[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: It’s July, I’m starting the season a little early. Why? Because it’s my show and I want to. Here we are, the fourth season of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. My name is Fuzz Martin, and this is my show. Here, we feature positive things happening in and around Washington County, Wisconsin. Why Washington County? I just picked a random county on the map.
I also live here and own a business here, so maybe it wasn’t that random after all. Anyway, uh, before we get started with today’s episode, I want to give you a little housekeeping. You want towels? Over the brief break between season three and season four, I moved. And when I say I moved, I don’t mean that I moved, but my website moved.
I decided to consolidate my life and I have taken everything over to fuzzmartin. com. So all episodes of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz are now available on fuzzmartin. com and all future episodes will be there as well. So you can find my blog there and all episodes of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. There are still a few things that I’m cleaning up and working out.
I’ve had that website since February of 2002. And I figured, hey, why wrestle with working on two different sites when you can just wrestle with one? Speaking of wrestling and high school sports that I was no good at, uh, let’s talk about football. And then let’s talk about football fields. And then let’s talk about an event for the Youth and Family Project, which is happening on the West Bend High School’s football field.
On Saturday, July 27th, I’m like the team captain of Segways. Emily Greene of the Youth and Family Project joins me this week to talk about their upcoming Christmas in July fundraiser happening at the football fields at West Bend High Schools. And I’m really excited for it, mostly because I get to be the field announcer, which has been a dream of mine ever since the L L L Lambo Field commercials back in the day.
I get to finally do that. That dream finally gets to come true. Kids, if you ever have a dream, just chase it. With that, here are 15 minutes on the Christmas in July fundraiser with Emily Greene of the Youth and Family Project. Right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Emily, thank you so much for coming back on to Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. You were on season one. I’ve since upgraded from the basement here at EPIC to a studio. And it’s great to have you in here. Thank you for coming on.
[00:02:44] Emily Greene: Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:02:45] Fuzz Martin: So can first of all, it’s been a while. So can you please tell us A bit about the Youth and Family Project and your mission here in Washington County.
[00:02:55] Emily Greene: Yeah, the Youth and Family Project, our mission is to provide supportive services to youth and families, helping them achieve an increased sense of safety, hope, and belonging. So all of our programs and services really center around those ideas of safety, hope, and belonging, and ensuring that So,
[00:03:16] Fuzz Martin: a few weeks ago, Limor Hendricks from Youth and Family Project reached down and asked if I would emcee an event that you have coming up called Christmas in July at the West Bend High School football stadium.
Youth and Family Project is known for one of your actual Christmas events, the, uh, the Gingerbread House, which helps provide presents and gifts to, people who may not, otherwise have gifts or may not get a lot of, Christmas joy, I guess. So, I heard about Christmas in July. It sounds like a lot of fun.
Can you kind of give us an overview of what this New event for Youth and Family Project is going to be about.
[00:03:56] Emily Greene: Yeah, absolutely. So, our Christmas in July event, is really meant to be about having fun, and providing opportunities for families in Washington County, to spend time together and, be entertained and just really enjoy life.
So really bringing in that piece of joy, that relates to Christmas and bringing it into July. So we’ll, we’ll have a, the feature of the event will be kind of a zany competition of celebrity athletes. They will be competing to become the ultimate holiday champions. All right. And then in addition to that, we’ll have concessions, we’ll have other crafts and activities, a resource table and all sorts of fun stuff.
[00:04:32] Fuzz Martin: So, can I ask who the celebrity competitors are going to be?
[00:04:37] Emily Greene: Sure. We’re officially announcing them this week on Facebook. We’ve announced our first two. Our first team is Steve Thiery from West Bend Library and Al Jung from Dunn Brothers. Excellent. The next team that we’ll be announcing is, Jay Shambeau from the City of West Bend.
and Ralph Schloss from the West Bend School District. And then our final team is a father son duo, which is Pete and Jack Rettler. So Pete is of West Bend, or Moraine Park Technical College, and Jack works at Schloemer Law Offices.
[00:05:08] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. Yeah, Pete and Jack help out, work a lot with the Wisconsin 9 11 Memorial.
Pete’s on our board there, and and so you’ve got a good group, all around of competitors, so it should be a lot of fun. And I am more than excited that you are giving me a microphone to, to announce things. So, you have some zany competitions that they’re going to be participating in. Can you share, give us a taste of what some of those competitions are going to be?
