QC Forum - 4-14-24

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Quad City Forum, aweekly community service program produced by iHeartMedia to
look at the issues and opportunities thatexist in our community. Now here's your
hosts for a Quad City Forum,Pat Luke and Denny Linnhowe. Brooke Hendricks
from Every Child. She is thevice president of development and Communications with Every

(00:24):
Child, Brook Who Even though it'sbeen around for a while, Every Child
was not always Every Child. You'vegone through a name change and tell us
the reasoning behind that. Yes,it's been about two years now with our
new name. We were previously theChild Abuse Counsel. We did a whole

(00:46):
year of study to see what thebest name would be and if our old
name was the best name that fitthe services that we had, and we
ended up changing the name because reallyit's just more positive. We don't just
serve kids who've been abused and neglected. We serve all kids who've been exposed
to trauma. We serve all familiestrauma exposure or not. We provide services

(01:08):
for families and then the community atlarge, just prevention services, parenting workshops.
We really serve the entire community tohelp them learn how to best protect
kids and build strong families. Soevery child kind of encompass that a little
bit more positively. Now when wetalk about just what you do, and

(01:34):
there's got to be a website,probably social media, anything like that if
people once they get done listening tothe great job you do brook As in
this interview, Now, are thereways to be able to at least check
things out just to see what's goingon. Yes, we are on social
media on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and then we are also we do

(01:57):
have a website, it's every Child, It's f o R everychild dot org.
Are there are times that some peopledon't want to don't want to talk
because they're worried about money being anissue like finances likely, Yes, I
think a lot of parents worry aboutif I look into getting help from my

(02:20):
kid, how much will it costme. Our services are completely free,
So we have community duelas that servicesfree to the community. We have home
visiting services for the families that qualifycompletely free, and then most importantly,
we have therapy services for kids zeroto five at no cost to the participants.
Well, I love that you're catchingkids when they're very young, and

(02:45):
just the fact that catch and helpingthe families too. Exactly. And the
fact that you've been around for fortyfive years, I mean, which kind
of blows my mind that the quadCities is still being introduced to you in
the great work after forty five years. But yes, catching the kids early,
I think that's the most important thing. Yes, yeah, If we

(03:06):
can catch behaviors and impact of traumaearly, then we can help mitigate those
impacts that kids will see later inlife, So we can mitigate the health
and behavioral impacts that may come afterpuberty and even into adulthood. And kind
of piggybacking off of that, youwere just talking about the services that are

(03:27):
provided for free. Well, there'sstill is money involved, and that's probably
one of the main things, oneof the main reasons You've got the big
fundraiser. And for me, I'mnot sure is it gala or gala.
I'm never sure how to say it, but we do know it's coming up
this month. Yes, I saygala, but also it's really just a

(03:50):
fancy way of saying it's a nonprofitholding an event where we're fundraising. So
yes, our annual Celebrate Every Childof is being held on April twenty fifth
at five point thirty PM at theWaterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf. Love heavy
orders, semi open bar, silentauction, live auction, a wine pole.

(04:15):
We've got the Mullin High School ChamberOrchestra providing entertainments. Dela Rosa Photography
will be there. We've got AaronMarin as our keynote speaker, so she
is a survivor and an internationally recognizedauthor and advocate for child safety, so

(04:36):
it's a pretty big deal to haveher here. And then just really great
people all together in a room supportinghealthy childhoods, which is pretty great now
here we are in the well,I would still call it the early part
of April, but the event comingup in the twenty fifth. How can
people line up? How can theyget their tickets reservations? What do they

(05:00):
do? Tickets are on sale nowand all that information is on our website.
And then if you're unable to attendbut you'd still like to support our
mission, donations received during the monthof April will be matched by a challenge
pool. So even if you canattend and you'd like to donate, your
donation can go further because it willbe doubled by that challenge pool. Wow,

(05:23):
I've never heard of that. Ithink that's a wonderful Well, I
think it is. There tends tobe people saying maybe it's the pandemic that
kind of made a lot of usrealize, well, wait, not everybody
can make it. So let's notshut them out because they still could have
some other legit if they're out oftown, birth in the family, and
they still want to help. Soagain, website just so people can start

(05:45):
the ball rolling right now. Andlet's get a record breaking, record breaking
attendance for April twenty fifth. Sohow can they do it again? At
the website? Yep. The websiteis for every child dot org and it's
fry child dot org. If youor your organization would like to be featured
on Quad City Forum, please visitthe contact page and our station website.

