We have a couple of ladies joining us in the studio today, Ashley and Zine, who is the director for Ripon's Parks and Recreation Department and Betsy Heffernan of Alliance Laundry Systems.
Ladies, thank you for joining us.
Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Bob.
Good morning.
Good morning.
You know, I'd like to say happy Veterans Day, but I don't know if that's the right terminology for when you're celebrating sacrifices that people have made.
So, you know.
That's a good point.
I
mean, you know, thank you for your service.
We're honoring them today.
How's that?
Okay, there we go.
All right.
Well, one of the reasons that we have both of them in the studio today is because of an announcement that was made at a Ripon City Council meeting about a project at Barlow Park.
And this would be kind of unique.
It would, it would be
How would you say it?
The first laundry themed playground?
Is that correct?
Yes, so a lot of the playground companies that I reached out to, I got a look of what?
So this is definitely not a typical playground design across the U.S.
So it's very unique in that way.
So that's pretty special.
Was this something that the city proposed or was this something that
The alliance worked up.
I remember the moment where we first started talking to this.
I was at a meeting with our city administrator, Adam Sontag, and a totally unrelated meeting.
And he said, hey, how would alliance feel about making a contribution toward a new playground at Barlow Park?
And I said,
I think that we would be interested in that because the park first came to be because one of our founders, J.B.
Barlow Jr., donated land to the city in 1937.
So we have a tie to the park as a company and as Adam and I talked about it more, the idea
gathered momentum.
I took it back to the company.
We got approval for a donation for the park.
And here we are.
Okay.
But that also comes with a hefty donation as well, I believe, right?
Well, through Alliance Laundry Cares, which is our charitable giving program, we support various things, not only in the ripping community, but in communities around the state, around the country, where our team members live and work.
And we make monetary contributions.
We also donate laundry equipment.
So this is part of Alliance Laundry Cares.
and we're very happy to do this for the people of Ripon.
We have so many employees and their families that live in Ripon and they and their children use the park.
So we do this in their honor as well as to honor our founder and his original contribution to the city.
Okay, so a hundred thousand dollar donation, but
The cost estimate is $300,000.
So you're going to have a period of fundraising, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
The city will have a period of fundraising.
And it would, as of right now, be a 2028 project.
So a year, over a full year of fundraising for it.
You have to ask, where in the park would this be located?
Is it replacing any old equipment?
Yeah, so it would be replacing the structure that's right in front of the basketball courts at Barlow, the first playground you walk into.
It's a 30 year old playground.
It is well loved, but it's definitely past its useful life.
Playgrounds are typically like 25 years replacement periods.
So we're over that.
It's deteriorating.
There's just a lot of
parts of it need to be replaced.
So it's like a full reconstruct of that playground, which is super exciting.
Yeah, I can't help myself.
It's not going to be coin operated equipment, is it?
coin operators.
That would be fun.
But
Ashton and her team have come up with a really fun design.
Okay.
And the pictures, when we first saw them, we were like, Oh, wow, I can't believe what the designers have done.
You know, it has all of the elements that you expect from a playground.
But
Instead of, you know, the way you usually think of monkey bars, they have them shaped like hangers.
So
the
kids can do the hand over hand, but on a hanger instead of just, you know, a plain bar.
They also were inspired by some of the elements from our assembly line process.
And so the kids can kind of move along conveyor belt type.
Slides.
Yes, slides.
And...
And of course, you know, some of the other elements incorporate bubbles for laundry soap.
And then we have the colors of blue, which are part of the Alliance logo.
And, you know, we were all familiar with the Merrill go around on a traditional playground.
Well, this one is shaped like a washing machine agitator.
So we just loved that.
So we're very excited about what the city was able to come up with in terms of design.
So I have to ask because normally with something like this you bid out a project Is there someone out there that will be able to customize the equipment for you or
so?
Yeah, so we put out an RFP Just under two years ago to 13 playground companies and in that it was to create a custom playground
to propose custom playground.
So it is a custom playground.