[00:05:35] Emily Greene: Yeah, absolutely. So our competitors will be competing in three different races. So it’ll be kind of track and field style. First they will be participating in a pantomime reindeer race. So they’ll don a two person reindeer costume, which we’re DIYing this week. And race to the finish line like a traditional race.
The second competition will be a blind obstacle course where our competitors have to retrieve, Christmas gifts from underneath a forest of Christmas trees, and load them onto a sled. And then the final competition will be delivering those gifts, Past the finish line, so they’ll load them up onto a rescue raft and, work their way down a slip and slide.
[00:06:13] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. All right. Perfect for July and for Christmas. What inspired you to do a Christmas theme in July? What, what made that come to be?
[00:06:21] Emily Greene: Yeah, so it was kind of a playoff of our Gingerbread House program. You know, we do so much around the holidays and it’s a busy time. And so putting on some kind of holiday event during the season is, would be probably too much.
So our thought process was, let’s bring it into July and, and have some fun with it outside of the holiday season.
[00:06:39] Fuzz Martin: So, in addition to the competitors that you have, you also have some other kind of events going on. You have a White Elephant Silent Auction, how is that going to work?
[00:06:50] Emily Greene: Yeah. So, we are recruiting some fun silent auction baskets, and there’ll be all sorts of different things.
We’re looking at having, some wonderful goods donated by a local farm, we’ll have a hair products basket, lots of different things, and within each basket there’ll be some sort of surprise to bring in the white elephant aspect of it.
[00:07:08] Fuzz Martin: Like a velvet Elvis or something maybe?
[00:07:11] Emily Greene: You never know.,
[00:07:13] Fuzz Martin: Alright. That’s kind of the joy of a white elephant is you might not know what you’re going to get
[00:07:21] Emily Greene: Some of it might be pretty cool. Some of it might be pretty wacky.
[00:07:23] Fuzz Martin: Yes. Always something to look forward to. And uh Are there any other kinds of events or anything going on for the spectators that are there at the time or refreshments, anything like that?
[00:07:33] Emily Greene: Yes, so we’ll have concessions. We’ll be selling subs from Cousin Subs. We’ll have sodas and snacks and things like that. And then we’ll also have some other activities. Specifically we’ll have a snowball fight, probably with rolled up tube socks. And then we’ll have some crafts as well.
[00:07:48] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. We recently had a, we’ve discovered at my house, those refillable water balloons. Have you seen those? Yes,
[00:07:55] Emily Greene: yes, those are fun.
[00:07:56] Fuzz Martin: Those are a lot of fun. Also, never have been so soaked in a water balloon fight in my life. But also didn’t have to clean up all the water balloon shrapnel. But, rolled up tube socks, probably even cleaner than that.
Um, So, the event itself, it’s very affordable to get in to spectate. It’s five dollars for, is that right?
[00:08:14] Emily Greene: Yep, five dollars for adults. Kids are free. Really the goal is to help raise awareness about our organization. Um, we are recruiting sponsors to help with the fundraising aspect of it. Um, and there’ll be a 50 50 raffle as well, so.
There’ll be some opportunities there for fundraising, too.
[00:08:30] Fuzz Martin: The event is on, it’s Saturday, July 27th, right? It starts at what time?
[00:08:35] Emily Greene: Uh, from noon to three.
[00:08:36] Fuzz Martin: Noon to three o’clock. And, you know, what kind of role does a fundraiser like Christmas in July play in supporting the Youth and Family Project?
[00:08:46] Emily Greene: So, Fundraising is relatively new for Youth and Family Projects, over the years we’ve delved into it, but this will be probably my first foray into, fundraising pretty seriously, and what we’re finding is that, you know, the grant, landscape is changing quite a bit, especially when it comes to government contracts and things like that.
Right now we’re in the midst of a question of, the Victims of Crime Act is experiencing significant cuts across the country. And that, is one of the major funders for one of our programs, our supervised visit program. So realizing we need to do better about diversifying our funding and ensuring that when those cuts happen that we can still maintain a level of services.
[00:09:26] Fuzz Martin: Sure. And then you also need, I know like a couple years ago you were fundraising for a capital project like A Roof. And I know there’s like some security upgrades and things like that that you guys look to fundraise for as well, right?
Yes. Yeah, definitely. So we have, , at our facility, like I said, we do the supervised visits there.
