[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: Well, hello friends. I hope you didn’t fry your eyeballs out staring at the eclipse earlier this week. It was actually pretty fun though. I felt like a kid again, not just for me standing outside, drooling on myself, staring at the sky, but it was really cool to see a bunch of. Adults excited to go outside and put on funky glasses and stare up at the sky It was pretty cool, and it doesn’t happen all the time So though I have to say we are a funny species all going out there with the paper glasses on and just looking up there in amazement.
But again It was fun. It was charming. It was a, it was a nice way to see people come together and not, you know, have the pressures of the world on them for a moment.
Hey, speaking of getting outside today, we’re going to talk about parks, Anna Cain and Bekki Scheel of the newly formed Kewaskum Friends of the Parks join me to talk about their upcoming Pints and Polka celebration to raise funds for a new beer garden in Kiwanis Park in Kewaskum. Pints and Polka takes place on Saturday, May 18th, and it’s going to be an awesome time with that. Here are 15 minutes on Pints and Polka from Kewaskum Friends of the Parks with Bekki Scheel and Anna Cain, right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Alright, so what inspired the founding of Kewaskum Friends of Parks group and what is the mission of the group?
[00:01:45] Anna Cain: So, basically, it kind of came up very randomly. We saw the whole rendering of the park, the new Kewaskum Park, and Adam Gitter is actually my brother. And before I saw the rendering, personally, I was messaging him saying Kewaskum needs to do something.
I travel 20, 30 minutes to take my kids to these amazing parks. We need to do something here. so once we saw the new rendering for Kiwanis Park, it kind of inspired us to, Get this group together to get it done.
[00:02:21] Fuzz Martin: Sure. And, for those listening wondering who Adam Gitter is, Adam Gitter is the Village Administrator in the village of Kewaskum.
So, what kind of challenges do Kewaskum parks have? Or, or maybe what are you seeing at some other parks that you’d like to see in Kewaskum?
[00:02:36] Anna Cain: Some of these parks are all accessible parks, so it is very neat to see kids of all kind of disabilities, ages. It’s fun to see all of that together, and it’s just a cool place to visit.
[00:02:53] Fuzz Martin: And Kewaskum has nice, uh Old, like, really, you know, nice land for their parks. They’re in like nice areas, big trees and those kind of things, but
[00:03:01] Anna Cain: It’s a beautiful area. It’s the Kettle Moraine. We need to utilize the area, bring more people in. Just like we travel.
[00:03:07] Fuzz Martin: Absolutely. What are some of the specific improvements, we talked about that plan, but what are, and you mentioned the all accessible, all abilities kind of playground, but what are some of the other kind of specifics that you’d like to see improved at the parks in the future?
[00:03:20] Anna Cain: So, our big thing is, which we will get to, is the beer garden. Okay. That is our initial plan, so. We have the renderings for that as well that we want to show the community and basically the beer garden is to host events such as like birthday parties and showers and have some bands. And. Be able to raise more money in the future for all the parks.
[00:03:49] Fuzz Martin: Mm hmm. And maybe a place where other organizations that want to raise money could either rent out and, and have their events there as well and kind of make that the place to go, right?
[00:03:58] Bekki Scheel: Exactly. I think another part of it is there’s a lot of changes happening in Kewaskum right now. The Annex building was a space that was utilized for a lot of community events and that is no longer going to be accessible to be used in those ways.
A beer garden that also functions as a community space and is able to be rented out for some of those indoor and outdoor occasions is a big push. And also I think the Friends of Parks has a lot of other visions that are not just solely focused on Kiwanis. You know, the way that we worded it, Friends of Parks means all Kewaskum parks.
And I think that there’s a lot of other really cool spaces that are in Kewaskum that at some point we can turn focus to some of those areas as well. And, and really seek some, some cool improvements for some of those areas.
[00:04:43] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, certainly. Kiwanis being that, like, kind of, Keystone Park that we, that we have in Kewaskum.
But there’s also Reigel Park, which is new and, you know, has some things that need to be improved. But there’s also some other groups that work, in that area with the KYSO and some other pieces. We have, Riverside, River Hill, River Hill Park. And then a few other smaller parks. So, let’s talk about your upcoming event.
