QC FORUM - 4-21-24

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,Pot Luke and Denny Linhowe. Valerie Rumler.
We talked to Valerie quite a fewtimes for different things, but Valerie,

(00:20):
big date coming up here on Apriltwenty seventh for people that have you
know, we always talk about itgetting rid of prescriptions after you know,
in a safe way is coming uphere fairly soon. In Valerie, why
don't you tell us all about what'sgoing to happen on April twenty seventh,
or what hopefully will happen well.On April twenty seventh, we're going to

(00:42):
have what they call it Drug takeBack Day, which is affiliated with the
DEA National and the Cause. WhatI belong to is called a Coalition Advocating
for Underage Substance Elimination. So we'rejust a nonprofit organization that kind of back
the DEA and the different police stations. And we have quite a few police

(01:04):
stations this year involved in the AprilTakeBack. We have Rock Island, Milind
Molling, East Molling, Dovis,Colowna and geneseeal and any other police station
that would like to contact. Basically, you contact the DEA to find out

(01:26):
who's there. It's going to helpyou. This is all happened because how
many of us and the other dayI you know, I'm looking around and
I don't clean up like I should. This is not about me, and
I'm not going to try to makemyself feel any guiltier than I already am.
But sometimes you will find a prescriptionthat for whatever the reason, you

(01:47):
didn't use it all. And themain thing is if that's out there,
sometimes that can be taken by achild or a grandchild, or sometimes just
taken and think, let's just tryit. This is fun something there,
and that's a problem that can reallystart to become an epidemic for a lot

(02:07):
of families. Definitely, definitely,and they're unwanted ones is for sure also
expired ones. People that may havegiven a prescription and just put it in
the back thinking, oh, Imight need it for another time. Well,
a lot of medications do expire too, so they have to look at
that as well. And April twentyseventh is a drug take back here in

(02:30):
the Quad Cities. It's a nationwideevent, but here in the Quad Cities.
So if people need to when youtalked about the list of the fire
departments, whether it's or the lawenforcement places that we'll be doing this if
it's expired or if it's not neededanymore. For even if it hasn't gone
past its expiration date, what shouldpeople do, Well, you come to

(02:52):
the actual police station. That's wherewe'll be posted, and we're going to
make it as convenient as possible.Lot of times we just walk up to
your car and offer assistance, soyou don't even have to get out of
the car. And it will befrom ten am to two pm. And
that's also nice too because there's ananonymity. This is not going to be

(03:13):
something where people have to, oh, here's a license and to make sure
that everything's on the up and up. Just return the meds and you're on
your way. This is probably rightless than five minutes and you're on your
way once somebody rolls down the windowand starts talking to you. Definitely,
we don't ask for any reasons whywe're picking while you're dropping them off.

(03:36):
We don't ask. Sometimes we getstories, of course, losing their parents
and cleaning out their houses and findingmedications that they don't know what to do
with. I myself had medications thatcame back with my mother from the nursing
home that would never be used again. So I've got a lot of my
own medications here. I'll be donatingto the drug take back as well.

(04:00):
They also take in patches vaping devicesthat must be kind of a new thing,
and the cartridges. The cartridges I'llbe accepted. You just need to
remove the batteries if there's batteries,and we take no sharps or no liquids.
Okay, so no sharps, noliquids, no batteries, but everything

(04:23):
else if it's involved in vaping orany kind of a drug in any way,
shape or form, whether it's expiredor not, can be taken over
here. Now let's just say nowthis is April twenty seventh, so we're
talking about well, by the timethis interview airs, we're talking about next
weekend. But for people that let'ssay they miss it or they forget about

(04:45):
it, are there other options thatwe'd love to have it be responsibly taking
care of it. It will beat any one of these police stations here
on April twenty seventh. But arethere other options. Let's say on April
twenty eighth, you go through aprescription or you still have a few leftover,
what can you do after that?Definitely look at one of your pharmacies.

(05:10):
Check out your pharmacies at High V, at Walgreens and wherever you might
find a pharmacy to see if theyhave they have metal boxes that are sealed
and locked that you are capable ofputting things into there that fit through the
slot. And definitely do not drainthem through your toilets through your wall.

