Get all of the details on the St. Joe's Picnic for the Kids

Rich Flaherty previews a Louisville staple, the 175th St. Joe's Picnic for the Kids coming up on August 9th and 10th, their $1.75 chicken dinners, and how you can help with the cake booth...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Anyway you were with news radio waitforty whas now gathering money in our communities,
that's another thing, and that thatcomes through hard work by people pursuing
great causes, including people working onbehalf of the Saint Joe's Children's Home on
Frankfurt Avenue. Their big picnic everyyear is a Louisville tradition. Rich Flaherty

(00:22):
joins me against go to see youagain, brother, you too, dare
This picnic has a magic number comingup, anniversary coming up this time.
Really every year it's special. Youknow it was only special, but this
year's especially special. One hundred andseventy fifth anniversary of Saint Joe's and the
picnic. Imagine that's older than theDerby started in eighteen forty nine. I

(00:43):
mean, it's an amazing institution that'sbeen out there helping children for all those
years. And we're with my wifeand I and my family are thrilled to
be part of it, to help. I'm actually a board member for Saint
Joe's now, so I've we reallyjumped in with both feet. That's so
great. It's coming up again.It's in August yep August ninth and tenth,
so Friday night from five o'clock toeleven o'clock and they will have it's

(01:06):
called the band's called Back to Mac. I've never heard them before, but
I understand they're fantastic. So they'llbe playing on Friday night and then Saturday
from noon to midnight, and they'llhave because of the celebration, they'll have
bands playing live all day long.D on Saturday, which is great.
And the other one that's very fora lot of people out there because it's
the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary. They are doing a dollar seventy five

(01:30):
chicken dinners out there this year,oh wow, until they run out.
So it's special ticket you have tobreak. It's all cash because they can't
afford here with this price. Theycan't afford to have to pay the credit
card fees. But if you getout there early, you can get a
chicken dinner for a dollar seventy five. Is that on Saturday? Only Saturday
only? Yeah, because chicken thereis only served on Saturday. And it's
still it's the same old ladies too. As I'm making the chicken dinner,

(01:53):
I mean, they love it.It's a whole squad of people out there
and they're like they're smoking and carryingon. Hey, girl's got to say,
yeah. Well, and the beautyis is they have went through that
huge renovation. So for a lotof people who ate the chicken dinner and
the old gym and you were wonderingif that well, the walls were going
to fall in. It's all beenrefurbished. It's beautiful out there. The
picture I love in there is ofthe kids from the Saint Joe's Home,

(02:16):
yep, and they're all sitting thereat their tables or whatever, and those
nuns are sitting at the front,and then the nuns have beer on theirs.
I mean, that's some old timeLouisville stuff. The photo is probably
from nineteen ten or whatever. It'sstill funny. You would never see a
thing like that today exactly, butit's hilarious. Anyway, This Saint Joe's

(02:37):
Children's Home just does great work andit's affecting how many families right, oh
my goodness. Yeah. So justlooking at last year alone, they have
different programs so that they have theresidential kids. They house forty eight kids
in the cottages at every day andthey actually had and those kids are ones
that have been taken away from theirhome because of abuse, because of different

(02:59):
issue. And last year alone,ninety of those children went out to a
family. So we either went totheir another person in their family, or
went to a new family that tookthem in and are supporting them now.
So which is fantastic. You know, they got the foster care program they
had, they supported forty nine fostercare kids that were served last year and

(03:20):
sixty seven percent of those went outto new families through through the foster care
program. Child Development Center, theirpreschool. There's a lot of people whose
kids go to the preschool there.They had two hundred and fifty nine kids.
Forty clients went through their behavioral healthwork. So it's kids that you
know, kids that went through that. And then the amazing part which Finbarr,
who is famous out there for isthe chef out there for food.

(03:42):
He served sixty eight seven and ninetyseven meals in twenty twenty three to the
kids and thirty seven, three hundredand twenty four snacks to these kids.
So, I mean, it's allthe people out there that you know,
whether you know Grace Grace Acres who'sthe CEO, has been the CEO for
many many year. You know,she has a fantastic team that just you
know, does so much for thesekids, and we're thrilled to you know

(04:05):
we well, obviously we're here talkingabout the cake booth too, which is
what my family has support us runfrom the last eighteen years. Every dollar
we make, it's just we justknow what's going to two great cost to
help kids. Now you can goto these various local bakeries and say I
want to donate a cake to theSaint Joe's picnic. That's what we say.

(04:26):
Just go in and walk into someof these neighborhood bakeries. I've done
it many times. Yep. Yeah, I'll buy a cake and send it
to the whatever. And so thosebakeries take care of that. But you
also have a website that makes ita lot easier, don't you. Yeah,
well we a couple of years agowe tried to make it easier on
the bakeries because the bakeries, withthe inflation and everything and the shortage of
people to work, they were reallystruggling with try to take all these orders

(04:47):
and so planes and heightspins and andwe don't have busminds anymore. Said that
the busmins isn't there anymore but Plane'sHeightspins Nords Nor Bakery, nothing but cakes
and Gigi's Cupcakes. They they historicallyhave been our bakeries. What we've done
over the last couple of years isreally migrated over to taking donations. So
if you go to donatecakes dot com, very easy address to go to.

