Podcast For Hire

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743
Transcription for SEO purposes only
One of the question with a lot of people that are sexually active have is how to prevent having a sexually-transmitted disease or infection you know what. Since this is such a big topic to both you guys here Jesse Scharfenberg is the Chief Executive Officer of health first network and just the entity is the public relations and education specialist. It is a much of STI's are scary. What can we do to prevent them. Use a condom that the number one thing is to use a condom and we don't see individuals using condoms anymore. Why is that so there's many reasons that people don't use condoms anymore. One thing is that we have really great access, birth control methods so they know that if their partner is on a birth control method there's no risk of pregnancy. So we kind of forget about the STI side of things and preventing those. The other aspect is we have some really great resources to prevent HIV in a taxi take medication that's prophylaxis so that you could have sexual intercourse with someone with HIV and not get HIV. So now that were not wearing about preventing HIV as much because there's other medications that are working for that people kind of forget about having to use a condom to prevent chlamydia and gonorrhea and herpes and warts because those aren't thought as long term diseases or a consequence infections. Here's a question, although still viable diseases. Yes, we are seeing large numbers of chlamydia still occurring gonorrhea for the last five years we have seen increases in STI's across the United States in all categories. So this isn't something that is even plateauing or that were seen going away by any means not just the Jesse mentioned using condoms is that as an educator. Is that something you have to teach people how to do, how to use a condom. Yes, absolutely. So when we go into education for students or we are doing outreach in the community. We make sure that we let folks know about condoms how to use them and we can provide demonstrations as well so we are able to show how to use internal and external condoms, or more commonly known as male and female condom okay you got me there. What is an internal condom. So an internal condom is sometimes still known as a female condom but that is a condom that can be used internally as the name would imply, so that could be utilized in someone with of the China they would insert the condom internally and it would provide protection that way. So you would use either the internal or external condom, but you would not use them both together to use one or the other and that internal condom can also provide some additional STI prevention externally. So when were thinking of those STI's that can be spread through skin to skin contact. The internal condom can provide some additional protection by having some of that condom outside of the body as well much in my stupid for not knowing what those are. No, but I feel that a lot of people don't know what they are. They're not commonly used is something that we encourage and we give out to all of our clients on a normal basis is using the internal condom should be used. It should be widely known but it's not. We think there's a lot of education that just focuses on the external or the male condom and when education occurs. They just forget about the internal condom. The other great thing about the internal condom is that it can be used for a no sex as well and exit points. The annual cavity. So one thing that we talk about. STI prevention ever it is that all penile to the badge. No sex will actually STI Xerox you can get Estes and Uranus. You can get it on your penis or in your Regina. So when were talking about. STI prevention were talking about. If you're having oral sex, wearing a condom to follow it out. That is why there are flavored so we went to the Reading is coming. We don't know that there are flavored condoms so if you are having oral sex and the penis is going into your mouth that individuals should be wearing a condom. There's also what we call dental dams, which are they got almost like a piece of plastic that would go over the national area that an individual could put there over the penis just so that there's for the protection from the skin to skin contact so that were not transmitting infections between individuals just review offer both of these types of condoms at health first network. Yes, we have both of these and all of our clinics available for anyone who's looking for them so people can pick these up regardless of sex, so again as we said for the internal and external condom with health first network to talk about. STI prevention. What about if you know you had unprotected sex and you're worried about you know, did I catch something or did so in noted something slick by the combo Maury got a bit your burner. It is your testing available yes. So we do testing for STI's and just as you said it whether someone has had unprotected sex, and even if they had protected sex, condoms work really really great at preventing STS, but since they aren't 100% we do recommend getting screened routinely for STI's. If you are sexually active, so at least once a year on the everyone should be getting screen for STI's, and if you are having a change in partner. If you have multiple partners then we would likely recommend getting screen more routinely so you can talk with one of our providers and then they would be able to let you know how frequently to be screened for that at health first. We test for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HPV genital herpes genital warts trichomoniasis or sometimes known as trick and HIV is there like a shot or vaccine or something that that somebody could take to prevent STI's there is a vaccine is called got a cell and it will protect you against nine of the most common cancer causing strains of HPV, which is the human papilloma virus. So what we see is that human papilloma virus is There's a lot of people out there that have cervical cancer that don't know that they have it or have the precancerous cells for cervical cancer correct. Yeah that's very true. So that is why when individuals come in for their annual exams. They are on schedules to have their Done and then we also do eight what's called HPV Co. testing. So we are taking samples of the cervix to be looking for the HPV virus as well. As part of the FP OS and is part of the family-planning only services or F because so with the Gardasil vaccine in the annual exams that Pap smear the HPV co-testing all of that is covered FP OS so individuals are getting these services at zero cost and were do we go about getting appointments. You call 1-800-246-5743 in nine counties in north-central Wisconsin

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743
Transcription for SEO purposes only

Downtown Main Street
DMI
422 Main Street
La Crosse, Wisconsin
54601
(608) 784-0440
Transcription for SEO only.