(05:32):
That does tend to happen a lotwhere people people think, Okay, I'm
not even I'm going to cut outthe middleman, and that is that's taboo.
Yes, that just hurts the communityand our environment period. Okay,
so set the stage again April twentyseventh, Drug take Back. What do
people need to do Valerie to bea part of this and make this another

(05:56):
successful event. Just bring any medicationsthat are unwanted or expired, and you
don't have to remove them from thebottles. A lot of people feel they
have to remove them from the bottlesto avoid the person's name or anything like
that. But all of that isdestroyed. It's all burned by the DEA
in a specific area, so youreally don't need to remove them from the

(06:17):
plastic containers or whatever they're contained in. Okay, I keep coming up with
hypotheticals here, and I'm not tryingto extend the conversation any longer than we
need to. Yet, what ifyou find, you know, as you're
cleaning up anyway, and you see, you know, their pills could be
prescriptions, but they have no labelto them where you just found them on

(06:38):
the ground. You want to bringthem. Is there any any need to
try to identify or is there oryou guys take it from there once.
Once they drop it off, theyknow what to do. Yep. No
identity needed, no identifying needed.We just take it from your hands and
put it into a plastic bag thatis sealed by the police department and sent

(07:00):
to the DEA where they do theburning, so nobody even inspects them.
April twenty seventh, the first Iknow there'll be another one in the fall,
but yet April twenty seventh, atlaw enforcement places, I don't know
if we keep track of it.But let's let's get some big numbers there
so we can get the drugs outof the wrong hands. Definitely, definitely,
we do post. It's not thatwe have a competition, but we

(07:24):
do post the weight before we dosend it off. Okay, so even
though there's no competition, let's goahead and break a record this year.
Huh yeah, yes, definitely,Valerie, thank you so much for that.
And again, just a reminder Apriltwenty seventh and the times are again
for the drug take back. Okay, we have from ten to two at

(07:44):
all of these locations, Rock Island, Milin Moulling, East Moulling, Silvis,
Colowna, and Genesial police departments.The Rock Island Justice Center is also,
so don't go to the Rock IslandPolice Department because it'll be at the
Justice Center. Valerie Raalmler, thankyou for the great work that you and

(08:05):
a lot of other volunteers and alot of law enforcement are part of.
Thank you for making the world abetter place. We appreciate it. Yes,
thank you very much. Pat BrookeHendricks from Every Child, she is
the vice president of Development and Communicationswith Every Child. Brook. Even though
it's been around for a while,Every Child was not always Every Child.

(08:26):
You've gone through a name change andtell us the reason name behind that.
Yes, it's been about two yearsnow with our new name. We were
previously the Child Abuse Counsel. Wedid a whole year of study to see
what the best name would be andif our old name was the best name

(08:48):
that fit the services that we had, and we ended up changing the name
because really it's just more positive.We don't just serve kids who've been abused
and neglected. We serve all kidswho've been exposed to trauma. We serve
all families trauma exposure or not.We provide services for families and then the
community at large, just prevention services, parenting workshops. We really serve the

(09:15):
entire community to help them learn howto best protect kids and build strong families.
So every child kind of encompass thata little bit more positively. Now
when we talk about just what youdo, and there's got to be a
website, probably social media, anythinglike that. If people once they get

(09:35):
done listening to the great job youdo brook as in this interview, now
are there ways to be able toat least check things out just to see
what's going on. Yes, weare on social media on Facebook, Instagram,
and LinkedIn, and then we arealso we do have a website.
It's for every child, it's ferevery child. Are there are times that

(10:01):
some people don't want to don't wantto talk because they're worried about money being
an issue like finances likely, Yes, I think a lot of parents worry
about if I look into getting helpfrom my kid, how much will it
cost me. Our services are completelyfree, so we have community duelas that

(10:22):
services free to the community. Wehave home visiting services for the families that
qualify completely free, and then mostimportantly, we have therapy services for kids
zero to five at no cost tothe participants. Well, I love that
you're catching kids when they're very young, and just the fact that catch and

