September 14, 2020 at 1:51 p.m.
Fundraising frenzy: Boys & Girls Club of Oneida County pushes back start date; community garage sale collects donations
Fundraising frenzy: Boys & Girls Club of Oneida County pushes back start date; community garage sale collects donations
By Stephanie Kuski-
Kyle Parish, detective sergeant at the Rhinelander Police Department, announced in December of last year his intention to start a Boys & Girls Club in Oneida County. Although his sights were set on starting the program this fall, those plans have been squashed due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for donations.
"We have to make sure we have three years - a year and a half in the bank and a year and a half pledge - before we can even open," Parish said, referring to their initial capital campaign. "To have it open and then shut down in a year would be, I think, just as devastating as never having one."
Because a new BGC chapter must have the support of an established BGC, Parish has partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Langlade County.
Parish said Angel Zimmerman, CEO of the BGC of Langlade County, will also be the CEO of the Oneida County club and will come to Rhinelander twice per week to facilitate meetings and direct staff. For that reason, the BGC in Rhinelander will be similar to that in Antigo: any student from first through 12th grade will be supported, and the cost for a school year membership will be $25 and $100 for the summer program.
Parish stressed that the BGC is open to anyone regardless of economic status, adding there are even scholarships available to waive the membership fee so that no child will be turned away.
Once enough funds are collected, Parish said the first big stepping stone will be to hire a full-time staff member to tackle these beginning stages head-on. Parish, who's already been stretched thin at the police department throughout the pandemic, said he's had to take time off in order to accomplish some of these initial tasks involved in establishing a new BGC chapter.
Last year, Parish said he attended a drug-endangered children conference which suggested bringing in a BGC to provide a safe place to support kids after school hours. He said this conference in particular, in addition to his daily duties at the Rhinelander PD, demonstrated the need for a space to mentor and feed children in our community.
"We have a lot of kids that don't always get nutritional meals," Parish commented. "A lot of the kids I've seen and dealt with, they don't necessarily have mentors - their parents work two jobs and they don't really have somewhere in the community they can go. If they don't do sports, they don't have a lot of options for things to do after school, and that's what these different programs for the Boys & Girls Club does."
Parish said one important aspect of the BGC programming will be to provide nutritious food to students in a group setting after school hours. In an effort to facilitate this goal prior to opening the BGC of Oneida County, the BGC of Langlade County helped distribute meals to the Rhinelander community for a 7-week period during Evers' Safer At Home Order. In all, they distributed a total of 5,810 meals to youth in Oneida County.
The BGC of Oneida County also hopes to offer an after-school mentoring program similar to the one in Langlade County, where community members can come in to help with club kids and high school students can mentor middle school and elementary school students.
Through his position at the Rhinelander PD, Parish said he's already established a working relationship with social services in Oneida County. Social workers already work in partnership with the Langlade County BGC by aiding students who need extra mentoring or support, and he said he hopes to start a similar program in Oneida County.
Parish added that he also hopes to establish a program that will help local high school students find area jobs and/or vocational training for specific trades like manufacturing, so that Oneida County students have the resources to stay in the area after graduating from high school.
Although commencement of the BGC of Oneida County has been pushed back to an undetermined date, Parish said that fundraising is still ongoing. Once enough funds are collected, Parish said they will begin the hiring process for a full-time staff member and announce their new location at a centrally located building in Rhinelander.
In an effort to collect donations, Parish said Liz Karnosky - a first-time volunteer with the BGC - was instrumental in setting up a community-wide garage sale fundraiser, which generated just over $6,300.
"She (Karnosky) did a phenomenal job, it went far above and beyond what I expected," Parish commented. "It was really nice to have another member of the community step up and do the fundraising."
"I started out just hoping to have a small garage sale at my house," Karnosky explained. "When I started this, people were cleaning out their closets and drawers during quarantine, they couldn't take their items to Goodwill or the thrifts stores because they're closed, so I thought this was an opportunity for me to open my garage that was empty for a no-contact drop off."