Art Fahey joins us on this DMI podcast. Downtown has the college area, which is always fun for people to enjoy. I think of such a variety no myself for not being your lacrosse centering at the multiuse building sign in one day we might have a sports vacation shown the remaining efforts. The organic farmers conference and turn around and get high school basketball games coming in or entertainment that comes through so I think the shield of the varieties were small town feel people come in they feel safe will crosses embraces and welcomes all our guests and then realize how important our guest coming to the Aryans are local people coming to the downtown area are so I think is quite a warm reception everybody coming to the area so I think were unique in the beauty that we got as well) features a lot of things that neglect communities would look at art, say, is the director of the La Crosse Center in downtown La Crosse and a lot of things are happening down there, including the remodel of the La Crosse Center. Let's talk a little bit about the remodel to be tells is going on with the lacrosse in her care is the process it's going to take about almost 2 years to get completed. We had a renovation remodel of the arena, so this new seating in their sound system, lighting, HVAC, dressing rooms, locker room concession stands have all been remodeled were to be going in the outer court order that goes around the buildings that people have to go outside to navigate to the building and we put up a new North Hall called a noteholder call and that is ready to go. We are at now is called the punch list time where construction guys are going through. They really have turned the keys over for us for those two particular rooms that we still have construction guys are better available and you will a midway point through the first phase of the construction for part that still continuing as a number of meeting rooms and a volume that overlooks the Riverside that scheduled for the end of November to be completed and that there continuing with that process over the front Street area, which is adjacent to Riverside Park and will assign the building so we move along very well. You know it. If you ever look for a no light in the middle Kovacs and the construction crews that stay healthy throughout last actually progressed very well and very quickly. Overall, no work on time and on budget. It always is all good things there. As far as the overall construction venue absolutely destroys positive things to be on time and on budget. So art what will the impact of the remodel have on the downtown La Crosse area well you know when forecasting this we had economic impacts of increasing but the center could do for the downtown area in the range of $79 million a year that on top of already the 18 million it was doing so already and admit hi $29 per year economic impact for the area here. So now this is something that certainly has a direct impact on hotels and restaurants and shopping locations that are near to us by others sent ripples throughout the county. So it's something that can be beneficial to West Wisconsin because we slowly ramp up and get out of this code. People start meeting again and I will see the effects of this in our success with a lot of things we have here have been and made multiple small events and we see that continuing and we do have a large marquee event that comes through the multiple small vents is obviously the core of our success for the La Crosse Center, how many employees work for the La Crosse and well test test test code is created all kinds of fluctuations in pre-Covid, we had 15 full-time at about 300 part-time. So when we got in the Covid all, unfortunately, all part-timers and all were just the work form and we went from 15 full-time down to seven full-time now that were slowly coming back were starting to make plans and we have an escalating plan to add people back in. Based on the floor business. Now we we will have again somewhere in that 15 to 19 range of full-time people. Once we are considered at full steam and will be in at 250 to 300 part-timers again. Once we have everything back in place in the world stacked some consents and normal art. Let's look forward to the future to pass 2022. When things are back to running normally. What is the future look like for the La Crosse Center while you know what we've got is new meeting space is a different kind of meeting space here and were anticipating know that that will bring a different clientele down to us and always got a lot of floor space to tradeshows and go along with this and breakout space were looking for a lot more regional type of business coming our way, which I think was an area that we hadn't been delivering which certainly can be done now and we could see things coming out based on the Minneapolis are based on the lighting as well as island in Wisconsin to come our way related to some right things and some exciting things that you would be opening up the doors as you go along here and there's certain events that are to be large events that will also come our way here that will take up the entire building with the La Crosse Center expansion and everything art is La Crosse and are still going to be hosting like the big Moses vent that comes every year. Yes, that definitely was going to 2022 there making plans come back and be with us and is a featured event that does come to the building. A lot of people are aware of it and continue to come our way and so were looking for a long-term relationship will continue with the organic farmers organization part which have an impact as the downtown La Crosse area have when you have an event committed. Let's say the WIA basketball tournament was very important that our neighbors in the downtown area and are involved in greeting people just seating for 500 people in relation to the downtown and they're going to go out and have a cocktail and maybe a meal, and maybe do a little shopping you know you really set many people in a downtown you can quickly see where the restaurant that's 50 to 75 tears to be filled out fairly quickly, so they just need to be aware know if what were doing when relation peak, which is great communication between us and the commission has grown the downtown organization and DMI to let these folks know that they're coming to be in town and you will probably feel the effects of sin on hotels or to three days parking all comes into play. So we need to partners in the downtown area know to be able to welcome those folks = insane welcome this organization in the town and given the hospitality La Crosse is known for. Because these people are taking and not just La Crosse, and it is taken whole community. So art how much of a factor is that having a vibrant downtown is trying to sell the center to the prospective new client. I think that's important now. Each community got their own little sales point La Crosse certainly got ours without saying you know this but the back door and get the Mississippi River Riverside Park right here. Not hardly any community in the state of Wisconsin I can talk about the Mississippi River. So your features here that we sell are important to know in comparison to others.
