Stay tuned for In Our Range on the way next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
This morning I'm joined by Doreen McKinless from the Northwoods Hub.
The Northwoods Hub is a volunteer run organization located on Martha Lake Road in Mercer.
It was formerly known as the Mercer Senior Center.
Though the name has changed over its 47-year history, it has primarily functioned as a place for seniors to gather, share fun times, enjoy nutritious food and socialize, while also providing a site for various community events and activities.
Doreen McKinless is a board member and also the vice president of the Friends of the Mercer Senior Center.
She grew up in Ironwood and graduated from Luther L. Wright.
She owned an operated guys and dolls salon for many years here.
She's here this morning to discuss the Northwoods Hub in this Saturday's event there.
Bless your art.
Bless your art will feature local artists, outdoors enthusiasts, makers, and hobbyists sharing their skills, passions, and experience.
Good morning, Doreen, and welcome to In Our Range.
Thank you, Mike.
How are you today?
I'm wonderful.
So the Northwoods Hub, formerly known as the Mercer Senior Center, it's been around for 47 years.
Yeah.
And all kinds of activities.
And you were letting me know that it is an entirely volunteer-run organization.
I didn't know that.
It is totally volunteer-run.
We have no employees, no director, just us people who are very passionate about keeping that place going.
We also only operate off of donations and fundraisers and we are renting the facility out to be able to cover our costs, but we provide a lot of programs for the people in the community at no cost.
Most of them, some of them there is a minimal charge, but very little.
Wonderful.
Yeah, there are a lot of free events like we were promoting the chair exercise group that meets in the wintertime on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, we have a lot.
We even have actually coffee.
three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
We call it the morning perk, and it's from 8 to 11.
There's treats there, there's coffee there, and good conversation and making new friends, and there is no charge.
And that happens on, you said, Tuesdays?
Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday.
From 8 a.m.
to 11?
8 to 11.
Before we get into the Bless Your Art event, what are some other ongoing events that are happening at the Northwoods Hub this summer?
In the summer we have just started actually at 10 o'clock on Mondays the Strong Body Program which is supposed to be just wonderful as you age to help with balance and keeping you fit.
There is going to be a walking program starting on June 23rd and that will be twice a week taking walks together.
We have a healthy choices program on Mondays from 11 to 11 45 and that is dealing with choosing healthier foods not necessarily losing weight but just trying to have a healthier diet.
So those things are running all the time along with our meals on Wednesday and Thursday we have a fabulous cook.
so we're very blessed to have her and there is a nutritionist through this is all through the ADRC they rent from the facility and they provide these meals twice a week they also have actually home meals that go out Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday for people that are shut in and can't get out to come to the center and then we have a few programs we have a citywide rummage sale coming up
in July or sorry June 20th from 9 to 4.
We rent out spaces in our parking lot for people that live way out and they maybe don't have a lot to sell but they would like to sell some things.
Last year we had 300 people come through the door.
Oh no kidding.
We had a hot dog sale inside.
It's the frankly fantastic hot dog bar.
It's new ski hot dogs with over 20 toppings along with chips and pop and you can come in where air conditioned.
We have bathrooms so it's a great way to take a break in your rummaging and have a good time.
On the 5th, from 8.30 to 12, we have a pancake breakfast, which is a fundraiser.
It's $10.
All you can eat pancakes.
5 to 10 year olds, it's $5 and under 5 it's free.
We have a bunch of raffle prizes that you can buy tickets for and they're wonderful.
I think that's about all it's going on so far, but you know...
There's always someone coming up with another idea, so who knows what's in our future?
Yeah, it sounds almost inspired, like such a vibrant community with so many wonderful things happening from working on just making healthier choices to having the opportunities to engage in social activities, which is incredibly important for health of people of all ages, as well as sort of adding on to the rummage sale that happens on the 20th in order to promote local vendors and give
people a break and a rest and that's when the uh frankly fantastic event happens as well yes on that day yes and so keep keep your eyes open i'm sure we'll be promoting that here in the mornings at least and on our community events calendar on tune 20th so the northwoods hub formerly known as the mercer senior center is this volunteer run program sounds like a very vibrant community with a lot of lovely people using their talents and skills to create a place for folks of
all ages to socialize, but really to help folks who maybe are entering retirement or have been retired for a while and give them a sense of place and a sense of, you know, a village and a community.