(06:09):
Now back to bat Luke and DannyLinnow getting a chance to talk to Kate
mates with the Quad City Botanical Center. Now, Kate, I know that
your expertise is sometimes that's all inthe labeling, and I think of,
well, you're going to be ableto take care of all the plants that
my wife Diana and I have almostruined. You can come along and bring

(06:31):
them back to life. So whateveryou're as long as it's not too far
gone, you can help in thatway, shape or form. And that's
the beauty of the plant sale that'sgoing on with the Botanical Center. But
before we get into that, andagain I won't bore you with all the
plants that Diana and I have messedup. For people that maybe haven't been

(06:51):
to the Botanical Center in a while, maybe this is a great opportunity because
it's not just look looking at allof these fantastic plants and the train garden
and all the other things. It'ssomething new being added every day. It
seems like with the Botanical Center,Yeah, we are really trying to improve

(07:12):
our gardens one little space at atime. We've got a brand new,
trending garden area that can help youdream about what your backyard, what you
want your backyard to look like.We have a new children's garden area that's
going to be opening this spring calledthe Storybook Garden, and that's looking awesome.
Have a few other beds that werein the middle of reworking, So
come on down if you haven't seenin a cinem month, there's something new

(07:35):
will be going on. I wouldsay if haven't been down there in five
minutes, there's probably a couple ofthings that have added on. But Qcgardens
dot Com again to find out moreon that all of that the great stuff
that Kate you do and everybody elsethat's involved, because there's probably a lot
of volunteer work that goes into thisthat never never really being advertised as much

(07:58):
as all that work that's going ondoes take money. And there's different fundraisers
that are going on, and certainlyone of them right now that they can
take advantage of before it's too lateis the Big Plant Sale. Yeah,
this is my favorite fundraiser of theyear for sure. Got perennials and annuals,
and we've curated some combos so we'vecreated like a look that you can

(08:20):
take home and put in your ownpots if you're not sure what you think
would look good, we've got abunch of those. It's just nice to
bring color and joy to your yard, and we've got some great examples of
that. Is there a way tokind of look some of this stuff over
or is it probably better just togo to the Botanical center and look at
it. Well, our Plant Saleis a pre order plant sales. Okay,

(08:43):
go to our website, look overthe beautiful pictures of the plants that
we have found. I'll pick whatyou want, and then you'll pre order
before April fifteenth. That's the lastday. We'll take that the rest of
that time to pull all of theorders and get a raising, and you
can pick them up on Saturday,April twenty seventh. And then if you

(09:05):
get there in person and realize youforgot something, we will have a few
extras left over from the ordering processthat will be available that day. But
if you wait too long, youmight miss something. So if you snooze,
you are going to lose on thisone. So yeah, don't get
your sleep and maybe, first off, go to the website qcgardens dot com
or is there any other place thatthey have to go to to look over

(09:26):
some of the plans. There isa link. You can find the link
right on the front page as soonas you pull up our main page,
and that will take you to ourbuying page. Okay, So qcgardens dot
Com really kind of starts the ballrolling, and I would imagine being the
fantastic place that you have always beensince really almost the first brick was laid
a long long time ago with theBotanical Center. Advice for some of us

(09:52):
novices that don't know exactly what todo. We don't know the difference between
too much water and not enough water. Can you help well? Outside is
a little bit easier. Mother Naturehelps you take care of it. If
you look at the plant and theleaves are starting to well, give it
a really good drink, Give ita whole watering can worth of water.