That's why Vince move around taking those different things the city has you know we have things like the DMI what they do is they get the message out to all the membership and those are the ones downtown Main Street. To me those are the people that are wrapped right around this year and what we do and what they do you know are joined at the hip. If you will, and so the value of DMI having a communication and filling storefronts and giving people things to do once they leave our building that's important is if we didn't have a downtown. It was thriving like it is and how it can really make our guests coming to town to go for a little when I go Baptist because it is not much going on but the way our downtown is its active it's lively it's driving snow so DMI is a great job

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743
Transcription for SEO purposes only
From expectations to conversations. We offer all the services you would expect health first network provides quality confidential reproductive health care, education, and nutrition counseling this month's health first podcast features Karen Zimmerman service line manager for WIC Karen's work for the WIC program at health first network for 32 years so Karen who qualifies for the WIC program. The qualifying criteria are pregnant moms breast-feeding moms moms who have children under six months of age if you're not breast-feeding, and then kids up to the age of five in those households where those people reside that gross income needs to be under hundred and 85% of poverty which an actual dollar terms. Let's say you have a mom and dad and two kids. Your annual income grows, we need to be roughly under $48,500. So if you think about it. If you're making almost $50,000 a year as a family with two kids. That's a lot of people today that work in positions where that's what their income is that number is the thing that makes us different because we are designed to help those people that make more than would they be eligible for other resources and is a stop off program to write is not a you get your here forever. It's a were helping you to attain the next goal right and the other thing that we do that makes us so that it is that step off once a year everybody that participates in the program needs to come in and do another appointment where we reevaluate all the eligibility criteria roughly every three months where contacting people to do some follow-up education or another way, in a measure on kids to see how everybody's growing and it's an opportunity for us to provide that additional education for parents with young children because as you know they change rapidly and the problems they present change rapidly and we're here to provide that just one-on-one education to help parents do the best they can to help their children grow to be the best we do a health and a diet assessment because all the counselors like is that our dietitian. So that's our focus, so if you think of the well-child visit with the nutrition focus we don't do medicine. We don't do what the doctor does but we also are trained and can identify things that would warrant a hey this is something that you maybe want to give your doctor call about because this doesn't look quite right in the program called with women infant and children know that there's something over some single beds that are rich in kids with his grandparents in a region kids and it always blended families and families now is there a lot different than they used to be part of that work are they able to get help from work yes yes and those are ones to that we really struggled to reach because they don't realize that we're here to help them as well because the child is the one that's eligible for the program. So if the child meets the criteria for eligibility. Whether it's the grandparents raising the child that dad a foster child if they qualified they can qualify for as long as they meet the criteria. If, for example, a child qualifies for badger care. They most likely would qualify income wise, even if the say the child is with grandma and grandpa and they could get the help because the child is meets the criteria so it's all about helping the children helping the children and so we really encourage anybody that is interested in at least checking it out. We can screen them over the phone. That's a simple process with a phone call. There's also some online things that people can go to Whitcomb on strong where you can just fill in your information. Your information gets passed along to us and then we give you a phone call and we can have a conversation. There is another website through the state. That's called Wisconsin well badger which is a really cool website where people who are looking for some assistance in one type of thing or another Wisconsin well badger you can do it online or you can call the number that pops up when you're looking for that is process is easy if you were did come for an appointment. What happens is you get checked in. We do have some documentation that families need to provide like a piece of mail ID check stubs and then have a conversation about where the family wants to do better and set goals in three months they come back to see us or we contact them. Then were checking in and helping them do better whatever they want. For more information visit www.health1network.org or find us on social media at health first network

Downtown Main Street
DMI
422 Main Street
La Crosse, Wisconsin
54601
(608) 784-0440
Transcription for SEO only. A new Location and a new Executive Director DMI a.k.a. downtown MainStreet Inc. lacrosse is moving in the right direction with Terry Bauer the new Executive Director for downtown Main Street, Inc. Terry, what is downtown MainStreet Inc. it's an organization nonprofit concert with the city of La Crosse to ensure ongoing economic development while cultivating a relentless downtown BMIs membership driven organization Terry so one of the benefits of becoming a member of downtown MainStreet Inc. I think all of this is realize that their low storefront filled with businesses that the downtown community is much more vibrant and that works for all businesses solicit selfish interest to be part of downtown because it does build traffic promotions and events that create some vitality in downtown La Crosse and with the election without something like downtown MainStreet personals initiatives forward Terry that's working with the other organizations in the community, absolutely Bob, we have developed a synergy group which includes the explore lacrosse and concert convention and visitors Bureau Chamber of Commerce seven rivers Velasco and ourselves know-how, common theme to improve and enhance the La Crosse area featuring different strengths to the table. I think were better together about working together and working together to the missions kind of overlap with each other enough