(10:43):
helping the families too exactly, andthe fact that you've been around for forty
five years, I mean, whichkind of blows my mind that the quad
Cities is still being introduced to youin the great work after forty five years.
But yes, catching the kids early, I think that's the most important
thing. Yes, Yeah, ifwe can catch behaviors and impact of trauma

(11:05):
early, then we can help mitigatethose impacts that kids will see later in
life. So we can mitigate thehealth and behavioral impacts that may come after
puberty and even into adulthood. Andkind of piggybacking off of that, you
were just talking about the services thatare provided for free. Well, there's

(11:26):
still is money involved, and that'sprobably one of the main things, one
of the main reasons. You've gotthe big fundraiser. And for me,
I'm not sure is it gala orgala. I'm never sure how to say
it, but we do know it'scoming up this month. Yes, I
say gala, but also it's reallyjust a fancy way of saying it's a

(11:48):
nonprofit holding an event where we're fundraising. So yes, our annual Celebrate Every
Child event is being held on Apriltwenty fifth at five thirty pm at the
Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf. Loveheavy orders, semi open bar, silent

(12:09):
auction, live auction, a winepole. We've got the Mullin High School
Chamber Orchestra providing entertainments. Dela RosaPhotography will be there. We've got Aaron
Marin as our keynote speaker, soshe is a survivor and an internationally recognized

(12:31):
author and advocate for child safety.So it's a pretty big deal to have
her here and then just really greatpeople all together in a room supporting healthy
childhoods, which is pretty great.Now here we are in the well,
I would still call it the earlypart of April, but the event coming
up in the twenty fifth. Howcan people line up? How can they

(12:54):
get their tickets? Reservations? Whatdo they do? Tickets are on sale
now and I'll that information is onour website. And then if you're unable
to attend but you'd still like tosupport our mission, donations received during the
month of April will be matched bya challenge pool. So even if you
can attend and you'd like to donate, your donation can go further because it

(13:16):
will be doubled by that challenge pool. Wow, I've never heard of that.
I think that's a wonderful. Well, I think it is. There
tends to be people saying maybe it'sthe pandemic that kind of made a lot
of us realize, well, wait, not everybody can make it, So
let's not shut them out because theystill could have some other legit if they're
out of town, birth in thefamily, and they still want to help.

(13:39):
So again, website just so peoplecan start the ball rolling right now
and let's get a record breaking,record breaking attendance for April twenty fifth.
So how can they do it again? At the website? Yep, the
website is for every child dot organd it's fr everychild dot org. If
you or your organization would like tobe featured on Quad City Forum, please

(14:03):
visit the contact page on our stationwebsite. Now back to Pat Luke and
Danny Linnhowe. We have Caleb Blaine, education manager at Junior Achievement at the
Heartland. Now, even though Kayla, we have your offices are in Moline,
JAA is all over the place.But for people that maybe are not

(14:24):
aware exactly what JAA does or JuniorAchievement does, wyn't you give us an
overview. So Junior Achievement we reallyprovide and inspire young people for a successful
future. We have programs for kindergartenthrough twelfth grade and we talk about financial
literacy, work and career readiness,entrepreneurship, and that really is the goal,

(14:48):
is to inspire those students to dreambig and understand that they all have
the potential of being those entrepreneurs andcommunity leaders. So we want to provide
them with those experiences early so theycan build on it in the future.
Well, I would think also thiswill bring a child or give a child
a little bit more confidence too.Sometimes when we're going in that young age.

(15:13):
It's been a while since I wasat that young age, but remember
how big the world was and howmuch I didn't think I could make a
difference. These jaya really can helpa young person get their stride. Absolutely,
it really does. It gives themthat encouragement and they see community members

(15:33):
that they're familiar with and businesses orrestaurants that they have in their community,
and they come into the classroom andthey share their experiences while they're leading our
programs, and so it just itmakes that connection and gives them that real
world experience that they can use asthey continue through school and beyond. Yeah,
that's what I love. I mean, you have education, but this

(15:54):
is more of a like hands on, like real life experience as you were
talking about, kind of let thedifference between book learning and common sense in
a way, and it does givekids that opportunity to maybe even kind of
try out. Yeah, they're they'reapplying what they're learning. Yeah, yeah,

(16:15):
yeah, they do. They applywhat they learn all of our kids
have these hand on, hand onmaterials that they can experience what it's like
to be a business owner, whatit's like to be a CEO, how
they manage their money, you know, learning those saves for you know,
their needs versus once. So itreally it impacts them in the classroom.