Exactly.
And you know, as life goes through, things change.
And if you've lost a spouse who that person was your job, taking care of them, all of a sudden you have all this extra time.
This gives you a place to come to find a place that you can fill that extra time with.
You know, in the winter we have a midweek mingle where we try to bring speakers in on Wednesdays.
Everything from scams.
teaching seniors how to deal with the calls you get or even through the mail that looks legitimate but is not.
We have two police officers that have been down twice now alerting people to the new scams that are coming out so that they don't get taken advantage of.
And they are happening so frequently and they're getting more hard to detect.
It is
and it's
so believable
when they you
know and they
They kind of pressure you and make you feel guilty if you don't do something about this right now.
And we're from a generation where we feel we want to deal with things right away and take care of it.
So it's easy to fall into that trap.
Yeah, and especially if you don't really have the social network around you to learn about, hear about these things, understand and be supported when you experience them, you can be left more vulnerable to those kinds of scams and things like that.
That's a tremendous service.
Well, and we do that, but we do fun things
too.
We had a
guy come that taught us how to make beer.
Just last week we had a wine tasting event.
So, you know, we have cookie decorating, which is actually interactive.
You get the cookies and you learn how to actually make these cookies look just like you got them from a bakery.
It's amazing what you can do.
So there's a lot of fun things too.
yeah well it sounds like mostly fun things even sometimes learning about scams though it may sound like a tense moment if you're learning it with friends and you know that you can
have a couple laughs and talk about some moments that happened.
Whenever I find a live scammer on my phone.
Yes.
I have a pretty good time with them.
Do you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I stream a live take as much of their time as I possibly can and give them nothing and then I never hear from them again.
Yeah.
And I found that that's the only way to not hear from them again.
I
don't answer.
Yeah.
If it's a number that I don't recognize or know.
Usually I do not answer if it's somebody that really wants me they'll leave a message
and that's wise
Yeah, and that's kind of what they advise you to do.
Yeah
Because that way you're not getting pulled in.
Yeah, you
know
So you are mentioning that you have this wonderful cook for Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
We do
as well
Yes,
and what kind of meals can folks usually expect that down there in the evening?
I ate
I'm very excited.
Next week on Thursday, we're having a soup and salad day, which is thrilling to me.
So I'm signing up for sure.
But we go from light meals like that to the ribs or gnocchi's or, I mean, she does it all.
It's amazing.
She'll make homemade pizzas.
I mean, but they do have a dietitian.
at the ADRC that approves all the meals before there and it's a very, you know, you've got your vegetable, you've got your main course, they always have a dessert, they have coffee, so it's, you know, you get a full meal.
Yeah, it sounds like there are just so many talented folks bringing their skills to keep this community just sort of vibrant and rolling and it sounds like there's a lot of joy involved in doing all this work as well, a sense of purpose.
Yes.
And I think that as people age, we like to share what we've learned along the way.
And I think that's a good thing.
Yeah.
You know, very good for us mentally.
Yeah, it sure is.
It's part of moving into elderhood.
Yes.
Right.
Yes.
We may find that there's some less things that we used to be good at that we can do, but we've got all this wisdom and knowledge.
And if only there's someone to share it with.
Yes.
Yes.
And it's amazing how many people are receptive to learning.
That's incredible.
About
different new things.
Bringing together different generations and forming those bonds.
Correct.
Incredible.
Yeah.
So let's get into talking about Bless Your Art.
I just got back into town this last weekend and I saw the promo for it.
It seems like an incredible event.
Would you like to describe it and how it came about?
Sure.
When I retired, I had worked 42 years and I really loved my job.
Totally.
loved my customers, loved everything about it.
And I retired right when COVID hit.
And so there you were trapped in your house, essentially.