uniqueness with our missions and our memberships that it does broaden the base of appeal to our members to see my have a vision statement or a mission statement derivations to promote the vibrant downtown… Businesses, braces, history sober sculpture captures the spirit of community while enhancing the vitality of the entire region, which is probably what we are grouped together and that synergy group because we want to include the entire region in our marketing. A lot of our business here is certainly local in the tourist business that we do get this kind of icing on the cake tour businesses. We really need to get people living within 50 miles of lacrosse coming into lacrosse to shop dying and stay in hotels people enjoy walking around historic downtown La Crosse County talk where members Terry talk about investors rather than members and membership why you do that way. Why are they investors rather than members. I think words have meanings and is an investor, you have ownership part of the solution when you put in the downtown MainStreet and my investment is to generate a return for me so that's kind of the challenge that were faced with those following and going that investment return to those people that through our marketing efforts are events or promotions, just creating activity in downtown La Crosse. I want to see all our storefronts don't know the significant growth that have all storefronts don't to drive additional new business in the downtown La Crosse to get a hold of DMI number 608784 0440 784-0440 the website of La Crosse downtown.com ridiculous social media search for downtown MainStreet Inc. and get files on Facebook downtown is a place you want to be when you shop one live, work, play with a lot of unique shots downtown that you'll find anywhere else on the cross. Enjoy

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743
Jesse Scharfenberg CEO of health first network talking about how reproductive health affects other areas of health and why is health first network essential we provide reproductive health care and there's many people that would probably argue that reproductive health care isn't essential, but your whole body is connected from head to toe. So each system is so important have to jump in analysis of what how can it not be essential. I thought I heard a lot of the bigger hospitals suffered, turn people away from you know testing in birth control and seeing patients when you're at home alone. I'm just to say that what you doing right and that's really interesting. We've heard that we seem kinds of action had an increase in client caseload right now. During the Covid pandemic because individuals are being seen health systems for reproductive healthcare because there was certain subsets of services at health systems that were deemed nonessential and when I heard this and I was thinking unlike how is reproductive healthcare nonessential. It is such an essential part of your body. It controls pregnancy and controls STI there's UTIs. So it is some of the system is known as TI and UTI and STB and all the stuff what it would've yeah sorry I like to use alphabet soup last thing that is lying me out and that STDs were sexually transmitted diseases and then back in 2015 2016 timeframe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed it to STI which is sexually transmitted so that the same thing the same thing that STD STI is definitely interchangeable. We try to go with the new nomenclature of the STI so that we are in line with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are utilizing UTI is a urinary tract infection. So a lot of individuals may confuse that they have been STI but it could be a UTI or someone may think they have a UTI and is actually nasty so bring those individuals in for testing and treatment is super super important. So infections can travel. So it's really important that we are having and performing STI testing on a normal basis. One of the big things that we do is screenings for cancer health first when you thinking about breast cancer we do clinical breast exams all the time, was sometimes the first line of defense of identifying some sort of nodule that were to refer an individual out for mammogram we do pass in politics after a Pap smear, an individual may have been identified that they have cancer cells of the next things that we can do here is actually doing a cervical biopsy to identify what's going on in referring an individual out. It's really unfortunate that individuals would think reproductive health is essential in that education around reproductive health is not essential because a lot of these things that we see we could prevent there's so many essays that could be prevented if an individual just knew how to prevent it. So let's use a condom. Let's practice safe sacs. We offer the HPV vaccine which is human papilloma virus that something that's in controversy over the past 10 years. I don't understand why Dixon is the only vaccine out there that prevents cancer and at that it prevents nine strains of the most common cancer causing strains of HPV cancer is given to both boys and girls in humans about Boys and Girls Club and which was really really cool last year we actually changed the age range, so it used to be €11-€26 and now 27 to 45-year-olds can receive the vaccine as well so working and continue to prevent cancer in individuals who are already sexually active as well. How can that be nonessential. I don't know. It was really interesting when this came out there was a lot of reproductive health clinics that can put services just on hold. I took an initiative and worked with you to perceive Wisconsin collaborative for reproductive health. The Wisconsin contraceptive access network and then Wisconsin family-planning reproductive health Association, which I serve as president for and said hey we need to put something out there to let individuals know that reproductive healthcare is an essential service. Individuals should have the choice of when they want to become pregnant, they should have the choice to go in for STI testing if they are sexually active. We know during this timeframe. Individuals are not ceasing sexual activity. So let's give them the tools to do it safely. Whether that be condoms and whether that be education or let them choose when they want to become pregnant by letting them properly space pregnancies or just prevent pregnancy with a contraceptive method. One of the things that kind of has his big black cloud over is the word abortion. Abortion is not something we do at health first. My personal mission is that an individual should never be in the position to have to make the choice as to whether they have an abortion or not, because we should be preventing every single pregnancy that wants to be prevented education having conversation with your staff over the last few hours today but I've learned quite a bit. Do offer