[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: Hello, fine listener. It’s been about a month. I hope you’re doing well. My name is Fuzz Martin, and this is a podcast about positive things happening in and around Washington County, Wisconsin called Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz, and each week I chat with someone from the local community about positive things happening in our area.
Take care. Bye. Since it’s been a month, I’m a little out of practice and forgot to record the intro in the studio, so I’m using a different microphone. So if it sounds different, that’s why. If you can’t tell that’s because, man, I’ve been editing audio since my first radio gig at 104. 5 WSLD, your home in the country, uh, since I was 17 years old.
And at that time, by the way, I went by the name Fuzzy the Weekend Guy. And then when I turned 18, because I was an adult, I dropped the Y and that’s how I became Fuzz, origin story. Anyway, enough strolling down memory lane. Today, we are speaking with Anna Cain and Bekki Scheel of Kewaskum Friends of Parks about their upcoming.
A Night at the Races fundraiser, which is taking place on Friday, January 31st at Foundry 45, right here in Kewaskum. It’s a great event at a great venue for a great cause. It’s going to help some of our great parks. And with that, here are 15 minutes on A Night at the Races with Bekki Scheel and Anna Cain on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Bekki and Anna, thank you so much for joining me again here at Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. Can you start by telling us for those who maybe hadn’t listened to the First episode that we did together, which was for the Pints Polka event that you had, last year. Can you please tell us about Kewaskum Friends of Park, what the group is about, what inspired its creation, and what is your mission?
[00:02:02] Anna Cain: So, Kewaskum Friends of Parks is a non profit. We, have a board of now eleven people. Our goal is basically to maintain and improve the parks in Kewaskum. So, lots of goals in mind and what we are fundraising for.
[00:02:17] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. So what role do parks play in the Kewaskum community? Why is it so important to maintain and also improve them?
[00:02:26] Bekki Scheel: I think the parks in Kewaskum are really beautiful and we have some really great groundwork that’s already laid out. Just some of the places and buildings and so on in our parks are just a little bit outdated and I think that there’s some really great opportunities to build up those areas and help to draw people to utilize our parks.
In a way better, more amazing way.
[00:02:47] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, than they’re currently being used. Right? Absolutely.
[00:02:50] Bekki Scheel: We want to see people out in the parks. We want to see people utilizing these public spaces. We want to host events in the parks. We want kids to be able to play in the parks. We want to draw people to other, from other communities to our community to show them how awesome Kewaskum is.
And I think improving some of the parks that we already have. We’ll really go a long way.
[00:03:09] Fuzz Martin: Sure. And, obviously, I’m gonna speak from a politician’s standpoint right now. There’s not a whole lot of funds from taxes and things like that that can go to this, so that’s where An organization such as yours is important to helping support that, right?
Yeah.
[00:03:22] Bekki Scheel: And every community has a Parks Depart or a parks friend of Parks group. Mm-hmm . Like what we have, ours is just, you know, newer to inception and we’re just getting the ball rolling. But there’s a lot of other communities that have these parks group that have done really cool things within their communities, and I think that that’s our goal is to.
Find the inspiration from some of these other parks groups and see what they’ve done and how we can replicate and do awesome things in Kewaskum too.
[00:03:47] Fuzz Martin: What are some of the key projects that Kewaskum Friends of Parks are, what are the projects that you are currently working on for the parks?
[00:03:55] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, we have probably like a top three I would say right now that we’ve kind of identified with community help and within our group.
So, the first one is, once the Kewaskum pool was closed down, we have this beautiful blank space up there. We really have some big intentions to put a community room slash beer garden, a place that people can rent out a space to have a bridal shower, a graduation party, a family reunion that has indoor and outdoor space that we can use year round in Kewaskum, and also attach to it a really cool.
Beer Garden stage area where we can also host outdoor events, and, and have just a really nice community space. another one that I have some passion for is a kayak launch. I think we have a completely underutilized river space in one of our beautiful Kewaskum parks and being able to access that river in a, a fully different way.
Then what we’ve been able to utilize it for, fishing, kayaks, get people out on the water would be a really, a really neat thing to do. And then I think Anna would probably take the, the last big project that we have our eyes on.
