directory at one time more than that.
We'll just looking through what you have available on the website that the range of services
you offer is so broad.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
We also have dementia support services and our support for caregivers.
We have classes for different healthy living classes amongst other things.
So it is nice and that website usually shows like the current events that are happening.
So it's really nice if somebody was a little bashful on coming to the office, they could
go online and just kind of browse through this, but as you see and it's a lot of information.
And that website is adrc-cw.org, correct?
Correct.
Well, now let's move into talking about wheels on wheels.
And with everything that the adrc-cw offers, one of the big things that you need help with
are volunteers to help with wheels on wheels, is that right?
Yes.
The wheels on wheels in addition to helping in the kitchen or Wisconsin rapid site also
holds the dining site.
And that's where our wheels are packaged, but we also serve congregate dining as well.
There's all kinds of things that happen within that span of a few hours in the morning.
I usually try to avoid that area as much as possible because I feel I'm just going to get
in the way.
But it's great.
We've got wonderful volunteers that help both in the kitchen and as well as with driving.
And some of them have an object to do both.
They might have started out helping in the kitchen.
We got in a pinch one day and they did somebody and they volunteered to go out on the route.
And from that point on, they let me know that if I got in a pinch again, they'd give them
a call because they enjoyed the experience so much.
Okay.
So if someone was interested in volunteering, outline a little bit for me what you're
specifically looking for as far as like kitchen help, what duties they would be doing, and
the times that you need the assistance.
Oh, sure.
We serve lunch at the dining site at 1130.
So the kitchen is usually open from nine until one.
And that includes the cleaning up afterwards.
We don't expect volunteers to stay the entire four hours.
They certainly tend if they want.
But we have some people that might just come in for an hour from nine to 10.
And some of the things that volunteers might do is package the food up for the meals on
the meals program, setting up the dining site, each day with the place settings and whatnot
that's needed.
They help serve the meals.
It's cafeteria style, but for people, say somebody's using a walker or otherwise struggles
with mobility, they can just remain seated and their meal is brought to them.
Oh, okay.
Nice.
And then volunteers help with the clean up afterwards as well.
Okay.
So that's like the dining site part of things.
If somebody would like to be a driver, the delivery times are generally between 1030 and
noon, usually drivers are finished within an hour.
We do have a couple of routes.
We have a route that goes to Pitzville as well as one that goes to Rudolph.
That one might take a little bit longer, but yeah.
Okay.
And then they're assigned a certain number of deliveries on their route.
Yes.
They'll receive what we call a drivers report for the day and that will list the customers
who are eating 18 that day.
Most people are, they're on a set schedule, but it's not necessarily Monday through Friday.
We've got people that just eat on Tuesday, Thursday for meals on wheels.
So the daily total for each route can certainly vary each day.
You know, one day you might have four people and then the next time there could be 16 people
with time it depends because we have routes, you know, within the city limits as well.
And those are the ones that can get kind of long.
One of them extends into the city of Port Edward as well.
Okay.
And when people are looking into volunteering, if someone say it was only available one
day a week, are you able to work around that?
Oh my gosh, yes, some people come in maybe once a month, some people they're not sure
because we've got a couple of people that are going to college or attending school or something like that.
And they might sub either at the dining site or as a driver when they're called upon.
If I need somebody to cover a route because the driver's sick or otherwise can't drive,
it's kind of nice.
I can just, I usually email or text them to say, hey, I need somebody for a route one today.
Can you help out?
And it's kind of a non-intrusive way to check in with them.
But I know more and more people prefer that over a phone call because it's just less of an interruption.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Well, and then how many routes do you have typically on a day?
We have a total one.
I believe we have, some days we have nine routes.
Okay.
And then on Fridays, we do not deliver to the Rudolph Pixel area.
So I think on that day, there might only be four or five routes today.
I don't have that stuff in front of me.
So yeah, we have a, there's a rural route that the paid drivers take care of that are way out.
They're like Auburndale, Arpen, for our area anyway.
So we've tried to accommodate, you know, whatever the need is for that.
And for listeners who maybe don't know where the kitchen is, can you tell us the location for that?
Oh, sure.
The address for the Centrelius Center, which is the building we're located in as well as a few other businesses.
The Old Senior Center is in this building, Park Place Adult Day Services are here.
Anyway, if a customer uses that entrance, where our office is the first one on the left.
If they keep going down the hall and swing to the right, they're going to see the dining site right away.
And then volunteers and then the kitchen is all right there.
So if, you know, if somebody wanted to eat at our dining site,
they could either stop in at the office and check in with me or my coworker or they can go down and speak to the dining site manager,
you know, about getting more information and signing up, registering for the dining site program if they'd like to eat.
Okay. And you said that starts service at 1130 Monday through Friday?
Correct.
Okay.
And if people are interested in volunteering either with the kitchen or as a delivery driver, how do they go about that?
They can call us.
I saw that the end of our chat, we can give out the numbers, the toll free number for that.
But we have people call sometimes they stop in in person.
Sometimes they might just be checking out the building overall and walking around and they might ask somebody done at the dining site about volunteering.
Our bill usually be sent back to the office because that's the best place to start.
We also have the volunteer application is available at our website that people can fill out and just send to us.
And that allows them to add as much or little information, you know, as far as what they might like to do to volunteer.
So we offer a few options to make it easier for people to volunteer.
Okay.
And again, that website is adrc-cw.org.
So you could just head there to fill out that form and find out more information.
Linda, is there anything else that you want to talk about today before we let people know how to get in touch with you?
I really can't think of anything.
I'm looking at my notes.
And I think I've covered all of it.
Real quick, I'll mention, again, we don't have anybody, we don't expect anyone to have a set schedule.
Right now at this time, every year we have some volunteers who are snow birds and they're getting ready to head out away from Wisconsin and the cold weather, presumably.
So sometimes we have that extra need for coverage.
You know, I have some people that help us out during the winter and they leave during the summer.
So it's pretty much all year round.
You know, we're never going to turn away somebody that wants to volunteer.
Right.
Okay.
Well, that's good to know.
So hopefully hopefully we get some volunteers to help you out here.
How can they get in touch with you, Linda?
They can call our toll free number at 888-486-9545.
The Wisconsin Rapids number is 715-421-0014.
I like to promote the regional number because I'm going to answer even numbers so it doesn't really matter which ones they call.
But yeah, whichever one they like.
Wonderful. Well, they can definitely reach out because as an administrative specialist, you know just about everything there is to know about the ADRC-CW.
It seems that way, yes.
Well, you have to be a specialist. It's in your title, right?
Yes.
You can know what's going on.
I know a little bit about everything what's going on.
Well, it sounds like a wonderful organization and thank you for all that you do for our seniors in the area.
And if any of you listening out there are interested in volunteering, again, you can head to the website at ADRC-CW.org or call 888-486-9545
and Linda, what's the local Wisconsin Rapids number again?
715-421-0014.
Wonderful.
Well, thank you for speaking with me today, Linda. It's been a pleasure.
You're welcome and thank you for hosting us today.
Absolutely.
All right.
Take care.
Take care. Thank you for listening to another edition of the Rapids Report on WFHR.com.
You can find past episodes there and share them on your socials.
A special thank you to Crockett Sceptic for sponsoring this episode of the Rapids Report.
I'm Melissa K. signing off.
Thank you.