educational services. We do we accept quite a few different educational services and we continue to look at expanding those we going to schools and give many presentations around, pregnancy prevention, contraception, and then STI prevention so that individuals know what. STI's are. They know that if you can be sexually active, you may become pregnant and how do you prevent that we give community presentations. We've instituted a really awesome curriculum in the Adams Friendship school district. It's called top the teen outreach program and it's really about building self-esteem and then talking about sexual health. On top of that, so we want to give them a good base at the sixth grade level to hopefully prevent some of those unintended pregnancies and STI rates that we are seeing in Adams so we provide a lot of education around that we have individuals that just come in for education and they may not be coming in at all for reproductive hands-on services, but just education. We have another really cool partnership down in Adams Friendship. It's called the diversion program so we know that individuals once they are in the juvenile justice system, they're more likely to be repeat offenders and continue to have charges that become worse and worse and worse. So our goal is to keep individuals out of the juvenile justice system and in that county. We were seeing a lot of young individuals being referred over to the DA for consensual sex acts. So maybe it was 215-year-olds having sex. Maybe they were texting pictures to each other. Our goal is, whether it be the district attorney's social services. The school or local police department identifies that and they actually refer the individual over to us for consequence education. So taking the educational route versus a prosecution route with those individuals and we have the school Health and Human Services local Sheriff's Department local police department. The DA everybody's involved in what we do with this huge prevention aspect of we have these kiddos there identified go over education with them once they refer to us. We have the local women's shelter come in and provide healthy relationship education and then when that charge actually goes across the DA's desk. The DA can see that they actually went through the educational session and most likely are going to pursue charges to put them into the juvenile justice system

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com
The city vision 2020 podcast we started this thing off back in January 2020 and were already at December 2020. My first guest in this podcast was Mayor Tim Kabat and my final guest in this podcast for city vision 2020 is Mayor Kabat Mayor this year was kind of a cluster and he will challenge great when it was a challenge for all of that and made no looking back on January 2020. That seemed like that was about 10 years ago already like this year's particularly long and particularly challenging in a notary lot of folks that have shared with me that they're happy to see that the next year. All the challenge and in many ways and very, very difficult. I've been pleased and proud of how our community has responded to the most part and just people we can help people receive a lot of shop local efforts to help our merchants and just a lot of giving in and trying to be there for each other so that that part of it is obviously very positive and surprised me because I know that lacrosse community is about stealth and very very difficult in your heart goes out to those that have lost jobs and all that are struggling right now. Mary asking about Covid 19 and then the coronavirus at one time this past year lacrosse was in the national spotlight for being one of the places that had some of the most outbreaks in the in the country. What what was done to stop that spread you right we were in the muddy list of the stars being one of those hotspots in the entire country, and that's not where you want to be that the combination of people returning to school and unfortunately most of that community spread impacted not only the schools but then also our assisted-living and long-term care facilities. That was really a bad thing. There was and there has been really all throughout this especially around that time, you know, ramping up the communication, and context of those institutions that really trying to get people to do the right thing, which is to stay home and to wear a mask if you go out and do the social distancing of the good hygiene, so the collective group between the healthcare providers in the county health department and ourselves and other institutions really increase that level of communication that the universities also increase their level of testing. So they were really trying to identify their their young people and their students that that might be positive and the contact tracing as well that the county has been doing really trying to charge people and let them know if they've been exposed to in close contact with someone so those efforts have been that they set on going but they were really ramped up around the fall and you know those universities that can things were quarantined and and going more virtually their classes which also help being the mayor and then this time of Covid and seeing businesses shutter and shut down for a while and some have gone out of business that way on you man are not taking things personally because we do see a business or or you will find what the pros build and scale up in the storefront really is hard to not take this personally and unfortunately we lost some thing else and long-standing businesses here to this whole thing in, we did respond to the city again in the area were we really did try to do whatever we could resources we have available to provide grants to our local businesses. The program back in April named their we down to through our own efforts on that map to any care spending your federal stimulus but through our own efforts. We distributed close to half $1 million to about 80 businesses to try to help them out. And no, there are many of those that are still in business, but the challenging the committee's frustration is that we receive the businesses we see are our friends and neighbors who might be struggling will make them right off and the health really has to come from the level in that first round of stimulus checks and the Malones and in the PPP support the government provided to businesses again back in April and May was very positive and needed. It's just unfortunate that that will get you know there wasn't anything there hasn't been anything else sense and that really where needed it throughout the summer and fall now into winter to think that people can survive on all $1200 support back in April and make that last year or sketch that out to the whole year is that's just not possible in the same goes for the business support site we've