You can go a half million, million dollars and make everything custom, like they can customize literally anything, but with our price range, that is what essentially custom got us with the price range we originally proposed to the playground manufacturers.
Well, and
we looked at a number of different proposals.
The city was kind enough to include us in that process.
And so I think we had four different design proposals that we looked
at.
And
so we worked with the city to choose the design that not only
had the most fun with the laundry elements, but that was also cost effective.
So we think we have a really good balance with that and just a cool, attractive playground where kids are going to have fun playing and parents are going to enjoy bringing their children to the playground.
You know, this is probably going to inspire other communities to do some kind of themed playground type of situation with what they have too.
So, but again, fundraising during 2027, don't have a mechanism for that yet.
Not yet.
Okay.
But if somebody wanted to give already, who would they contact?
They can contact me.
Okay.
Yep.
Ashton, sorry, me as an Ashton.
The Parks and Recreation Department, right?
Yes.
Don't bother Betsy though,
right?
We'll direct
you to this city.
Okay, yeah, that would be a good idea.
So again, the fundraising would be during 2027 and hopefully
construction and completion in 2028?
Well, and 2028 is a very important year for our company, which is why we found this project and being a part of this so attractive.
We will be celebrating 120 years of our company.
We were founded in 1908
And this was something that just lined up really well with that celebration.
It's an opportunity to celebrate our heritage, to celebrate our founding, and to do something that enhances the community where so many of our team members live and work.
So I'm guessing that when you have the ribbon cutting, there may be a few kids there for that?
Yeah, for sure.
Oh, that's a ways
off.
We've got a
year
to plan this, but
I think we will have a very fun party for everyone
when we open this playground.
Yes.
Well, it is certainly going to be a unique attraction for the park and the city and for Alliance.
Yes, we're very proud and we're very grateful of our partnership with the city of Rippon.
The city has been very good to us over the years and provides us with an incredible workforce.
And we're very proud that we got our start here in Rippon and that we have remained in Rippon for 120 years.
So this is a wonderful way to honor that heritage and to celebrate our team members and everything they do for the company.
Good stuff, ladies.
Anything else?
I don't think so.
No?
Okay.
Well,
Our thanks to Ashton Zien and Betsy Heffernan for joining us this morning.
Thank you Bob.
Joining us at this time, we have Kim Miller, who is the public health officer for Fond du Lac County.
Thanks for joining us, Kim.
Thank you for having me, Bob.
Today, we're going to talk about the measles.
You know, I think probably over the last few months, I've talked to you about this several times.
This is something that we've been keeping an eye on, originally reported in the Southwest Wisconsin.
But getting closer and closer to us, they had five confirmed cases in Green Lake County, which I believe the people that contracted the measles, contracted it in another county where there are measles, if I remember the information correctly.
But how are we doing here in Fond du Lac County?
Do we have any cases yet?
Yeah, so far in Fond du Lac County, we don't have our first case, but I wouldn't be surprised if we would get
a case or two that trickles in in the upcoming weeks or months.
We're not immune to not getting a measles case here.
It's occurring more in our Amish Plain community and many
counties throughout Wisconsin, we don't have that specific population here.
But again, we do have a number of clusters of individuals and families that are not fully vaccinated.
So the chance of us getting a case could be likely depending on where they go, where they travel, who they're around.
Right and sadly there was one death reported was that in Grant County?
I thought I heard
Yeah, I don't know exactly it was in that southern South Southwestern one of those counties.
I don't know specifically Where and how old but they did say infant
Okay
The MMR shot or measles mom's rubella, how much protection does that afford one if you get the vaccine?
Yeah, so I mean it is It is a very effective vaccine.
So if you get two doses of MMR, you are approximately 97% It's 97% effective at preventing measles
One dose is approximately 93% effective.
And just kind of a little note, if you're not familiar with this, children typically receive their first dose at around 12 to 15 months old.
So real young around their first birthday.
And then that second dose of MMR is given around about four to six years old.
By the time you enter school, you are typically fully vaccinated.
All right.
So if you're vaccinated as a child, does that protect you for the rest of your life?
