[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: Friends, I’m going to present you with something that we have not had here together in a long time and that is a Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz episode that is actually within the fifteen minute window. That I’ve promised you. Yeah. What’s up? Hello. I’m Fuzz Martin and this is Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz, a show about positive things happening in and around Washington County, Wisconsin.
Each episode, I hope to learn something positive happening in our community. And I hope you learn along with me. This week, Joe Poczkalski of the Washington County Humane Society joins me to talk about their upcoming Oktoberfest celebration, which is happening on Saturday, October 12th, 2024, from 6 till 9pm at the Washington County Humane Society.
It’s going to be a lot of fun, and they’re going to be supporting a lot of pets, as you’re about to hear. And with that, here are 15 minutes on the Washington County Humane Society’s Oktoberfest. With Joe Poczkalski on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Joe, thank you so much for joining me today here on the Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz podcast. So the Washington County Humane Society, you guys do an awesome job of putting on fun and engaging events. You’ve got your mega rummage sale, I was at your Barks and Brews event that you had at Sandy Paws, and the, the Sandy Knoll Park.
You do the Festival of Trees event around the holidays, and of course you have Oktoberfest coming up, so you get to be around pets all day, and you get to come up with fun fundraisers. Do you have the coolest job ever?
[00:01:47] Joe Poczkalski: I do feel like that a lot of the time. Um, as, as much as I’d like to spend more time with the pets, I’m stuck behind a computer screen for a lot of my day, but It’s wonderful.
It’s wonderful to have pets come down the hallway because we just took in a serious case or something like that or walk back at lunch and see all the pets we have. It, it never, it never gets stale, I’ll put it that way. Always interesting, I wear a lot of hats at the shelter, so, if we’re short staffed and we need extra hands to walk dogs, sometimes I’ll hop in and do that.
[00:02:14] Fuzz Martin: Yeah. So,
[00:02:14] Joe Poczkalski: I love having that ability and, and also doing what I do at the shelter too is, is really meaningful. So, I would say yes, coolest job ever.
[00:02:21] Fuzz Martin: But people like me think that you get to play with pets all day, but you, you do have a job, and you do have to, to do things. I, I get it, I understand, I understand.
We’re a pet friendly office here at Epic, so we, We’re hybrid today while you’re here in the studio, so there’s no pets here today, but usually it’s filled with dogs. Love to hear that. Um, so, can you give us a bit of history? So, Oktoberfest has been around for a while, right? How long have you guys been doing that?
[00:02:42] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, this’ll be the 24th year. Wow, okay.
[00:02:44] Fuzz Martin: Okay,
[00:02:45] Joe Poczkalski: and it’s raised a lot of money over the years, right? It sure has. Yeah, we’re closing in on 400, 000 raised with this one event in particular.
[00:02:51] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. And so this year’s event is coming up. When is the event? It is
[00:02:55] Joe Poczkalski: Saturday,
[00:02:56] Fuzz Martin: October 12th,
[00:02:57] Joe Poczkalski: at
[00:02:57] Fuzz Martin: the shelter,
[00:02:58] Joe Poczkalski: which is a lot of fun.
We only do two of our major farmers at the shelter, so we love that we can just set up where we work.
[00:03:04] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, and the shelter is on Highway 60, right in, is it Jackson or Polk, I guess, right?
[00:03:09] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, technically Slinger. We’re in between Slinger and Jackson.
[00:03:13] Fuzz Martin: Okay, all right, very good. And so, Tell us about what people can expect if they haven’t been to the Washington County Humane Society’s Oktoberfest before.
What is it like? What do you guys do at that event?
[00:03:23] Joe Poczkalski: Well, I’ll give a nod to the previous shelter leadership, shelter staff for creating such a unique event and a fun tradition for people too. So, for the past almost quarter century, it’s been a beer tasting event, sampling event. It’s always been sponsored and put on by Jeff Spirits on Maine.
He does a lot for us at Barks and Brews as well, and for Festival of Trees too. He really has an impact throughout our entire fundraising year, so shout out to him for sure. He sets up, a wonderful array of tasting. So tons of breweries and, local, local places, national and regional beer.
Give to Jeff, and then he gives to us, and we, will allow that sampling to happen, at the shelter during the event. It’s tons of fun.
[00:04:02] Fuzz Martin: Great. And so, it’s, pe people pay a ticket, there’s a, I think there’s, is it 50? Is that right? Yes. To get a ticket if you want to do the tasting, and then there’s a, if you’re not into, drinking, if you don’t want to drink alcohol, it’s like, is it 35?
35, yep. Right, so, and you can get those tickets on, Your website,
[00:04:19] Joe Poczkalski: is that right? Yes, on our website online, which is what I recommend doing. We have an early bird special right now until October 1st. So tickets will jump just five bucks, at October 1st. But, you can buy physically, physical tickets too at the shelter or at Jeff’s Spirits on Main 2.
[00:04:31] Fuzz Martin: Very good. And so, so they come in, they’ve got a bunch of different beers and wines, from around, all over the place, right? And you get to taste those. Is there food and those kind of, that kind of stuff too?