been working hard to not only try to support our local and also to reach out to our federal and state partners to encourage them to morning were still hopeful that maybe will be something done to you in the next month or so that can help people in O'Mara looking back this year there hasn't been any playbook or anything in history that we could've compared this to Rosalie thing on the front lines being in a part of the decision-making to help out. The city will we be treated this as an you still treating it as a community emergency so we established our emergency management protocols back in late March, which is really a different way he goes about communicating and organizing itself so the organization you know being able to respond to not only to continue to provide our services. So we spent the year still doing all of the essential things, providing safe water and taking care of people's waste and garbage and recycling and having our public safety be a priority in an emergency response and no still fixed in the streets until you those things so be modified somewhat the approach and how we communicating within the department. You can think of been very positive because I don't believe are residents of the really missed a beat and how we have provided those services and then then the other part of that was the partnering and will work with those I mentioned earlier healthcare providers are county health department are businesses to really try to encourage and support them and slowing the spread of Covid 19 some cases the notes and positive and successful. In other cases, as you mentioned earlier will now number one in the country hotspot and still continue to have high case numbers not gone as well so you know that, coupled with trying to provide grants for businesses to keep them going in and partnering with our nonprofit provide assistance in trying to prevent conviction. It has been below the there's been challenges almost on every front and we have responded pretty well, but it'll be interesting to see take a step back a year or two from now and really analyze what worked and what didn't do that to care for the Mexican community emergency that might come along in O'Mara's we have this last conversation for the 2020 vision podcast. I want to bring up some of the nice things and some of the good things the city is done like the fixing up of a lot of the roads there's a lot of stuff that happened at the different parks there's been you know the movement downtown with the La Crosse Center. I mean there's a lot of great things that happen this year as well and I think we have been all in all considered. We still maintain are those services and need to get that close libraries and we closed parks and beaches in our swimming pools and some of those things which were a disappointment to our our residents that we also expanded and added more miles of trails this year so people have the opportunity to get out more areas of the city on our trail network which I think is really phenomenal and like you mentioned are very significant renovation and expansion of La Crosse in the downtown is moving forward to be a beautiful addition that this guy lying in and we connection to the park and the river is spectacular and people are very excited to see that any of the other the other projects in an effort to will working on just again taking care of the business. The I will be breaking ground in the new fire station on the north side early next year on the road work in trying to just be the thing that people expect you know what their hard earned dollars in the pot contact that they pay trying to meet those expectations and I think no, all things considered, to get a good job this year, give or take away or get good memory. Good thought about 2027 or later or lead to an earlier that's just how people in our area have come together and there's been a number of separate to raise money for local businesses before you can about the marketing of topping local and just reinforcing how important it is that our our dollars stay here in the community have been very pleased and impressed with how many people I see on social media and no talking and communicating with people around around the city just that Patrick is been really pleasing to you and and and am hopeful that some businesses going during this very difficult times. I think that's probably the biggest thing is yes. 2020 think for everyone. Probably not on their top 10 list of favorite gears, but I think that the community response and somebody is trying to get through a shows how how resilient crosses and in the meanwhile look forward to brighter days ahead to share you know when we started this podcast were talking about looking at 2020 is that it is a great year. What did you want to get accomplished this year. That didn't happen. I would question that there's probably a few of the of the projects that just get longer you will be will delayed a little bit because of the need to respond to Covid I think about the Riverpoint district that still moving forward. I think that was delayed a little bit because of Covid

HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743
Transcription is for SEO purposes only
From expectations to conversations. We offer all the services you would expect health first network provides quality confidential reproductive health care, education, and nutrition counseling care and what made you decide you want to get into WIC just like public health, public health nutrition is really where I as a dietitian because all the counselors are dietitians, public health nutrition is something where you can really see the impact of what you do, didn't even realize there is any motion on that note to school. One of the cool things about the WIC program is that you get to see kids grow and develop over the course of time as a dietitian in the hospital or clinic settings you see people one or two times and you don't get to develop that relationship with the families like we do here WIC stands for women infant and children and WIC is a supplemental food and nutrition program for pregnant moms new moms and young children where families meet certain qualifying criteria to be eligible for the program once they're determined to be eligible, besides getting a lot of nutrition education and support we provide supplemental food, healthy supplemental foods like juice, cereal, eggs, peanut butter, milk and assortment of things and a lot of nutrition education and breast-feeding support as well as referrals and information about other resources within the community that might benefit that family. I know the education side of it is pretty amazing. I don't usually show this but when my twins are born, we participated in work we were able to live and stay in her house and you know because you we are twins and having twins on top of two other children, you know it was it was a big