(10:15):
Okay, you want to probably dothat at least once a week, unless
it's ranked the whole watering can oncea week, and you'll that first year,
you'll be great. And it doeslook like in these last couple of
days we've started to see a littlebit more activity with nature being able to
take care of us with some wateringstuff just in time for the big time
growing season. But again to starteverything up for those of you that are

(10:37):
just tuning in talking to Cape Mapeswith the Quad City Botanacal Center with the
plants sale, I think this hasbeen a couple of three years where it's
been more pre order other than anythingelse. Maybe some people are still thinking
I'll stop in and look it over. Pre order is the way to go.
But again, how can they lookat what kind of plants they want

(10:58):
and how can they order the plantshere between now and April fifteenth. Go
to our website Qcgardens dot com.Follow the link on that page. You'll
take you right to some gorgeous fullcolor pictures and each if you and then
each plant has a description of allof the details so that you know if
that plant is right for you.Mm hmm oh, this is perfect Qcgardens

(11:22):
dot com. Kate, Happy growingseason, enjoy this fantastic fundraiser, and
hopefully you break a lot of recordsto help out the botanical Center. Well,
thank you and we appreciate you givingus a time to talk about the
plant sale. If you or yourorganization would like to be featured on Quad
City Forum, please visit the contactpage and our station website. Now back

(11:43):
to Pat Luke and Danny Linnowe,we're talking to Kathy Brandt and Scott Nauman,
and we're talking about the American HeartAssociation and there walks that are happening
all over the country, but certainlyabout the Quad City's Heart Walking. I'm
sure Kathy probably has a little bitmore of a regional look at the whole
things. But guys, let's starttalking heart walk. Yeah, thanks so

(12:07):
much. And I'm forever grateful forKathy and her leadership. She's been a
dedicated volunteer and tremendous leader for theAmerican Heart Association for many, many years.
And it doesn't seem to have aclock or a timetable at whatever I
need. She's there to help ourcommunity. And whether that's education, advocacy,

(12:28):
or just being there for a friendlyyear to try to build a sponsorship
or something for a company, she'sphenomenal. So we're glad to have her
on board leading our efforts here inthe Quad Cities. Well, and Kathy,
I think it's interesting as much experienceas you bring, You're like twenty
two, Now, how does thathappen? You've been around for and you

(12:50):
know what it probably is. It'sbecause you've been walking forever, so you've
kind of reversed the aging process.We know what having Scott is our Heartwalk
chair certainly reduces stress. So Idon't age as quickly as I could.
So Kathy, why don't we startwith you? Yes we are. The
Quad Cities has challenged to step upto Dubuque, and so our goal is

(13:15):
two hundred thousand dollars this year.But within the Quad City's Heart Walk,
we very much want it to bea community inclusive event. We want everybody
to be involved. My goal forthe Quad City's Heartwalk is that so many
people are at the walk that theQuad City shuts down because everybody's at the
heart Walk. Heart disease impacts absolutelyeverybody. Losing one out of every three

(13:35):
Americans heart disease means that nobody isuntouched by heart disease. And we want
to create healthier communities. We wantpeople to live happier lives. So that's
what the Heart Walk is all about. It's getting people up and moving,
it's creating a sense of community,and it's raising funds for research, education
and training as well as community awareness. I like how she slipped in that

(13:58):
total, there, Scott, totwo hundred thousand. Okay, Scott,
how are we going to do that? Well? We could get one person
to write a check for two hundredthousand dollars. Yep, there we go.
Now, Mike could do it rightnow, guys, but that check
would be bad. So I don'tthink we can do that. I mean
we could, right, But honestly, if everybody does a little bit and
every dollar does matter. People arein their workplaces, they're coming up with

(14:20):
creative ways to raise fund Some ofthe teachers are doing like a casual Friday
where they can wear jeans. Somepeople are doing chili cookoffs. There are
many, many creative ways to raisemoney. Some people are just digging into
their pocketbooks and sending us, youknow, amounts. But at the end
of the day, there is somesome place for everyone within this walk.