We also do some support groups for LGBTQ youth. And what we’re finding is that that security element is really essential to our services. So we have a security camera system, that is aging and is really at this point needing to be upgraded. Then, as well as that, you know, investing in some exterior lighting and making sure that when families come to our facility that they are safe and that we can, you know, provide the most, safe environment for them to be in.
Sure. You had mentioned some sponsors of that. Are there, uh, there’s obviously some sponsorship opportunities still available for this, uh, Christmas in July and the Youth and Family Project all around?
[00:10:19] Emily Greene: Yes, absolutely. We will be, since it’s our first year doing this, we’ll probably be accepting sponsorships, pretty much right up until the event itself.
[00:10:26] Fuzz Martin: Okay. Very good. And are there any. Sponsors, I, I didn’t prep you to ask that I was going to ask you this ahead of time, but are there any sponsors, right now that you’d like to plug or say thanks to?
[00:10:37] Emily Greene: Sure, yeah. Schreiber Foods stepped up and, donated 500 to the fundraiser, so we’re really excited about that.
And I actually just received word this morning that we’ll be, receiving 1, 000 from the Sunrise Rotary Club as well. Oh, excellent. So I’m very excited about that.
[00:10:50] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, very good. That’s excellent. So. Let’s go back and talk a little bit about the Youth and Family Project. You’ve kind of talked from a high level, but can you talk about some of the key services and support that you provide in both families and LGBTQ plus individuals in our community?
[00:11:07] Emily Greene: Yeah, absolutely. So, with Youth and Family, we like to stick to our brand. And we have a youth wing and a family services wing. Within our youth services, we have both individual and group counseling services available to youth. And then we also have kind of a transitional youth program called the Youth Systems Navigation Program.
And really that focuses in on those really high risk youth, who when they turn 18 are facing homelessness, or imminent risk of homelessness. Our goal with that is to provide support and guidance to them so that they, you know, don’t have to navigate, you know, becoming an adult alone and entering into a totally system of ser different system of services.
To ensure that, you know, we can prevent them from becoming homeless, and if they are experiencing that, that we can get them housed as soon as possible. And then give them the skills they need to, you know, support them through that and maintain that housing as well. On the family services side of things, many people know about our Gingerbread House program.
It’s a holiday gift giving program. Families sign up in, September through, right about Thanksgiving. To receive holiday support. What makes that program unique from other, programs in Southeastern Wisconsin is that most other programs provide services just to the kids in the family and sometimes just the young kids.
But we do things a little bit differently. We provide gifts to the whole family. So that allows families to access things that. Things like food share doesn’t cover, you know, food share doesn’t cover bath towels, food share doesn’t cover toilet paper, and those are essential items that families need, that sometimes they just simply can’t afford.
So our goal is to ensure that, you know, the parents can ask for those types of things at Christmastime. and then our other family service is our, supervised visitation program. So families who’ve been divided either through the family court system, typically because of domestic violence or substance abuse issues.
Or sometimes Child Welfare, can come to our agency building and, the parent who has some kind of identified safety concern is able to spend time under the supervision of our staff with their children, and really work on developing that parent child relationship and ensure that it’s a healthy, nurturing parent child relationship.
[00:13:10] Fuzz Martin: And you guys are located here in West Bend, right?
[00:13:13] Emily Greene: Yep, yep. We’re right downtown by the post office at, on the corner of 7th and Elm Street.
[00:13:17] Fuzz Martin: And do you service all of, West Bend or Washington County, or what’s the service area of Youth and Family Project?
[00:13:22] Emily Greene: Primarily Washington County. With our supervised visitation program, it expands a little bit further into southeastern Wisconsin.
Just because West Bend tends to be a midpoint for families.
[00:13:32] Fuzz Martin: Sure, certainly, kind of the county seat, as well.
[00:13:35] Emily Greene: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Fuzz Martin: And then, if people want to get involved and they, you know, hear about Youth and Family Project and it sounds like something that they’d like to volunteer with or support, what’s the best way to, you know, get in touch or, or get involved with Youth and Family?
[00:13:50] Emily Greene: Yeah, we try to keep our, postings on the Volunteer Center up to date. But you can always reach out to us. Our contact info is on the website, youthandfamilyproject. org. And right now we’re recruiting for volunteers for a Christmas in July event, as well as our marketing and fundraising committees. So helping, having people to help spread the load of the work and come up with more creative ideas.
