Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by
Crockett Septic for this November 3rd, 2025. Have your host James here. We're
joined right now by our friends from Park Place Adult Day Services. We have
Juliana Gasko with us, RN and Executive Director. Juliana, one of the tougher
questions I'm going to ask you today. Did I get your name right? Yes you did. Oh
great, write it down everybody because I don't usually do that. Especially
somebody new to us joining us here. Juliana, we haven't had a chance to talk
before. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you today? I'm doing great.
It's a beautiful Monday morning. What I like to see blue skies and sunshine and so
it's pretty good. It's a great start to the month. It's a really good start to the
week ahead and everything and as well as having you on there with us and us being
able to talk about Park Place Adult Day Services, we don't get a chance to do
this nearly that often. So before we get to some of the events and services you
guys have going on over there, can we talk about what Park Place Adult Day
Services is, what your mission is? Well what we actually do, we provide respite
for caregivers because they are caring for vulnerable adults. Either they
have dementia, Alzheimer's, they may be physically disabled and they need a
little bit of extra care because they just can't stay home by themselves. So we
step in, they come to our facility over at the Centrelia Center and we
provide a wonderful fun-filled day for them with a lot of socialization and
different crafts and things that they could do. So their caregivers can actually
get some respite or go to work because they still are working full-time.
Jilliana, it was thanks to our friends at the ADRC and I've done this for
almost 10 years now this show and I was talking to them about maybe year two
or that where I'm talking with them about caregivers and we're getting into
the importance of it and how caregivers don't always think of themselves or
you know especially in these situations and everything and in the talking
of them I have this epiphany of like oh wait a minute I'm a caregiver I have my
mom and dad I do all these things and it was the home the point was brought home
to me personally so much and then talking to so many of our listeners over the
years that they also figuring out oh I do this too oh you know oftentimes when
it becomes a relative or you know a parent or a significant other we don't think
about ourselves as caregivers that's just what we do is people we love but it's
very important to think about this especially for the people you love because
it's pretty hard to take care of somebody else if you're not taking care of and
and that's one of the ways that it got home to me I I don't do a good job
taking care of myself I don't do enough on this but I love my mom and dad I they
mean a lot to me so in order to do right by them I started taking better care
of myself in theory I'm working I still work at progress over here but these
services that you guys offer are so integral to our community any community
it'd be very appreciated but in our area where we have a bit of an older
population and we have a little bit more of this it you've seen a real need
for this and that's part of the reason for having the services yes you are
correct many family members they just do it automatically because they are
taking care of their their own family members they don't get paid for their
services but yet you get all the the stress that goes along with it and and if
if you're a spouse the stress is 24-7 it never goes away and you really the
caregiver really needs to take care of themselves because often as we all know
stress can really work on our health or work against our health and cause
physical and mental problems and then the caregiver may become ill and not be
able to take care of the person that really needs the help yeah it's a it's not
only important service that you guys offer it's wonderful to be able to note
this whenever we can and whether you're able to take you know use of the
services over there or not if you're a caregiver being aware of this I think
is a really big first step and hopefully getting this you know the help you
could use you deserve and and understanding that you're not in it by
yourself you know it's a tough thing to kind of acknowledge sometimes
or even realize sometimes but there's not a caregiver out there that's in
this alone there there are great wonderful people at Park Place that are
looking to help especially with some of the services you guys offer we'll get
to the more of that in a moment um you guys uh over there your team you've
been doing this work for a long time we're getting to get we're getting
ready to celebrate that actually a 40th anniversary coming up
here at WFHR we're celebrating our 85th anniversary this week
so uh uh we we know a little bit about this we're pretty excited about
ourselves I cannot imagine how excited you all are over there to do this
yes it was started way back in 1985 by a nurse her name is June Park
she still is living in the Chicago area
and hopefully she'll be able to make it up for our 40th anniversary
she is quite elderly so she has to come with her own caregiver but June was
a student enough to realize that our community really needed this type of
so she started way back in the low school and she started with about one or two
clients and then the Centralia Center was built it took over the old Walmart
building and then the whole building was remodeled and we got to move in there
in 2003 and we have a wonderful facility we're able to take up to 24 people
were licensed by the state of Wisconsin for that and we usually provide
one caregiver for every four clients and we deal with a lot of different types of
people that come in we become friends with the caregivers they're their families
their spouses it's it's a very good organization to be a part of
it becomes a one more uh you know one more person out there helping these
caregivers being there for these caregivers um certainly it not to take lightly
but at the very least a pair of ears to listen a shoulder to be there
and those things among some of the services that are offered over there
how are you guys going to be uh celebrating your 40th anniversary?