(14:43):
I mean, when you talk aboutcommunity, right, you talk about people
coming together. So if people havemeans, then they can throw some dollars
at it. But sometimes they're they'rewalking in memory of or in support of
a survivor, and it's very personallymeaningful to that person. So if they
get together with their other family membersor with their company and they all have

(15:07):
their personalized T shirts, that's aheck of a moment for those folks,
and that's what matters. You know, you come to this thing either in
need of support or you know,some collegial relationships, or you're there to
offer support. So it's pretty coolthe way this thing evolves. And when
we talk about the pandemics. Itcertainly changed a lot of ways that some

(15:31):
of these fundraisers were done, Kathy, it still brought out some great options
well, and you brought up thepandemic, which there's I had just learned
something recently. The pandemic did changehow we did things. We've have gone
back to our in person events,which we are extremely excited about and really
want to make it a very festiveand celebratory event. Before the pandemic,

(15:52):
we've been the number one killer sincenineteen nineteen, and the only reason we
weren't in nineteen nineteen was because ofthe Spanish flu, which was our previous
pandemic. But then during COVID,we actually got more heart survivors and stroke
survivors because of COVID, So wewere you know, at nineteen we were
waiting for the CDC to come outwith the numbers. We were so close

(16:15):
to dropping to the number two spot. The good news is cancer dropped and
they dropped enough to stay in thenumber two spot, because we don't want
to get it by them increasing.We want to get it by both of
us decreasing, right. But thenin twenty twenty, our mortality rate from
cardiovascular disease jumped back up to twothousand and three rates. We had been
going down every year for seventeen years, and that work was undone because of

(16:40):
COVID. So we are working onchanging that trajectory back to a decline instead
of an increase, and we areagain working towards getting closer to that number
two spot, and eventually we wantto get down to number three, number
four, and to the point wherewe don't you know, heart disease doesn't
exist. But to your point aboutgetting people up and moving, that's a

(17:02):
big part of it. The Americanculture is just not cooperating with heart health.
People need to eat healthier, peopleneed to be mentally well, they
need to take care of themselves,they need to get good sleep, and
they need to move more. Sothe Heartwalk embodies all of that, which
is why I think it's such asuch a great event for people to participate

(17:22):
in. All right, Scott,Now we talk about activity and getting people
moving. How can people get involvedright now to help out and get some
nice momentum for June eighth for theQuad City version of the Heart Walk.
Yeah, Well, we've learned alot over the last couple of years that
I've been partnering with Kathy and kindof shairing the executive leadership team. But

(17:42):
when we got our act together lastyear and even a little bit the year
before, it's like, Wow,if we only we had talked about this
in February March, we would havehad time to get more engagement and understanding
and buy in at the workplace level. So I think it's critical right now
that we do our jobs to getinto companies, to get into you know,

(18:03):
the communication media as we're doing now, to be able to make sure
that this thing is it does getIs there a heart walk coming up?
And didn't I hear about that?You know, so it's due. It's
time to get the word out aswe're doing, and then try to get
people to say I see myself asa part of this event because you know,
prickly without having a real official entrancefee, you know, if you

(18:26):
have a beautiful day on June eighth, a wonderful Saturday morning, I mean,
there's really no reason why folks couldn'tor shouldn't come down to the Schweebert
Park and be a part of thisthing, because, like Kathy said,
everyone's life is impacted by this Youmay not know someone with diabetes or you
know one of the others, buteveryone knows someone with cardiovascular disease. And

(18:49):
we all found that out with thisultra heavy snowstorm we had this past winter,
the one major event. I betwe all know someone that had an
issue with that at shoveling. Andyou know, here we are now trying
to say did those folks were theymoving enough, were they active enough?
Did they even know that they weretaking time bomb? So that's one of

(19:10):
the great things that this event allowsus to do is to make a difference,
raise some money, get involved inone way, shape or form,
either through the corporate level, orindividuals can have team as well, or
you know, their family can bea team. So I'll let Kathy talk
about some of the URLs and someof the ways to register a team because