[00:14:16] Fuzz Martin: So when you say the Volunteer Center, for those who may not know, that’s the Volunteer’s, Center of Washington County’s website, right? So volunteer now, volunteernow. net, the website that you go to. Anytime that you’re looking to maybe do something within the community, you can go there and look for different volunteer projects that might fit within the kind of,
projects that you might like to volunteer with, including the Youth and Family Projects, Christmas in July, or other kind of projects that you have going on. The Youth and Family Project’s been around for 35 years, right?
[00:14:45] Emily Greene: Yeah, we’ve been around since 1975.
[00:14:48] Fuzz Martin: Oh, 1975, okay. Longer than that.
[00:14:50] Emily Greene: Yeah, so we’ve been in Washington County for about 35 years, but the agency originated in Port Washington in 1975.
Really with that Crossroads Youth Program. It was under a different name at the time, but serving youth, who were at risk was really our mission at the time. Okay.
[00:15:04] Fuzz Martin: And what kind of, impacts has, the county, we’ll just say the county in the 35 years that Youth and Family has been here in Washington County, what kind of impacts has the county seen from Youth and Family over those years?
[00:15:19] Emily Greene: I think one of the biggest impacts of the Youth and Family Project is our individual counseling services. So over the years we’ve developed a relationship with many of the local school districts to provide direct one on one counseling services to youth within the school. So whether it be West Bend High School or we’ve been in Hartford Union High School, we’ve been pretty much all over the county.
Providing those services, and it really does a number of things, to eliminate barriers to mental health services. Youth aren’t, worrying about transportation. They aren’t worrying about their after school schedule. They’re able to receive the services right where they are, and it’s very convenient, but also ensures that their needs are met.
[00:16:00] Fuzz Martin: Perfect. Well, we appreciate having Youth and Family Project in our community and all that you do for our community. and those youth and families.
[00:16:10] Emily Greene: Thank you.
[00:16:11] Fuzz Martin: You’re welcome. So, if listeners would like to stay up to date on future events that you have going on, or volunteer opportunities, or want to get involved with the Gingerbread House in the wintertime, falltime, wintertime.
What’s the best way for them to do so?
[00:16:25] Emily Greene: The best way to stay up to date on Youth and Family Project is to check out our Facebook page. Our handle is Youth and Family Project. You can also connect with us on our website as well, youthandfamilyproject. org. Check out our events tab. And then it also has information on all of our programs and services as well.
[00:16:42] Fuzz Martin: Perfect. And again, the Christmas in July event happening at the West Bend High School’s football field on Saturday, July 27th from noon till three. I will be the guy up in the booth. Talking, saying very, very funny things.
[00:16:57] Emily Greene: Yes. Um,
[00:16:58] Fuzz Martin: but it’s going to be a great time. Now, uh, real quick, I didn’t ask before, tickets are 5 for adults, free for kids, but, uh, do they have to buy tickets in advance or is it pay at the door?
What’s the, uh, set up? You can
[00:17:08] Emily Greene: buy tickets in advance if you would like. Um, again, just hop over to our website and click on the events tab and then Christmas in July, there’s a link for Tickets there, but then you can also purchase them at the, at the gates as well.
[00:17:20] Fuzz Martin: Okay, very good. And again, really look forward to it.
Emily, appreciate having you back on the show and you’re welcome back anytime.
[00:17:29] Emily Greene: Awesome. Thanks for having me.
[00:17:32] Fuzz Martin: Thank you again to Emily Greene, Executive Director for the Youth and Family Project, for joining me on this week’s episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. If you ever have an idea for the show, you can always send it to me, but listen up because things have changed.
It’s like when you call a customer service line. Please listen closely. As the menu has changed, you can still go to fuzz. cc slash guest to fill in the form. The form’s a little different than it used to be, fuzz. cc slash guest. Or you can send it to me, fuzz, at fuzzmartin. com. Oh, that’s easier. You don’t have to spell out a number anymore.
fuzz at fuzzmartin. com. Super easy to tell you that one. I should have been doing that for the last three years, but you know what? Hindsight, 2020. And you don’t have to spell out the word 2020 either. New episodes come out on Tuesdays. They’re now available on fuzzmartin. com. You could also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or get them from your local podcast dealer.
That’ll do it for episode one of season four. Rob Johnson from the Kettle Moraine YMCA joins me next week. Right here, on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