well we're going to have an on November 13th which is Thursday next week
we're going to be having an open house from one to three
we'll be having refreshments and a raffle and people can come in they can have
a tour of our facility if they would like um they can set up an appointment
with me to have a more one-on-one discussion i'd like to think about park
place as we're not changing where a person lives we're not saying
go to an assisted living or go to an additional we're just helping them
change the way they live instead of being left home by themselves
staring at the TV all day they can come to our facility and have caregiving
help with uh personal needs and also we can do crafts and so
we we give them an action packed day and if they want to rest they can rest
which is also a very no worthy very very appreciated
yes um you guys uh this looks like a lot of fun it's a wonderful
opportunity for people to come on down uh to take uh they have a good
evening uh good afternoon it's going from one to three they 40th
anniversary and the public is invited to this event
uh and with that uh you touch on a really important point there juliana
it's a great opportunity to maybe ask some questions or find out some more
information about these services if you were curious
what better opportunity to come on by for this and you can talk face to face
with people and be able to get some answers to those questions
a lot of our money um the way we get funded a lot of the money comes from
encouraged community foundation or the united way of south
wood county and atoms county also um if people if they're unsure if they
qualify for this kind of care they can go across the foyer at the central
and go into the aging and disability resource center
they have a wealth of knowledge they get families qualified for this type of
help too through the Medicaid system also if the person is a veteran if they
had active duty in the past uh the VA can fund some of this
hmm so wonderful notes to bring up juliana and i don't know if it's um
common knowledge some of those things so really do appreciate that information
some of the uh all those nonprofits you mentioned join us on this show and
everything and greatly appreciate the work that they're doing and
it really brings home when we have those conversations with them the importance
of so much of this and investment i call it it's a donation or it's
you know funds or whatever words you want to use but it's an
investment it really is in our people in our community um
and and people that deserve it uh whether certainly these caregivers
were talking about but i don't want to you know escape past either the
individuals that they're caring for so many of these individuals
were here because of where they paved the way for us there um
we're very appreciative of that and anyways we can help make their lives better
it's wonderful to be able to do and we love a good party we love a good
anniversary itself so 40th anniversary and big congratulations to
everybody involved with park place adult day services in that 40th anniversary
i um i will be honest with the audience um when i saw you guys coming up
in the schedule i realized i had not done enough homework on you so i spent the
weekend really researching and finding out that a wonderful story or that
wonderful lady who told us about early on and so many other great things that
you guys do over there but i i i read all this and and it took a while
because you guys do a lot over there i'm i was really looking forward to
talking with you and being able to let our audience know about some of these
services that are you offer over there that may be not
everybody knows about can we talk a little bit about some of the services
offered with a park place adult day services sure one of the most important
things we do for some of our clients is that
we provide showers for them because some of our
people are in wheelchairs and just the way their house is built
the wheel chair is not able to get into the bathroom or they're not able to get
into their tub shower we have a roll in shower and we provide
showers for these people um which really helps nobody likes a bed bath
right right they really like a full shower and a hair wash everything
and they end up coming out and they feel great
one other thing that we can do we can help them with
toileting if they have problems with that we check blood sugars
we can give because i'm an RN i can also administer their insulin
and there are all medications if they have to take that while they're with us
we also provide a hot well-balanced meal every day
and everybody is able to have that meal with us and there is no extra cost to them
there's some other fun activities that you guys offer as well along with these
things and while it's not necessarily in the
mission statement or in some of the details of these services that are offered
when i was doing my homework and doing this deep dive on the things that you do
over there that the over one of the overall themes that i kept getting
back to was dignity and the dignity that the caregiver that the the person
being cared for all individuals involved
there's an underlying theme of dignity involved with this
that um if you're a caregiver you get that a little bit
but i i think that there's even more a meaning for that too of just as much
meaning i should say for the person being cared for and i really appreciate
that in this and the way we um get that to happen not
everybody is gung ho on every single thing we want to do
if they don't want to do morning exercises or the we always do seated
aerobics so nobody gets hurt but if they're not in the mood for that
they can work on a puzzle we don't force anybody to do anything
it's whatever they would like to do it's a very smart approach it's a really
really smart approach to it and everything you also know a little bit of what
you're talking about too it comes a little bit a little bit of both of those
with that this is a wonderful service uh if people want to know if they can
enter the program be a part of this uh what's a great place to start for that
the first place that you would or the first thing you would probably do would
be to give part place a call our telephone number is 715-422-2795
you can set up an appointment with me i would be happy to give you a tour of our
facility and tell you more one-on-one what we can do for your
person that you're calling about um and then um give you that we have an
application packet that you would need to fill out and complete and there's one more
mandatory thing that um each person that comes to part-place has to
fulfill and they have to have a negative TB test done
they can get that done at their clinic or at the Wood County Health Department
wonderful um uh juliana uh this has been great you did too good of a job you're
gonna have to come back now uh that's the catch with all this
and i get to say your name over and over again you have a wonderful day by
love your name so anytime i get say it i'm gonna get to and uh we really do
appreciate everything you guys you and your team are doing for our
community thank you so much and keep up the great work thank you for having me
today one more time on our mind everybody the uh a park place adult
these services are celebrating their 40th anniversary coming up on the 13th of
november from one to three this event is open to the public
and it'll be taking place over a park place correct
oh it's inside okay it's in centralia center yes if everybody is aware where
that is it's um it's located two 23rd avenue south right here in
rapids that beautiful centralia center is where this event will be taking place
the 40th anniversary of the park place adult day services one to three on the
13th be sure to be there we'll be talking about this leading up to the event
uh juliana again thank you for joining us thank you and thank you everyone for
joining us for another edition of wfhr's rapids report