(19:32):
she's so fluent with that. Anybodythat wishes to register for the heart Walk,
whether you're going to be organizing yourteam or just want to walk,
just goes to Quad citiesheartwalk dot organd you click on register and join the
team and then you can get startedfrom there. If anybody has questions on
that website. Is my email andmy phone number, and anybody can reach

(19:53):
out to me directly with any questions, concerns, or requests. And there
is one thing I'd like to bringup that hasn't been brought up yet is
this year we will be celebrating theAmerican Heart Association's one hundredth anniversary of saving
and improving lives. Wow. Sothis is going to be And the cool
thing is is our heart walk ison June eighth. Monday, June tenth

(20:15):
is actually our Founder's Day. Sowe want this to be the biggest,
best heartwalk that Quad Cities has everseen. We want to get as many
people there as possible. We wantto celebrate one hundred years, and we
want to come together so that weenter the next hundred years as strong as
possible. When okay, but nowwait a minute before you continue with that.

(20:37):
I know some people will go whenyou say Quad Citiesheartwalk dot org,
some people will go QC or they'llabbreviate it. So well, is there
a default or do we want tomake sure that we go we spell out
quad Cities to get into that goodpoint. Yes, it is quad Cities.
Spell out it is plural, soit's quad c T I e.

(20:59):
S. Heart Rock dot Org andScott kind of what you were bringing up
to, it's strengthened numbers. Imean we can we and celebrating kind of
getting back out here again and beingable to enjoy with large gatherings. That's
large gatherings with big groups from thewhole office. In some cases, some
of those offices are just now gettingback to coming back to the office.

(21:22):
So let's now not everybody. Everybodykind of got used to maybe being at
home, but now let's celebrate gettingback to seeing some of our co workers
now by enjoying a beautiful day helpingout the Heart Association. Yeah, you
hit the nail on the head.We're just at a college this past week
talking about being able to be apart of something that's not purely transactional.

(21:47):
Go in, go to class,you know, say how to a buddy
and leave. But this is partof something that we're doing together and that
translates to workplaces. The cities areall involved. We have some well just
six folks that are helping us withthe details of the walk, and there
are a lot of the administrative assistancefrom our very own quad city communities.

(22:07):
So the actual cities Mayor Thames wasthere last year. Mayor Gallagher Decker Plaine
City Administrator. Mayor Madsen was atone of our executive leader meetings, and
then we know we've got presence fromMolina. We're working with these Molene to
get everyone in both. So youtalk about the Quad Cities Heart Walk,
it's not just because it's in Davenportand starts and ends in Rock Island.

(22:30):
I mean this is a more majoreffort and issue and we believe that we
have nothing to do but grow thisthing because the only reason it hasn't been
a meteoric increase in funds is justlack of awareness. And now we can
control that, can't we see,So again, we want to encourage as
many people as possible and it's opento anybody and everybody. We want to

(22:55):
see everybody from the surrounding communities aswell as from the five quad Cities.
And to register and get more informationor to find my contact information, you
go to Quad Cities Heartwalk dot orgquad Cities heart Rock dot org. If
you or your organization would like tobe featured on Quad City Forum, please

(23:18):
visit the contact page on our stationwebsite. Now back to bat Luke and
Danny Linnell. As we continue withQuad City Forum today with me is Betty
Joe brus Luis and Betty Joe iswith Junior League and she's heading up the
big charge. She's the in charge, large and in charge gal that's making

(23:40):
this happen with the hygiene drive that'sgoing on. And first before we get
in depth to the hygiene drive,because this is a very important thing that
Junior League does, Betty Joe,can you just talk about real briefly what
is Junior League because in my mindI have all sorts of things that I'm
not sure as actually pertinent to whatJunior League really is. Yeah. Sure,

(24:04):
Junior League of the Quad City isabout women of all ages helping other
women, businesses or just in thecommunity in general. So you could be
an older lady, you can behigh school, you can be college.
The Junior League is about helping womenof the Quad City. Yeah, it's