[00:05:04] Anna Cain: Yeah, the last project, that will hopefully be in the area of the, Old Pond would be the All Abilities Playground that we are currently working on building and coming up with the renderings for.
[00:05:17] Fuzz Martin: All of these things obviously take money to make that happen, and in some cases a lot of money, right? That’s where fundraising events come in, and Kewaskum Friends of Parks has a big night coming up on Friday, January 31st from 5 to 11 p. m. at Foundry 45 in Kewaskum. Can you walk us through a night at the races?
And what attendees can expect at the event.
[00:05:41] Bekki Scheel: Absolutely. So, part of getting, Kewaskum Friends of Parks name out there is trying to do some of these really fun, creative events, and the Night of the Races came from, one of our members attending a similar Kentucky Derby themed event out of state. The night will be at Foundry 45, which is a really beautiful venue right in our own community.
So, What you do is you buy a ticket, you come, get in the door, we have a wonderful menu from Crave Catering that’s going to be doing Kentucky Derby style food, beverages, and a dessert bar, we will have the projector, uh, on the stage, so Everybody will be able to watch these live horse races, like a DVD or a video of some horse races that, you know, might be from the 80s, might be from the 2000s.
They’re not the Kentucky Derby that you can Google to see who wins. It’s some obscure horse races, but you’ll be actually watching live footage of horse races prior to every race. Every attendee will have the opportunity to buy some funny money, like Monopoly cash. They can use that Monopoly money to place their bets on the horses.
Everybody will have a brochure with the horse names, the, the horse odds, and you can make some educated guesses on how to try to figure out who you want to root for. And then collectively as a big group of hopefully 300 plus people, we’ll all be able to cheer on the horses and watch each race individually.
Winners get called up on stage, congratulated, and then they win tickets that they can enter to win some awesome prizes.
[00:07:11] Fuzz Martin: Can you talk about what some of those prizes are that people are able to win?
[00:07:15] Anna Cain: So, yeah, we have lots of very fantastic prizes that have been graciously donated by so many people. We have a free membership for Honey Corp golf course that they donated.
Ace Hardware has donated a Blackstone. We have Chainsaw. We have a nice cooler, Drexel donated some of that stuff. We have also kayaks that are going to be there, as well as paddle board, portable pick a ball net, anything that kind of has to do with, obviously, the parks.
[00:07:51] Fuzz Martin: Again, that event goes from 5 to 11 on the 31st.
How much are tickets for people to get in?
[00:07:55] Bekki Scheel: Tickets are 60 per individual. We also have, some tables that are available. So. a larger group or a business can get a VIP table, kind of a front row seat with some extra fixings, to view the horse races also.
[00:08:07] Fuzz Martin: Great, and if people want to get tickets or buy a table for their organization, what’s the best way to do so?
[00:08:14] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, we have an online link that you can use that we can, send out or find us on social media. We also have, the Village of Kewaskum is having ticket sales during any of their open business hours. You can stop in there and, and get a ticket.
[00:08:28] Fuzz Martin: Great. So, so just walk into the Annex and, and they’ll hook you up.
You got it. Yep. All right. Perfect. So, tell us about how you came up with the idea for the event. You said one of your board members had attended one of these. Is this an event where somebody, like, you have an organization that comes in that does these kinds of horse races or are you guys doing all the work yourself here on that?
[00:08:47] Bekki Scheel: We are not doing all the work ourselves, thank goodness. This is a nice package that we can, that we can purchase and we can utilize for the event and it’ll walk us through it and make a great experience for everybody.
[00:08:58] Fuzz Martin: Awesome. Sounds fun and I, I’ve never been to one so, looking forward. I still have to get my tickets, so.
[00:09:04] Bekki Scheel: This is your reminder. This
[00:09:05] Fuzz Martin: interview is a reminder for, this interview is a reminder for me more than it is an interview for the guests, so just remind me to get, to go buy our tickets. Stay in, in the Kentucky Derby theme. So it says in your Facebook event that people are, encouraged to dress up.
So tell us, tell us what you think, what are, what are people going to be wearing at the, Night at the Races.
[00:09:25] Anna Cain: So, think Kentucky Derby. We want to see your big hats, your pastels, your suspenders. It’s going to have the decor is lots of red roses. So come in your Kentucky Derby inspired dress.