So you’ve got an event coming up in May to raise funds for, specifically for the beer garden. Is that right? And it’s called Pints and Polka. So, kind of ties that all together, right? Yeah, it does. So tell us about the event. What can people expect?
[00:05:19] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, so we’re going to be hosting Pints and Polka as a big kickoff event for the community.
So we are going to be hosting it on May 18th at Kiwanis Park, which is going to be the home of the future beer garden. What a better venue for, for making the announcement. And I think the big mission of the day is number one, to introduce ourselves as a group. And a committee and to get the word out there that we want to be raising money and funds for all parks improvements in the future, but then secondly, to bring awareness to the beer garden and have people see the the Abilities of what this can become and see the vision of what we’re, we’re kind of expecting with it, and kind of kick that off and just get some excitement going about some of the really cool changes in the parks that have already also been, been, happening.
So, it sounds like the Department of Public Works has been making a lot of, of things move up at Kiwanis to kind of start this process and I think kicking that off and showing the community. And I think it’s going to be pretty cool to have people see some of the new improvements that have already started to, to take shape.
[00:06:25] Fuzz Martin: So I’ve been involved with a number of nonprofits in my, we talked before we started recording that I say yes to too many things, I’m involved with a lot of things, but seeing how quickly That those plans came out and then you guys came up with Friends of Parks and you got that all rolling and I know that takes, it’s a process to get a non profit actually off the ground, but then to have an event already up in May, it’s a kudos to you and the full group because you guys have been amazing.
Killing it. There’s signs everywhere and
[00:06:53] Bekki Scheel: Yeah, we sat down with Adam in, I don’t know, maybe October or November and I think probably one of the first things out of my mouth was we all sat up at Kiwanis last year for you know multiple days every week for our kids practices or watching our cousins play baseball or whatever And you just, you just stared at this eyesore of a pond that was fenced in and bright orange and under construction.
And I said, if, if there’s not going to be changes that happen to this park in the next 12 months, you’re going to have a lot of. Of people that are saying what’s happening, a lot of questions being fielded, and if you have the plans, you need to move on this. So, I think that our, our, group was really timely in pushing for a lot of these improvements, which it, it came together nicely.
[00:07:43] Fuzz Martin: Great. So, Pints and Polkas, Saturday, May 18th. You got it. And I saw you have, some Polka Fusion. So, tell us what Polka Fusion is.
[00:07:53] Anna Cain: That’s a good question. Actually, somebody on our, in our group has recommended them, so you’re going to expect polka.
[00:08:02] Fuzz Martin: It’s like polka. Are they playing like songs we may recognize, but polka style?
Is that kind of what fusion is? Yeah, okay.
[00:08:09] Bekki Scheel: We’re not even sure.
[00:08:10] Fuzz Martin: All right.
[00:08:10] Bekki Scheel: We also have an accordion player.
[00:08:13] Anna Cain: Okay. Apparently is. Highly recommended. So
[00:08:18] Fuzz Martin: excellent. And, uh, you’ll have food there for purchase
[00:08:22] Bekki Scheel: food vendors, uh, local food vendors are coming together. Some of them are food trucks and some of them are just food tents.
, but we have some really great recognizable community names. That are coming in to bring us some great food.
[00:08:37] Fuzz Martin: Great. And then beer, I assume, as well?
[00:08:39] Bekki Scheel: Wouldn’t be a beer garden without it.
[00:08:42] Fuzz Martin: Perfect. And so that starts at 2 o’clock and goes till 8, right?
[00:08:45] Bekki Scheel: Correct.
[00:08:46] Fuzz Martin: And that’s all at Kiwanis Park, obviously.
And the, what does it take to put something like this together? I mean, you guys, I assume, you know, have Lives outside of planning this and there’s a lot of stuff to put together. So what, what, what’s kind of going on behind the scenes to make this all happen?
[00:09:02] Anna Cain: I’ll let Bekki take control of that question because she is in charge of it actually.