(16:36):
But then it gets them to thinkabout like the future, five, ten,
fifteen, twenty years down the road. And so when we build on
the kindergarten programs, and then itjust builds year after year as they have
it in their classrooms. Perfect practicetoo. They're seeing somebody that okay,
they can almost like a mentor tobe able to say, Okay, they
did it, I could do ittoo. But this also is great because

(17:00):
it's the teacher plays such an importantpart of every student in every classroom.
This is also great to get volunteerscoming in from outside the community to help.
So if people want to be apart of this. And now by
the time this airs, we're talkingabout just it seems like school is almost
done. But this process, itdoesn't matter what time of the year it

(17:21):
gets picked up. You need volunteersto be able to get the help educate
the kids correct late we have sessionsin the fall semester as well as our
spring semester. We even have classesthat run through summer programs that we look

(17:41):
for volunteers for to leave those sessions. And so our elementary sessions are typically
five to six lessons, so wetalk about maybe one a week to complete
the sessions, and they're about thirtyforty five minutes long, depending on the
age of the students and the numberof students that are in the classroom.
When we have junior high high schoollevel classes, sometimes those are a bit

(18:03):
longer, lengthier in timeframe, justbecause they do cover a more expansive curriculum
and be able to like lead themselvesinto those filling that quarter for a class
or that semester. But then thevolunteers and the educator they work together to
come up with a schedule that worksbest for them that they can come in

(18:27):
visit the students, work with themon the skills, provide the lessons,
and then include their own stories andexpertise. And I know there'll be some
like you know, chats where thekids really aren't doing too much except for
listening. But I've often seen likethe little towns that are set up for
junior achievement. When a child ora volunteer gets involved in the program,

(18:51):
what can they kind of expect toexperience when they pop in on one of
these lessons. During our lessons,like they are all led by the volunteer
for the most part, and thena lot of the lesson is a hands
on activity. So, for instance, with our third grade jar city,

(19:12):
they a culminating activity is the studentsget to build their own city and they
get to lay it out and seehow all of the businesses interconnect together.
There's some that have games involved withthe dice or moving pieces, so then
the students are able to really takewhat the volunteer is saying and then being

(19:34):
able to apply it in a reallife situation. When somebody volunteers, what
experiences is needed. Now, it'sgreat if it's a business owner, but
you don't necessarily have to be abusiness owner to volunteer, No, you
do not. We talk to Wehave a lot of people from the community

(19:56):
that just want to give their time. Tired educators are another audience that we
have as well. We have peoplethat work in restaurants or in financial institutions
banks, those kinds of situations too. Where they're just looking to give back
to their community. Maybe they hadJA as a student and they're looking to

(20:18):
have it on the other side andprovide it to those students to provide that
mentorship. So it's really it runsall gamuts and it just depends on the
volunteers comfort level and what they areable to give their time to when they
want to volunteer. What are thesteps to go through calling JA? Is
there a website? What are thesteps? Yes, we have our website

(20:44):
that they are welcome to go to. It's Heartland dot JA dot org.
And on there there's a list ofour programs that we have available for all
grade levels and then a way tolook at what classes are available as well
that are open looking for volunteers inthe area. And then we also they
can call our office with the numberis found on the website as well,

(21:07):
and then we connect you with myselffor one of my colleagues that's in charge
of the area that they are lookingto volunteer in. Can we just go
through with them talk about what gradelevel they would be interested in, if
there's a topic that they saw onthe website that intrigues them the most,
and so we just had that conversationwith them to help them find the best

(21:27):
fit placement for them. I'm excited, I'm stoked, I want to do
it. I'm going through a wallhere, Kayla, I'm ready. Okay,
I didn't need to do that.I scared her a little bit,
didn't So I'm here. I'm good. Well, So then if people are
interested, what is your next bigmilestone? When is the next big thing