I didn't have the interactions that I was used to.
And my husband had retired quite a bit before me.
And so he had kind of taken over all the jobs in the house.
And I was left kind of floating like, OK, so what do I do?
I kept telling him, so what is my job here?
little by little I learned about different things in Mercer and I started trying them when we could finally leave the house and it took me a long time to find my purpose and finding my purpose was finding the Northwoods Hub.
So my purpose is customer service and I've discovered that.
So I thought
Wouldn't it be nice, because I don't know how many more years I have left, and I wasted a few trying to figure this all out.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a place where people could come and see all of the things that are out there to do, that maybe they always wanted to learn how to quilt, but they never knew how to go about learning how to quilt.
So now we have quilters coming that are going to show them simple ways
or simple things to make, explain to them how to do it, what supplies they would need, roughly the cost of these things.
We have somebody from Mecca coming, which is the cross-country ski snowshoeing thing in Mercer, talking about if you are like 55, 60, you're still active.
You're not ready to be knitting or making quilts.
Instead, you want to be active.
you know you can we have their group we have a kayaking walking snowshoeing group and they'll teach you where all the trails are everywhere you want to go um that you wouldn't know especially if you moved in or you never did it before because you never had time you would know where to go so it's it's more about exposing you to all these different
possibilities and then letting you pick and we are going to have a volunteer table there too because that is a passion for a lot of people like me that I volunteer at the resale shop in town and then I also work at the Northwoods Hub and I get a lot of satisfaction at both of those and I've made a lot of friends which is huge.
Yeah I could imagine after running a salon for a few decades it's almost its own little community center there
This fills up something for you that you were getting when you owned your business there for a long time and something that you didn't realize you would miss so much.
Exactly.
Well, they became my family.
And so when I left Ironwood and I moved to Mercer, it's like I lost my job, my family, my purpose, and I had to figure it out again.
And I would like people to be able to come to that center as a resource.
So, so that we can help you get to wherever it is you want to be.
Yeah, create some belonging and significance.
And so this event fosters a sort of period of time for people to mentor each other and be initially mentored, which is an
which is a very important relationship in our communities because it builds bonds, it builds a sense of belonging and helps people gain skills doing the things that they love from people that they can trust.
Well, and who are your friends?
Your friends are people who like the things you like.
Yeah.
So if you find something that you both enjoy, I bet you'll make a friend.
I think so too.
Yeah.
So the Bless Your Art event happens tomorrow on Saturday from 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m.
at the Northwoods Hub there on Martha Lake Road.
and Mercer.
Before we get on out of here, is there anything else you'd like to add today, Doreen?
Well, I would really like to encourage people to think about renting our facility.
We have that commercial kitchen.
I used the facility when I had my husband's 70th birthday party last year, and the caterer that I had said it was a wonderful place.
to be able to work out of.
So it's air-conditioned.
There's two bathrooms.
It's a good size.
You know, it serves a lot of purposes there.
And we have our parking lot.
It's very accessible.
It's right off the highway.
So hopefully people will consider renting it because that helps us.
provide the other services that
we're doing.
And with graduation parties going on and all of those kinds of things could be the perfect event to escape the skaters.
Yes,
baby showers.
I
mean, it's perfect for any of that.
Wonderful.
And so people can find more information about the Northwoods Hub on their website, MercerSeniorCenter.com.
And you can find more information there for either renting the facility or checking out their calendar of events or finding out more about how you can be involved and volunteer at the Northwoods Hub and be a part of this vibrant community.
Dorian, thank you for joining us this morning.
Oh, thank you, Mike.
It's been a pleasure.
Really appreciate you being here.
My guest this morning was Doreen McKinless.
She is on the board and also vice president of Friends of the Northwoods Hub and we discussed all the wonderful events happening at the Northwoods Hub and the great opportunities to be a part of that community as well as the Bless Your Art event happening tomorrow from 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m.
at the Northwoods Hub on Martha Lake Road in Mercer.
I'm Mike LeBeau, your host of In Our Range.
Thanks for joining us this morning.
We'll see you next week.