expense and to have WIC there to help out was a godsend was life saving your example is in exactly the kind of family that we really really want to try to help the difference between WIC and some of the other supplemental programs like food share is that our income cut off goes quite a bit higher then the other programs that are out there and so were really designed to help those struggling young families where you working but maybe child care expenses has exceeded what it's worth, and so you choose to have one parent stay home will then how do you get groceries and how do you pay your bills and the benefit that the families receive per person. It's roughly right around $70 for a child durum woman that they received. If you were to purchase all the foods that you're able to for a babysitter getting formula that's over $100 a month per child. It's a supplemental program but it adds up. And if we can help families get their basics then their resources can go to pay for other bills like diapers or gas in the car or electric bills or things like that that don't go away just because you'd one parent decided to stay home and what kind of items does WIC provide two-family good question. If you're a pregnant woman. Let's use that as an example, you would receive a quantity of food per month or you would be able to purchase that in the grocery store you would get 5 1/2 gallons of milk, a dozen eggs three containers of juice, a jar of peanut butter, a pound of dried beans or four cans of the dried beans that are cooked a loaf of bread 36 ounces of cereal now. We can also provide for people that want we can substitute out. We can provide some yogurt in place of some of the milk and cheese is another choice. If you're a child you get the same types of foods only a little different quantities babies are able to get those that are not breast-fed, or those that are getting supplemental formula. So say a mom is breast-feeding but she works out and is enabled to save enough of her milk that her baby is able to get enough to eat. Then we can be flexible and we provide some Formula One amount still get some benefits after the baby turns six months they're able to get some baby foods and then infant cereals as well. The foods that families are allowed to purchase from us. What happens is we have a very strict guideline that the USDA has set for us to provide nutrients for our families and every three years. All the foods that are available in the grocery store get looked at to see if they would qualify to meet our standards. Like for example the cereals that you can get from us are cereals that have to have a lot of iron in them. Not much sugar in them and be whole-grain if you think about examples of that. That would be something not like Lucky charms or Froot Loops. We also are able to provide fruits and vegetables for families. We give the dollar amount per month per individual. So if you're a child you get nine dollars worth of fruits and vegetables a month and women get $11 worth of fruits and vegetables a month so you can get any in the fruits and vegetables can be fresh but as you know how are growing season is so short in the middle of winter. You may not want to buy all fresh because they just don't taste so good then but so you can get fresh frozen or canned plain fruits and vegetables with your WIC benefit, and that's on the standard WIC now in the summer we do something really cool. We are able to provide farmer market checks for our families and what that is is in the summer, we provide per family $30 worth of the special farmer market checks. They take those to the local farmers market and purchase Wisconsin room fruits and vegetables get our organization on Monday afternoons in our parking lot. We have a farmers market, so it's a really neat connection where families can come if they happen to come on Monday afternoon to pick up the farmer market checks they can go right into our parking lot and purchase fruits that are grown here in Wisconsin that's instant gratification. Fiber is so cool. It is just so cool that we have this going now and families they that utilize the farmer market checks just love them so that age group for workers from birth to five till five. The history behind the five-year-old cut off is kinda interesting in that WIC program was designed in the late 60s early 70s when our country had a surplus of commodities and we had people who were hungry and there was a neat thought, where if you combine the commodities the farm commodities so flower dairy products things like that that the government was paying to help farmers produce and get them into the bellies of people who were hungry and coordinate that with some nutrition education. The thought was that we would provide these foods until kids were five and it five years old. Kids would go to kindergarten and through the school lunch program. They would then also be provided with the healthy food combinations through the school program. So that's why the five-year-old cut off was implemented. When does the client begin with WIC as soon as a mom finds out she's pregnant they can enroll with us. We want to help them throughout their pregnancy. So we see moms every three months throughout the pregnancy and help them deal with whatever the pregnancy presents for them whether they are they have morning sickness real bad there again and not to wait or not enough helping them figure out how to eat is best they can, even their life circumstances. Another thing that we do is help moms with stop smoking referrals to other programs within our community that help them eliminate barriers to being healthy through different resources that are available in the community to talk a little bit about the fact that WIC offers help to families to go out and purchase things what about families who choose to breast-feed. You have programs or do you help new moms to families without yes yes, that is one of our primary emphasis is to help moms be successful with that. So when we see moms when they're pregnant were helping them answer questions they have about how to feed your baby no matter what way they choose to feed their baby, their options galore today. We want moms to be successful with their breast-feeding efforts and so all of the counselors have extra training in breast-feeding support. We continually go for extra trainings to help us be better at that because we want moms to be successfully. For more information visit www.health1network.org or find us on social media health first network

Chris Jones is well known for his appearance on America’s Got Talent when he made the impossible happen: Known germaphobe Howie Mandel shook hands with Heidi, Howard, and Mel live. Since his first TV appearance, Chris has performed on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, Windy City Live, Good Day Chicago, Penn and Teller, Scam School, and the Adam Carolla Show.