(21:49):
that you're trying to fill out.So in addition to the classes that we
have to sill for the remaining ofthis school year, we will have summer
program that are offered on both sidesof the river, and then we have
our fall semester that really starts whenthe students come back to school normally around

(22:10):
September is when they start to pickup their schedules for JA and then we
just we repeat the process and wekeep the ball rolling all the way through
the school year. Love it now, Caleb Blaine, Education Manager, Junior
Achievement of the Heartland. I'm gladthat you brought it up again on that
both sides of the river are beingtaken care of on things. But again,

(22:32):
just as we wrap it up heretoday, website again just so people
can find out a little bit more. Yes, our junior achievement of the
Heartland website is Heartland dot ja dotorg. That's Heartland dot ja dot org.
If you or your organization would liketo be featured on Quad City Forum,

(22:53):
please visit the contact page and ourstation website. Now back to bat
Luke and Denny. Now we areexcited about this because anytime we talk to
anybody from Living Lands and Waters,we just get energized on how we can
make a difference here and certainly goingto help us. At one time our
nickname was Razor, but that's fora different time. But CALLI Chaser is

(23:18):
in here today from Living Lands andWaters, and CALLI thank you so much
for taking some time, so busyfor you guys to have any kind of
free time, and yet for thegreat work that you do. Not everybody
knows what Living Lands and Waters isall about. So do you have some
time to maybe talk about that alittle bit? Yeah. Currently, actually

(23:40):
I can speak on that because Iam sitting on the side of the road
here in Wisconsin getting off dropping offsome trees, and so I started my
week going from Chicago Land up toWisconsin Land to Milwaukee Land dropping off thousands
of trees. So my load startedwith about ten thousand. I'm in a
van right now and I have probablyjust a couple hundred left over that I
got to drop off by the endof day today. I think it's like

(24:00):
your Johnny apple seed, except youryou're with trees. Yeah, or what
was that vanned down by the river? Anyway, We're always been a van
or somewhere down by the river.We hit it both, that's for sure,
but certainly with the number of timesthat your organization has been able to
clean up and make a substantial impactdown to cleaning our waterways, it's a

(24:21):
it's a NonStop job. Yeah,yeah, yeah, and we hit it
both. So the river clean upkind of is what started the organization,
and that's our bread and butter.But after we started digging enough holes getting
those tires out, Chad said,were we going to put in these holes?
And he said trees, And sothat's kind of what stemmed the million
Trees program. And we actually aregoing to hit our two millions tree distributed
and planted this year, which isreally exciting too. And so yeah,

(24:42):
it's just it's grown, you know, twenty six years in the making and
it's just evolved into all these differentthings and Chad has really gotten the good
crew together to keep that mission goingof we just want to make the Earth
better than what it is right now, and there's so many ways people can
be involved and educate them on howto do that. And it does.
And it isn't just this crew often or the past twenty six years,
different crews coming in. It's beenone hundred and twenty six thousand volunteers that

(25:06):
we've worked with physically picking up thetrash or physically planting the trees with them,
removing invasive species. But we liketo actually work physically with these people
and these companies and other organizations thatwant to be that physical help and actually
you see the results in front oftheir face, which is really cool.
Yeah. A lot of talk aboutit, but see it. Yeah,
a lot of people talk the talk, but you guys walk the walk.

(25:26):
I mean, it's not just oh, let's make this earth a better place.
You're doing it every day. Yeah, and then there's things you can
do right and it's not this wholelet's save the planet, but let's just
focus on today and what we canbe better and how we can help that
day, and Shadoways says it too, it's not me Vers cleaning up the
rivers. It's me versus that cokebottle right in front of my face or
that tire. And when you thinkabout it that way, it becomes less

(25:48):
daunting and it's more of just hey, there's stuff to do, let's do
it. It's great to have thatvolunteer base, but it's still costs money
to make all of this stuff work, and you've got a big fundraiser that
coming up. Even though that way, yeah, well there we go.
It's well we get paid for Well, yeah, we're trying. We're trying
to get paid for it sometimes.But that's the purpose of the program too,