It absolutely does.
And so if you are, let's say you're an adult and you're unsure of your vaccination status, you can call your primary care provider.
They can easily look that up.
It is something that you can look up on your own as well.
And you could go online and it can talk you through how to get to the Wisconsin immunization registry and look that up.
But again, you know, that there's a bunch of steps to that.
And so if you just call your primary care provider, they have that right at their fingertips.
Okay.
What should we know about the symptoms?
Well,
I'm going to ask you about the symptoms, but when do you start to notice them?
I guess, you know, from the point that somebody gets the
measles until they start
exhibiting that.
So.
Yeah.
So early symptoms can include high fever, cough, runny nose, red, watery eyes, and just a general overall feeling of feeling unwell.
So a few days later after those symptoms appear, red blotchy rash will typically begin around on the hairline or face and then it spreads down the body.
And so that's the important note.
You know, there's a lot of thicknesses that have
high fever cough, runny nose, right?
But if you start to develop red blotchy rash, typically beginning around the hairline or face and spreading downward,
down the body.
That would be a key piece that you would want to call your primary care provider.
Let them know you're experiencing these symptoms and they will tell you the next steps.
They don't want you to just show up at the ER or just show up at urgent care or the doctor's office.
They want to know all that because there's going to be a special way that they're going to
They're going to test you and they're going to talk with you because it is so contagious.
They don't want you to infect everybody else around you.
Is there any known relief for some of these symptoms that are experienced with the measles?
Yeah, you know, I mean, so let's say you were exposed, you know, there is a potential opportunity depending on how quickly you get vaccinated from that exposure that maybe you won't develop measles, but again, it is highly
infectious and you have to catch it within like day like just a couple days after the exposure so likely you wouldn't know that you were exposed and you wouldn't catch it very quickly so it really would just be kind of working through you know those symptoms and some people you know need to have further help they get hospitalized and the doctor will work through you know
what they need to based on what you're experiencing at the hospital, but typically people will, you know, get better on their own.
Okay.
If you have the measles, how long do you have to be?
Well, for lack of a better team, a term quarantined.
Yeah.
So it would be isolated if you do have measles and it would be, you know, after the rash is,
you know, kind of like scabbed up and taking care of.
Now that's probably not the important part because we will work with and the providers will work with that person to determine when that person is no longer infectious, but the important piece to understand is exposure.
And so
And we kind of call it something called incubation period.
So it can be seven to up to 21 days after that person was exposed that they could start developing symptoms.
So that's why it's really important to kind of understand what those symptoms are and understand if you were exposed so you can pay attention.
Are you starting to experience this?
Now are you starting to experience a rash and kind of working through that?
The other important thing, Bob, would be who is at risk.
So our more vulnerable population tends to have more severe complications, and that would be our infants, young children, especially those under the age of five, pregnant women, people with a weakened immune system.
And then ultimately, anyone who is unvaccinated or did not complete their vaccination would be at risk.
Would any personal protection equipment help if you haven't been vaccinated and you're out in the public because you're talking Thanksgiving, Christmas, hunting camps coming
up?
Yeah, you know, personal protective equipment such as, you know, masking with an N95.
This is airborne.
So you would need a well-fitted N95 mask and typically the average person.
is not going to be, you know, fit tested where it fits where, you know, the virus isn't able to get through.
So I think the difficulty, you know, that's going to be the difficult piece.
And so the best thing that people can do if they want to protect themselves is to get fully vaccinated.
So that virus doesn't have an opportunity to jump from one person to the next.
And then just in general terms, Bob, you know, we do have
holidays coming up and I know it is so difficult to think of not going to that one holiday that this one year if you are sick, but you know, especially depending on who is coming to these gatherings, you know, if there's this vulnerable population and you are sick with whatever you're sick with, because typically we don't know what it is, you know, at least initially, please don't go to these gatherings because it's, you know, we don't want to continue to spread these viruses.
whether it would be measles or it would be influenza or COVID or whatever it may be at that time.
All good advice.
Kim, thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you, Bob.