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com
La Crosse Wisconsin is a great place to live, work and play the city vision 2020 podcast this month featuring Jared Flick recreation specialist from La Crosse Park recreation forestry Jared a lot of things stopped this year because of Covid-19. Let's talk a little bit about Covid-19 and will can move on to some other things. How did the city of La Crosse Park and rec deal with Covid-19 and what are things moving forward when it comes to dealing with Covid-19 why things happen. We had outright programming it canceled. We lost our aquatics needs and we also thought how important parts are the people we saw a flurry of flooded people into the park this summer, which is great but short of a weakness that showed a lot of positive things that are out there really help the singles out there. The programming people is very difficult just because things start off with some restrictions as far as you want people to get together and we tried programming some things and we tried many baseball program. We had to cancel it now or try to be proactive with things that were doing as far as they could fall we ran track and soccer program athletic that is easy to social distance is less contact with you. Turn out that that never going to get you turn the page to winter here in Wisconsin. What are some of the things that the La Crosse Park and rec is going to be working on are doing in the winter season. Yet some of them are hoping that we would do would be like our basketball program for kids and that is something that we can't do this because access to facilities around the school district. Right now schools are closed so that way. So will try to focus on things that we can kind of control would get people outside correctly starting hiking program for kids highly structured setting go out and move around as an exercise in kind of time to help improve their overall really doing that we have a figure skating program or another were doing over the Green Island ice arena and then we can focus on more stuff that we can outside the work we were working with thought about running with you from Bali over a Copeland something to get people out and move around and motivated your dimension Green Island in early Green Island was a big in the news at the beginning of the year that staying open now right and there's new facilities happening there as well. It is yes, that the arena itself is open, the River city youth hockey organization that didn't do a six-month use agreement with the city, with operation of the facility. So it is often worse over up and out and they're doing everything they do a great job in there to get a lot of use over there right now a lot of construction happening in that area. Tennis courts happening. As a matter fact and that the and in that specific location right there. As we entered into agreement with UBL Aquinas and the tenants Association of La Crosse to build three of 13 brand-new outdoor tennis courts and the construction was completed in red on Labor Day so we did have a few months of having been opened and they then they been popular at the outset of our first phase to the construction out there with the tennis courts in phase 2 was in becoming an looking at some whites to the seven of the court. So we kind of expand the community access to the courts in the spring and fall file phase. Phase 3 would be coming probably in the next you know one to two years would be indoor course, that's all you to be raised privately we know about the organized groups of the tennis Association. There is a lot of like little sob popular groups about playing there's a lot of people and I was actually surprised because this last summer, especially Covid-19 and everything being shut down. My kids took up tennis and they're playing a wagon park at the tennis courts there. Yeah, all of the courts this summer got slammed whether they were the tennis courts and what we saw the really really heavy to be at Invesco court over a call and that things that Joseph is been bombarded with people everything a lot of people. It was an improvement over the Erickson festival course over a block you as well to that people are just think they need something to do and that's it. As her going sledding coming up in the upper Midwest. As always, you know that the thrill of going sledding. Is there any places in La Crosse to go sledding German poor so that is a very popular place. This led last year we started doing the pop-up letting nights where we bring lights out and people can play that night with hot chocolate fires like that were do more of that this year just trying to keep people out motivated sledding very popular. Where do something that we also got some other kind of ideas out there that were to try to do with letting actually learn to skate his or so learned skating times as well are now is that part of the hockey is a hockey Association on Valencia program now, so if you want to do the initiate programs I received. Hockey is doing that late summer early fall. There is some construction over depending on what happened over there yet we cannot restructure the parking lot you never really have like a road intersecting a parking lot to destinations is create a problem. We redesigned it will replace the parking lot up to the bathhouse and the beach and then we move the road behind it. That kind of our Facebook first phase of construction at tableware next year will actually raise the S. Table Dr., Road where you go from the bathhouse to the boat club. It tends to flood a lot back there and it floods that low level as well. Square way that the defendant just enhance that state and a lot of people put their kayaks in right there in front of were you rented out the kayaks and panel boards. Is that still going to be an option. We actually just finished some construction of that. Do we put a new paved walking way for people to feel user kayaks and a little better approach space to. So what are some flaws and blinking lights and some stuff to get others in your road that kind of intersect that but it should be a lot safer for people he saw that your was extremely busy for people to be watching kayaks and canoes and stuff over. They don't let it cool things happening with La Crosse Park recreation enforcer department chair and how we find out more information about all the fun things in all the excitement that's going on with the park and rec department can add to our Facebook page city La Crosse Park Receration for streamlining that to our website city La Crosse.org and that's/Park, telephone number area code 608-789-7533 their number 608-789-7533 the your vision 2020 conversations with department heads from the city of La Crosse is a podcastforhire.com production. For more information about the cross, visit the website city of La Crosse to work