[00:09:39] Fuzz Martin: Okay. I’m excited to see what Adam Gitter is going to show up in just because I can only imagine right now.
[00:09:46] Bekki Scheel: And there’s prizes also for best dressed. We have wonderful giveaways for. For those who are voted the best dressed of the evening, so more, more incentive.
[00:09:57] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. All right. Well, I got to start working on that too. So, the, you also mentioned Crave will be catering, and they’ll have some Kentucky Derby themed food and beverages.
I’m guessing mint juleps will probably be on,
[00:10:11] Bekki Scheel: On the menu. On
[00:10:12] Fuzz Martin: the menu. What else, what, what other kind of food or beverages can people expect?
[00:10:16] Bekki Scheel: I think we have some bourbon, and some really great bourbon giveaways and, and, and different prizes to win that are, you know, along the theme also. I believe we also have some really great, you know, chicken and, Mac and cheese.
Foundry
[00:10:32] Anna Cain: 45, has a drink also inspired, that they do donate back a percentage of the drink. I think it’s mint julep inspired. Sure. I think Moscow Mule.
[00:10:43] Fuzz Martin: Oh, excellent. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Very good. I’m in. Um. I also recently saw on Facebook that you’ve landed Mike Paul of Paul Auction Company to be your emcee for the night.
So that makes it official because he’s really good at what he does.
[00:10:58] Bekki Scheel: Isn’t that true? Um,
[00:10:59] Fuzz Martin: so can you tell us about, that part of the event? Like, so you’re not actually having actual raffles that are like auctions, right? Correct. It’s not an auction, no. But from, but there are prizes that people can win as part of the, The video, horse races and such. Is there none of those?
[00:11:14] Bekki Scheel: Yep. Yep. If you’re gonna, if you decide that you want to bet on the horses. We have you winning the raffle tickets so that you can go ahead and put your ticket into tons of really great prizes. Mike’s role in all of this, and we’re so fortunate and lucky that he agreed to help us out with this.
Mike’s awesome, and if you know or if you’ve ever been to any of his events, Other events, you know, that this ticket will not only be horse races, but it’ll be, you know, the Mike Paul comedy show. Mm-hmm . And the Mike Paul Entertainment for the evening. Um, which is probably worth the $60 ticket, in my opinion.
Mm-hmm . So, he’s just gonna be our mc for the evening, kind of help us to keep things moving and to keep on the pace. And then to help us to announce the winners and to hand out the tickets for the winners and, and. The whole program.
[00:11:57] Fuzz Martin: Great. That’s excellent. Sounds like a lot of fun. So all the proceeds from the event go to toward park improvements, right?
So can you share about what specific projects or upgrades you’re planning to fund or hoping to fund with this event?
[00:12:11] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, those top three that we had kind of mentioned I think are the ones on the list. So the beer garden, the playground, you know, what we can do with that space and if we can kind of get that up and rolling sooner rather than later would really be ideal.
The kayak launch is a, you know, a smaller ticket price point. So I think that that’s something that we really have intentions of getting done here in the near future as well. And we’re definitely getting close to making a lot of these things happen. But like you said, a lot of these things come with big ticket prices and the continuing fundraising on, on our team’s part is what we really need to do to keep kind of spreading that word.
[00:12:49] Fuzz Martin: Absolutely. So. What is the long term vision for Kewaskum Friends of Parks? What are you guys looking to do? I know you’ve got these three, but what do you want to accomplish in the long term?
[00:13:04] Bekki Scheel: I think we really just want to make Kewaskum Parks a destination park. We want to have the amenities here where people talk about us in other communities.
And they want to come and visit us. When you have your kids scheduled for a baseball tournament, and you know that you’re playing in Kewaskum this weekend, we want you to be really excited. Like, Kewaskum is a great facility, and we know that there’s a lot to do there, and everybody that goes there is going to have an enjoyable time, and we want that feel throughout our parks.
And it’s not about all just Kiwanis Park, it’s about River Hill and getting people to utilize the river, and Utilize that park in different ways, too. We just have a lot of untapped, really beautiful spaces that we want to capitalize
[00:13:43] Anna Cain: on. Having a destination for people to go to also with having a beer garden or a playground, this kayak launch will also bring in money for businesses in the area.