(24:27):
kind of like empowerment, is Iguess what I feel. And there are
so many great ladies doing so manygreat things in the Quad Cities. It's
kind of nice to get an opportunityto bond together. And I feel like
it it improves us exponentially. Yeah, one hundred percent. There is a
lot of empowerment women's businesses in theQuad Cities and when I joined Junior League,

(24:52):
I became known of even more.And the women are absolutely amazing and
very welcoming into the Junior League QuadCity chapter. Yeah, and if anybody
is listening, oh, you know, I'd love to be a part of
that. Junior League has a website, we have a Facebook page, and
we would love for you to findout more. I think if people google

(25:14):
it they should be able to findit too. In Facebook especially definitely it's
Facebook for sure, Okay, andInstagram. So we get together just briefly
about every couple months, and there'sthere's a lot of good things that come
out of it. So if you'reinterested, we'd love to have you a
part of it. This is reallyreally important drive that is going on right
now. That Junior League is behindgetting it started and making sure that well

(25:38):
women all over the community actually havethe hygiene needs that they may not be
able to afford. So the hygienedrive that's going on, And since you're
in charge of this, Betty Joekind of talked to me a little bit
about first off, how long dopeople have to still take part in this.
You have until April fifteenth to continueto take part in the hygiene drive.

(26:00):
And the hygiene drive is very importantbecause we are learning that one out
of ten women slash girls can't affordthe basic products that we need as women
every day. So with that,we decided to do a hygiene drive and
we have different locations throughout the QuadCities that you can make a donation.

(26:26):
We have an Amazon wish list,or if you don't have time to go
shopping, we have a PayPal thatyou can donate to. But it's camp
on pads, shampoo, feminin whitedeodorants, and we're really looking for the
little fifty bags like or little cosmeticbags and to make little hygiene package so

(26:52):
the girls can take with them asthey need to. Hey, that's a
really good idea. I didn't eventhink about that. Sometimes it could be
embarrassing to carry that kind of stuffaround and the more you can kind of
disguise it make it, you know, Okay, I think it helps girls
especially be prepared in all situations.Yeah, and we didn't realize how bad

(27:15):
the bags were important until we hadsome young girls talking to us about how
the privacy and discreete of pads andstuff are important. We forget that not
everybody is comfortable with feminine hygiene productsbeing out. We're talking about the hygiene
drive with the Junior League and againit runs through next week. So we

(27:40):
want you to definitely get out thereand grab some stuff if you can.
Where can people go to drop offthese items if they're out on a shopping
trip, you know, the restof this weekend and they're picking things up.
We have one Tree Hot Yoga anddab and Ford full on R five
nail And in Davenport is a dropoff location. And then Saint Paul's Lutheran

(28:04):
Church in Orion, Illinois is adonation site. And then we have Bank
Orient Quad city locations. So wehave the Bettendorf, Iowa locations, the
Mollin on John Yr Expressway locations,the mollen Bank on Route six location,
and then the Orient Bank in Orion. Wow, I feel like that really

(28:27):
covers a lot of the quad cities. I think anybody who has something to
drop off would be close to oneof those locations, So that's awesome.
Those locations are your drop off.But one more time, if like maybe
I'm at home, and I'm like, I'm not going to get out,
but I would like to help.How can I maybe do it from home?
Just find the Junior League Facebook pageand we have an Amazon wish list

(28:51):
that you can click on, orthe Junior League Quad City PayPal that you
can click on and make a donation. These are all really great ideas,
Betty Joe. Thanks, thank youso much for talking about it. We
sometimes forget how important these things areand how expensive they can be. You
are so welcome. Thank you toeverybody who is supporting this or I It's

(29:11):
very much appreciated. You don't knowhow much it is appreciated. If you
want to find out more, JLQCdot org for Junior League of the Quad
Cities. You've been listening to QuadCity Forum, a weekly community service program
produced by iHeartRadio. If you wereyour nonprofit organization would like to be featured,
please visit the contact page in ourstation website for contact Quad City Forum

(29:37):
and carib iHeartMedia. Quad Cities threefive three five East Kimberly Road, Davin
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