[00:04:43] Joe Poczkalski: Yes, that’s a really exciting update this year. In addition to all the really cool sampling, we get really awesome, local beer.
Sometimes we get, the, the local, I think it’s River, River West and West Bend?
[00:04:52] Fuzz Martin: Riverside Brewery.
[00:04:53] Joe Poczkalski: Riverside, yeah. So, in addition to other places too, yeah, we’ll have some really awesome food this year. Authentic German food. Excellent. By, uh, Bo’s Schnitzel Bunker out in, out in Pewaukee. So, we’ll have authentic schnitzel, we’ll have brats, and then, German sides too.
So, really exciting. And German music. German music too. Yeah, the River City Blaska Pels, they’ve also been a staple of the event too. They’ll be by and playing their German hits too.
[00:05:16] Fuzz Martin: Very good.
[00:05:17] Joe Poczkalski: And, um, later, Ozen. I’ll be wearing one. Okay. All right. And a lot of other people will be, I
[00:05:23] Fuzz Martin: hope. All right.
There’s no shortage of lederhosen in this area. I don’t think so. In the October months. Um, and so is there anything like new or special this year versus kind of some of the other years in the past 23 years?
[00:05:36] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, absolutely. In addition to the authentic food, we’ve just kind of had basic brats in past years, but we’ll be stepping up with the food this year.
We’re very excited. We are building a outdoor beer garden, so they’ll have an outdoor space for people to relax and drink and just catch some night air too. And then, we’re just trying to ramp up our games and activities during the event. We have a wine poll, we’ll have a beer poll. That you can participate into.
We’ll have our, our staple wheel, wheel game spin the wheel kind of prize thing. Sure. And then hammer slogging. We’ll have cornhole. And then, just a lot of walking around, sampling and visiting with pets too. So, which one are you better at? Hammer, slogging or, cornhole. I didn’t grow up playing Hammer Schlog and I grew up playing cornhole.
Yeah.
[00:06:15] Fuzz Martin: I think Hammer Schlog is the one that I, I think you don’t grow up playing because most parents are responsible and, hammers and nails, especially the, you know. Drinking part of it. I’m just kidding. But the, Right. , It’s a consideration. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But, obviously a lot of fun.
Can you explain, I just learned about wine pulls at a different charity event that I was at, but can you explain to somebody what a wine pull or a beer pull is and how that works?
[00:06:41] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, it’s kind of a fun, exciting, guessing slash gambling game. You pay a buy in, and I will determine those this year, but it’s relatively affordable.
Sure. For, for what you’re getting, potentially getting. Yeah. You, uh, you pay to, step up, there’s a, kind of a wall of, of hidden objects behind it. So you, you break open, a cubby, pull out a bottle of wine or a case of beer we’re doing, or a six pack of beer. And that, bottle of beer or wine is, is guaranteed to be, worth at least what you paid for it, if not way more.
Okay, excellent, yeah. So you could pull something really cool.
[00:07:10] Fuzz Martin: Right, exactly, exactly. It reminds me of the, um, Price is Right game where there’s like the like paper things that you like bust your hand through. I don’t know if you’re I am. That must have been the inspiration. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you get there, but there sometimes they had losers.
Here there’s no losers. No losers. You walk
[00:07:26] Joe Poczkalski: away with something every time. Yeah.
[00:07:27] Fuzz Martin: And you’re supporting the Washington County Humane Society. So let’s talk about that. These funds obviously go to help the Washington County Humane Society. Can you tell us some of the financial needs that the Humane Society needs to operate and support the animals that you guys take in.
[00:07:44] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, it’s significant. We, we have a large capacity. We have a lot of staff, lots of animals, and we offer a lot of services and programs, too. So, that is all dependent on if we can raise funds to run those things and pay that staff and cover that cost of care per animal. So, events like this that are, are thankfully growing, and growing at a really great pace.
Our rummage sale was, was a record year, last year’s Festival of Trees was a record year. So continuing this trend is extremely helpful. We can guarantee that we can provide the staff to be there for these animals in need, be there for our community members to provide those programs and services to them, so it’s absolutely essential that we that we knock these events out of the park and that people participate and feel generous.
So, we have a great dependency on our giving community, absolutely.
[00:08:25] Fuzz Martin: Sure. And, you know, so, what are some of the things, you know, that go into that care for the animals? What are some of the kinds of expenses that it goes to? Obviously the staff, I mean, you’d mentioned that part, but the You know, I know that sometimes you take in donations of things like paper towels and those kind of things, so, but there’s, you gotta feed animals, right?
Right. I assume there’s a lot of expenses like that, right?
[00:08:50] Joe Poczkalski: Definitely. Some dogs, cats, and small animals require special diets. We don’t always have like ferret food on hand, so when we get ferrets in, we’ve gotta, you know, we’ve gotta, adjust. So, yeah, absolutely. Covering food, medicine, medication, and, and vet costs, too, are, are, we don’t have, well, we, we have, we recently took a vet on staff, but, up until this year, we didn’t have a vet on staff.