So someone comes to play on the playground, takes their kids to Dairy Queen afterwards. So our goal is to bring more. People to the area.
[00:14:04] Fuzz Martin: Strong parks are good for a strong community and strong businesses and everything, right?
[00:14:09] Bekki Scheel: Absolutely.
[00:14:11] Fuzz Martin: So, for each of you, you obviously have passion for this. What, uh, for, and this is a question for, that you should, I’d like you to both answer please, which is, what drew you to become involved with Kewaskum Friends of Parks and really found Kewaskum Friends of Parks, um, and what has been the most rewarding part of your work so far?
[00:14:32] Anna Cain: So what initially drew me to the parks is, I started visiting all inclusive playgrounds with Two of my kids, my older son had passed away young, who would potentially have a disability if he were still here, that as a way to honor and remember him, I took my kids to these all inclusive parks. We had to travel to do that.
I got this bug that we need to have one in every community. There is no reason to put up a playground without every child. in mind. So that’s initially what drew me and then I got this huge passion for how important parks are for everybody.
[00:15:11] Fuzz Martin: Great. And you, Becky?
[00:15:13] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, I think just being local to the Kewaskum area and being raised in these parks and raised in these facilities and now being a mom who’s raising my kids in the same parks and same facilities, we spend so much time every summer at Music in the park.
We spend so much time every summer at the Ball Diamonds. You know, this is something that our family is just really involved in. Spending a lot of time up there means I want the facilities to be awesome and I want them to be awesome for a really long time. So, I think, Just jumping in with Anna, this has been kind of a fun experience for us to go through together.
[00:15:48] Fuzz Martin: Excellent. For those who can’t attend Night at the Races, what are some other ways that people can get involved with Kewaskum Friends of Parks?
[00:15:57] Anna Cain: We are always looking for people to help volunteer. We have meetings every month that we are more than happy to get the community involved. Involved and attend, you can donate to, obviously, Kewaskum Friends of Parks, you can look for us on social media, follow us that way, share, post, power of social media.
[00:16:17] Bekki Scheel: And definitely watch for other events that are coming up. So, we already have the repeat Pints and Polka date out there. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of what day it is, but it is in May again. May 17th, I believe.
[00:16:29] Fuzz Martin: Okay.
[00:16:30] Bekki Scheel: And that is going to be A repeat, but even better than I think what we did the first time around.
So, so that one’s coming up and I’m sure we’ll have another couple other events happening in the summer in the different parks. We had an awesome, successful pickleball season up at Keewanese Park. We did monthly pickleball leagues, you know, just ways to get people out using the park, socializing, meeting new people, staying active,
[00:16:54] Fuzz Martin: all of it.
Well, thank you both for your passion for this and for all you’re doing to help improve and maintain the parks in Kewaskum, and I think it’s awesome that you’re so passionate about it and actively involved and getting others involved. So thank you very much and thanks for coming on.
[00:17:11] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, thank you so much.
Thanks for having us.
[00:17:14] Fuzz Martin: So again, Night at the Races is happening on Friday, January 31st from 5 to 11 p. m at Kewaskum, and you can get tickets by following the link on social media if you go to Kewaskum Friends of Parks. You’ll find it, right?
[00:17:28] Anna Cain: Absolutely. It’s there. We’re stopping at the annex.
[00:17:32] Fuzz Martin: Thank you again to Anna Cain and Bekki Scheel of Kewaskum Friends of Parks for joining me on this week’s episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
If you ever have an idea for a guest for this show, don’t even think about hesitating to reach out to me. You can email me at my personal email address. That I’ve had since I was 22 years old, 23 years old. And that is fuzz at fuzzmartin. com. Again, fuzz at fuzzmartin. com, or you can use the form at fuzzmartin.
com slash guest, that’s G U E S T. Episodes of the show, you can find them at Spotify. Apple Podcasts, YouTube, iHeartPod News, or at fuzzmartin. com. New episodes coming on Tuesdays. You’re awesome every single day. And I appreciate you listening in your car, AirPods, on your computer speakers or wherever, right here to Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
