Usually I kick off my new seasons in August, but there's a lot going on this summer and I just couldn't wait. So, much like Christmas in July, you get an early present. This week, Emily Greene, Executive Director of the Youth and Family Project, joins me to talk about their upcoming Christmas in July Fundraiser. The event is taking place at the West Bend Football High Schools' Fields on Saturday, July 27th, 2024, and will feature three teams of celebrity competitors.

Also, I get the opportunity to be the stadium announcer, which is probably a mistake on their part, but I'm cheap so they get what they pay for. 😅

The celebrity athletes will be competing in some competitions that can only be described as "zany" (or "outlandish" or "downright fun"). Plus there will be a white elephant silent auction and a whole lot more. All for $5. Nice.

• https://youthandfamilyproject.org/event/christmasinjuly/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

So our thought process was, let's bring it into July and, and have some fun with it outside of the holiday season.

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.

Um, So, the event itself, it's very affordable to get in to spectate. It's five dollars for, is that right?

There'll be some opportunities there for fundraising, too.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Just because West Bend tends to be a midpoint for families.

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?

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.

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.

What's the best way for them to do so?

What's the, uh, set up? You can

Emily, appreciate having you back on the show and you're welcome back anytime.

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.

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.