[00:09:10] Fuzz Martin: Sure.
[00:09:11] Joe Poczkalski: So, acquiring funds for those, you know, those purchases are, are essential, too. We don’t like to say no if an animal needs something, we, we have the ability to, to go as far as we can with a pet, as long as they’re happy and healthy, we will go the distance with them, whether that be medical, behavioral, so we have, we pour a lot of resources into our pets, and we, we always shoot for positive outcomes, which most of the time happens, but like, like you mentioned, those things don’t come for free, we have to, Build the infrastructure around them so that they can be successful, too.
[00:09:40] Fuzz Martin: Sure, and then these kind of events help, I mean, again, they’re super engaging and you get a lot of community support. And people love animals, so it’s kind of a two fer there. But then that helps to support these programs and staffing and all that. Definitely. On top of that, you also have volunteers, right, that help out.
So, can you tell us about your volunteer needs and how maybe people can help out if they’re in the community and want to support?
[00:10:04] Joe Poczkalski: Absolutely. We actually have over 900 active volunteers. Now, that could be daily, you know, and when I say active, it could be daily, it could be weekly, monthly, or yearly. Okay.
So, but we have that impressive amount of volunteers helping out at all of our fundraisers, daily at the shelter, walking dogs, cleaning. So those Those, volunteers are absolutely critical to what we do, too. We don’t have the staff to be walking, you know, 30 dogs every morning. Oh yeah, yeah. So, someone needs to help out and do that.
And when people step up, it’s really humbling to see how many people step up and sacrifice their weekends, their holidays, It’s incredible. We’re, we’re absolutely dependent on our volunteers as well.
[00:10:40] Fuzz Martin: Sure. I, I’m sure it varies, but how many animals do you guys typically have in at a given time?
[00:10:46] Joe Poczkalski: It does vary quite a bit, but, anywhere from, 100 to potentially 300.
Oh, really? We have a lot of space in the back. The shelter people don’t see. Yeah. We have kennels and cages back there too for pets that are, Getting medical care or waiting to have room free up on the adoption floor. Sure. We could be really full up if we need to be.
[00:11:03] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, and so going back to the volunteer portion of it, having, you know, that’s a lot of manpower needed to make sure those animals are cared for and feeling loved and that they’re getting some exercise and, and being out there and cleaned up and all that stuff.
Animals are work. They’re a lot of work. Yeah, exactly. . So for those who maybe can’t attend the event coming up for Oktoberfest, what are some other ways that they can support the Washington County Humane Society, either during Oktoberfest season or even beyond?
[00:11:33] Joe Poczkalski: Yeah, we always encourage people to come by.
It’s always fun to be in the shelter and see the animals, experience our events, so it’s a ton of fun, but of course people have plans, other traditions, we understand that. Giving during this time, at the end of the year, we have a big push to collect as many donations as we can from our community. Propping us up for the next calendar year.
So giving online or in person. , just visiting too. We have a beautiful, beautifully renovated building. So we always encourage people to come by and see that and, and see the level of care we’re putting in. Just that word of mouth is very helpful too. People will tell friends and family and those people may come by and adopt or visit or donate or buy something at retail, what have you.
Or attend an event.
[00:12:11] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, visiting. Yeah, you guys have, you guys have such cool events and, and they’re all available on your website. You can go see all the things that you guys have coming up and if people, again, want to get tickets to Oktoberfest, what’s your website address again?
[00:12:24] Joe Poczkalski: It’s at, WCHSpets, WashingtonCountyHumaneStudyPets. org. All right, very good. And the date of the Oktoberfest event? October 12th, which is Saturday from 6 to 9 p. m.
[00:12:35] Fuzz Martin: All right, and tickets are available now. Prices go up on October 1st by five bucks, but, you know, get them now. And, that way you guys know how much schnitzel you need, and how many, how much beer you need, and how many nails you need for hammerschlagen.
That’s right. We’re hoping for a lot. Yes, exactly. Joe, thank you so much for coming in, and thanks for all that the Washington County Humane Society does for the pets that need care in our community. Thanks Fuzz for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks again to Joe Poczkalski of the Washington County Humane Society for joining me on this week’s episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
I hope you’re all able to make it to Oktoberfest. It sounds like it’s going to be an awesome time, a paw some time. Whoa, yeah, pet puns. Hey, speaking of great times, if you know of other great times happening in and around Washington County, please tell me about them. Or if you know about positive people or organizations, That’s what this show is all about.
You can email me fuzz at fuzzmartin. com. That is fuzz at fuzzmartin. com or go to fuzzmartin. com slash guest. New episodes drop on Tuesdays. You can listen on Spotify, Apple podcasts, music. I like to download the episodes from my RSS feed from fuzzmartin. com and then. I put them on my swimming headphones and I listen to them in the pool in the morning.
I don’t actually listen to my own podcast, I listen to other podcasts, because I’m not that full of myself and I already listened to this episode while I recorded it, because I have ears. Hey, I’ll talk to you next Tuesday, right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. Thanks for listening.