(26:10):
to lead you into what's going tohappen. Because Earth Day will be
on Monday. That's going to bea fantastic thing with Culvers. It is,
it is, and this is ourfourth year partnership with Culvers, which
has been amazing. And it workedout through a crew member that his neighbor
was Mike Martel, who owns afew of the Culver's restaurants, and he
said, hey, there's stuff wecan do here, and he started slow
and COVID obviously was unfortunately the firstyear that we started it, so it

(26:34):
was a little vamper, But sincethen it's grown exponentially to the point where
we had I think it was twentyeight twenty nine restaurants or thirty or something
last year and we are over eightyrestaurants this year that are involved in partnership
with us. So part of theday, we have a few restaurants and
they're on our social media so youcan see which restaurants are what, but
they are going to be ten percent. Most of the restaurants will be ten

(26:56):
percent starting from four to eight percentat night where they'll get their profits from
whoever came in and got a burgerfrom forty eight pm that night, and
that those proceeds will go to livingLands and Waters. And then also there's
a certain portion of the restaurants thatare going to be participating all day,
which is huge. So we it'sjust been a great partnership and it's thrown

(27:17):
into something we couldn't even imagine,and we're so thankful for culverts to be
doing this and want to be involvedand take the time to do it because
there's a lot of back end workon Mike's part getting all these restaurants involved,
and it's just awesome to have peopleyou know, want to partake and
how they can help and show itand actually do it. So it's really
cool. And we are talking toKelly Chaser from Living Lands and Waters about

(27:40):
this big event and now you justtouched on the culvers and I'm looking when
you say over eighty, I'm amazed. You. Sometimes when you're doing a
fundraiser, people will say, well, I'm not going to be I can't
stop buy or I'm working and I'mgoing There is no from Bearaboo, Wisconsin
all the way over up into theChicago area sheet of rapids. You've got

(28:02):
them covered. But when they comein there during that time on Monday,
do they have to specify or isit automatically going to Living Lands and Waters
automatically. Yep, they don't needto specify. And there's also a container
to at the front if you wantto give you know a little bit more
or specifically, you know, thisis what I'm going to put in my
money, more than just what Ijust bought a food or I want this

(28:23):
specific money to go there. That'salso an option too, So yeah,
it's really, it's it's amazing.It's mind blowing. When when Pat told
me this is going to be aboutCulver's and I said, I'm at Culvers?
What am I? You know youwere already there, right, Yeah,
in my mind I was already there, And now what am I doing?
How am I helping? Because it'swhat a great partnership as super fantastic.

(28:44):
So one more, just once moremake sure people understand what's happening.
They just have to show up andeat delicious food, right, they do
that and then you know, goback and get some dessert afterwards at the
nighttime. You know, if yougo to those those rests, maybe goes
twice a day, you know what, Yeah, they ope up to breakfast.
Yeah, well, at least forthis pressure day. Maybe we'll work
on that next year. But itstill is is great there all day long.

(29:08):
They're going to be able to helpout in some way, shape or
form. So that's fantastic. Butagain, what do people have to do
to make sure they're a part ofthis thing? Yeah? So I think
first go on to our social media'son Facebook or Instagram and check which restaurant
is doing the full day and whichrestaurant is doing just the four to eight
pm This is you know in Illinois, Iowa and then also Wisconsin too,

(29:30):
so Tri state area, which isreally cool. And then yeah, just
go in get your favorite butterburger,cheeseburger, make sure you get those feastards
and a good culver steak to washit down with. And yeah, I
mean it's just it's good food too. So I just I love culvers I'm
from. Yeah, there you go. And nice up selling too, girl,
nice up selling. Way to go. Love that. Well, we

(29:52):
just we appreciate you. Cali,Cali Chaser from Living Lands and Waters.
We hope Earthday is that and more. Yes, and you might see some
participers, some Living Man's crews poppingaround a few of them as well.
You've been listening to Quad City Forum, a weekly community service program produced by
iHeartRadio. If you were your nonprofitorganization would like to be featured fleas,

(30:15):
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