"I thought I'd raised maybe $1,000," she continued. "I posted it online... and within two weeks, my garage was packed full. We had to then fill a trailer, and then we filled another garage, and it got to a point where there was no way we could have it at my house because there was just way too much stuff."
By the time summer rolled around, Karnosky said they needed a larger location to host the garage sale because of the enormous amount of donations. The garage sale fundraiser was hosted at the old Dollar Tree building in the ShopKo Plaza over two consecutive weekends in August. Karnosky said they stuffed the 5,000-square foot building jam-packed full of donations.
"It was amazing, we had people from everywhere donating items," Karnosky said. "Even during the sale, we had people coming in and dropping items off throughout. We had people coming in, not even buying items, just dropping money off. It was amazing, we had excellent support from the community."
"We put in a lot of hours," she continued, referring to efforts by numerous volunteers who helped with the fundraiser. "It was a lot of work to put it together, but in the end we made a lot of money for the Boys & Girls Club, so it was well worth the effort that we put in to do it."
At the end of the sale, however, Karnosky said they still had a lot of leftover donations. She said she posted to a Facebook group she created (called Oneida County Boys & Girls Club Fundraiser Garage Sale) announcing anyone could take anything they needed for free, with a generous selection of household items, clothing and other miscellaneous finds.
"Then, after that, we still had some things left over," Karnosky said. "Rather than packing them up and taking them to Goodwill, we decided we still wanted to try and give back."
"We boxed up all of the bedding and the stuffed animals and gave that to the Oneida County Humane Society for all of the pets," she continued. "Then we boxed up all the vases - I think we ended up with three boxes of vases - that we gave to Forth Floral, and they use those for the nursing homes and hospitals to give flowers... We went through and pulled out all of the T-shirts that we had, and then the Pine Grove Church cuts those into strips and they make jump ropes for Operation Christmas and they send those overseas to kids. Then we pulled out all of the books, and there was an assisted living home and a drug rehab facility that took those... Habitat for Humanity took all of the artwork and furniture. So we were trying to just keep on giving throughout the community where we could."
Although Karnosky said she hasn't volunteered with BGC before, she said she's hoping to continue her work for the BGC of Oneida County.
"I want to see the Boys & Girls Club get started in our community," Karnosky said. "I think there's a great need for it."
Karnosky added that she saw tremendous support from the community over those two weekends, and thanked those who came out to volunteer and donate.
"I'm very thankful for all the volunteers and everybody that supported us throughout the entire garage sale," she said. "It was a great turnout."
In addition to the garage sale fundraiser, the BGC of Oneida County has also been working with other community partners to make their dream of supporting local children become a reality.
"From the get-go, the school district has been on board, and they've been sending a representative to each one of our meetings," Parish said, referring to the team's monthly Zoom meetings since the start of the pandemic. "We have been talking with the school district to try and see if there's a way they can help us. The new superintendent (Eric Burke) is very excited about having a Boys & Girls Club here, so we're working with them."
Over the past few weeks, Parish has been having conversations with the school district and other community partners to brainstorm "COVID-friendly" fundraising ideas to move forward. In the future, Parish said he also hopes to partner with the Boy Scouts of America.
"When we're up and running we could partner with them and they could bring in instructors to actually instruct these kids on some of these STEM programs," Parish said. "That's another partnership we made early on, but until we have the funds, it won't bear any fruit until we can actually open up and have kids in our club."
Parish said he hopes to partner with other community organizations like the YMCA of the Northwoods and others down the road, adding he's willing to partner with any community organization that could lend a hand as the club moves through the early stages of getting off the ground.
BGC of Oneida County is still in search of donations as well as volunteers to help with fundraising efforts. For more information about donating or volunteering, connect via the Boys & Girls Club of Oneida County Facebook page.
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