[00:09:08] Bekki Scheel: So we have a great little group of, you know, four or five of us that have come together to form an events committee underneath the Friends of Parks umbrella. And it’s been a really great team effort, so I think nailing down a spot was the biggest one. We threw around a couple of different locations, amidst other Kewaskum parks, but I think the natural fit was to host it up at Kiwanis, so that, that was a big step, but then just Kind of figuring out what the vision of the day was going to be and trying to figure out how we can best spread the message and reach the greatest amount of people.
I think that something like this is super attractive before summer starts and people get really busy. So we’re kind of geared it up towards a May date and have had a really good team effort trying to pull all the pieces together by making contacts with different food vendors and beverage vendors. And then planning some fun, you know, 50 50 raffles and other, like, small events to take place.
And then securing the, the music, I think that the polka and the beer garden go seamlessly hand in hand.
[00:10:10] Fuzz Martin: Very Wisconsin y. Yeah. How can local businesses, organizations, other community members partner with Friends of Parks to help you guys fulfill your mission and to help raise funds?
[00:10:24] Anna Cain: One of the big things that we’re going to be looking for is donations, obviously of any kind, whether that be time, monetary, anything like that.
Once we get kind of the final plans at the beer garden, we’ll, we’re going to take that head on and hope to see some donations come in.
[00:10:41] Fuzz Martin: Do you know about how much the beer garden is going to cost to construct and get off the ground?
[00:10:45] Anna Cain: Not quite yet. We are still waiting. We’re working with Drexel Building Supply.
We have our, floor plan already and we are working on the 3D renderings that hopefully will be finished by the time we have Pints and Polka to show everybody and Have a big sign for the future home of the beer garden.
[00:11:02] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, show them what, what to expect, right?
[00:11:04] Bekki Scheel: And I think the big thing too that, maybe some people are getting confused on is like, we’re not making the final decisions on what this money all gets used for.
Like, these are things that we’re raising money towards and that’s hopefully to help keep the costs to the general public through taxpayer dollars and so on, you know, at a much more reasonable cost. So our mission is certainly to raise funds to help supplement all of that. And we can certainly give our input and work with some of these people to try to, you know, come up with some creative ideas.
But, you know, that all goes through the village and, and they’ll help us kind of make the final decisions and how much money we have to spend and all that kind of stuff too.
[00:11:41] Fuzz Martin: Certainly. Well, we appreciate you on behalf of the Village doing that. It’s great to see. Community members coming together to try to make it happen, be kind of the catalyst to get this spark rolling and make sure that we have great parks 50 years from now, right?
If the community wants to get involved with Friends of Parks, if maybe somebody wants to join the board or, just follow along with what you’re doing, do you guys have a, website, social media, where, where can people follow that and where can they message if they want to get in touch?
[00:12:10] Bekki Scheel: Yep. Right now we are on social media.
We don’t have an active website as of yet, but all of this is very much in the early stages. So, yeah, check us out on Facebook and on Instagram for Kewaskum Friends of Parks.
[00:12:23] Fuzz Martin: Perfect. Well, you both came in here, you heard about this interview at, I think 11 o’clock today and it’s two o’clock as we’re recording this.
I just want to say thank you both for coming in and thanks to everybody that’s involved with Friends of Parks for doing what they do. So thank you so much.
[00:12:37] Bekki Scheel: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for inviting us.
[00:12:39] Fuzz Martin: Thank you again to Anna Cain and Bekki Scheel from Kewaskum Friends of the Parks for joining me on this week’s episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Great to have them in the studio and great to see all of you. That entire group organizing and making things happen for the community. Very cool. If you would know of an organization, person, business, or something else that this show should shine a spotlight upon, hop on your phone or computer and email me [email protected].
That is 15 spelled out with fuzz at gmail. com, or you can go to fuzz. cc slash guest and fill out the form, or you could even text me 262-299-FUZZ. That’s 2 6 2 2 9 9 3 8 9 9. New episodes of the show come out on Tuesdays, but you can listen whenever you want on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or at fifteenwithfuzz.com. Thank you for listening. And I will talk to you again next week. Right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