(05:12):
There's a website where you can donatemoney, you can donate and cakes nowadays,
and fortunately before COVID, our cakesaveraged about for our cost was about
eight dollars and fifty cents per cake. We're up at fifteen dollars now,
so we're asking people to donate fifteendollars to you know, per cake.
And then what we do is wego out to the bakeries, We schedule
out with them, tell them exactlywhat we need. That way, they're

(05:33):
very familiar and very ready to beable to deliver the cakes to us,
and we bring in about two thousandcakes that are donated from the donations every
year that we then translate into biggerbucks. So you can imagine, you
know, if you think you cando the math in your head, you
know, if you have two thousandcakes at fifteen dollars a cake. That's
about thirty thousand dollars of donations.Last year we profited for the kids almost

(05:58):
forty four thousand dollars. Fantastic infifteen hours. So that's great. Your
family's been organizing this for nearly twodecades. But there was a time when
just the neighbors would bake cakes.Oh you take it, take them over,
and that's how all this started.Ye, But now we need folks
to we do. Yeah, wewould love to take home bakes. To
this day, we still have theold guard that comes. They come with
their bag of coins and they PLoPthem down and they play and they win,

(06:20):
and then they go back to thecake truck and they say, do
you have any home bake cakes?And you know, after with COVID,
we had to move away from homeba cakes and it just makes it actually
is it's easier in us because thenice thing about the bakery cakes is their
stack, so we can put themin this big Cisco truck that we get
refrigerated truck, and it's easier forus. When we had all the different

(06:41):
it was beautiful plates. Some peoplewould have cakes that are these beautiful plates
they bought and people would get thecake, just purely for the plate,
not as much for the cake itself. But those were really hard for us.
Here's an important Catholic picnic question.What are we putting down there?
Is it a dime each spin?Or is it a quarter? Or is
it a dollar? What is it? So unfortunately, a couple of years
ago, after COVID we had towin, the prices all went up.

(07:03):
We had to go to a quarter, We had to go off of the
dime after and it was it wasI struggled. In fact, that folks
at Saint Joe's tried to push methe year before to do it, and
I said, I can't do itbecause I I know, especially the old
ladies, they come with that thatsound, you know, that sound that's
made when they just pick up theboard after they spin is complete, and

(07:23):
then they just pick up the boardand sweep the dimes into the trade.
The quarters actually are are even betterfor that. I was going to different
sound. Yeah, when we we'llstill get boards that have you know,
one hundred one hundred quarters on itat a time, and when they when
they pop those boards, you canhear it on the board, it hits
the trays and it just it's loud. It's loud. John Bonham hitting the
drums. It is all right.The website is cakes Donate Cakes with an

(07:47):
s dot com Donate cakes dot com. I went out years ago and bought
that on go Daddy, knowing thatwe would need it, and sure enough
we you know, we're using itnow and it's as you said, it's
it's easy. People remember it.You're your listeners remembered it last year,
and we do this year. Wewant to take it a step further.
Last year, I think we gotabout three hundred, three hundred fifty dollars

(08:09):
from your listeners donated, which weappreciate that. But we've got a challenge
this year. We had an anonymousdonor who came in and gave us five
thousand dollars to use specifically for challengesfor with on the radio stations they want
to set they want to give onethousand dollars worth of cakes, and now
asked the ask the listeners out thereto match that thousand dollars. Oh,

(08:33):
let's go. Yeah, So we'regonna we've got two weeks basically to make
this. How do they know ifit's the whas listener? So what'll happen
is when you go on to thedonatecakes dot Com, there's a there's a
field there where it actually says who'syour parish in your neighborhood. Make sure
you put Terry's name in there,and that's how we'll track the ones that
come from from the rat from Terry'slisteners. And then you know, well,

(08:54):
we'll keep you updated, so I'llsend you Terry updates as we go
there. It is. It's rightat the beginning it says cake booth donation
and then you can put in fifteendollars or click thirty or seventy five hundred
and fifty to help us track donations. Please tell us what is your parish
or neighborhood and you want them toput Terry minor show so Terry Miners Okay

(09:15):
in there, because that will thatwill be the great easiest way because then
it pops up on my screen whenit comes through, we get the and
up to one thousand dollars is matchedby some mystery person. Exactly. It's
a it's a family foundation in town. They helped us last year. We
were a little short last year andthey came in at the last minute with
three thousand dollars. I'm totally in. I'm doing it here. Yes,
I'm spectacular. So hey, Ido want to mention some of my So

(09:37):
Saint Joe's has big donor or bigsponsors. That happened, but we at
the cake booth over the years forgood. From the last sixteen or eighteen
years now, we have had localbusinesses that have supported us. Some of
them have supported us up to onehundred cakes, so fifteen hundred dollars,
which is spectacularly If you don't mind, I just want to make some call
outs. Oh, goyeah. Oneis South Paw. Most people have never

(09:58):
heard of them, but Health Pawis a is a a Taco Bell franchisee
who just opened the new Taco Bellon Brownsboro Road right by Saint Joe's.
And so they gave us. Theygave us three thousand dollars. There are
presenting sponsor for the cake booth everytime we play our games. And that's
the thing to watch for when youcome out to the cake booth is watch
for the games. We give youtwo spots for a quarter, four spots

(10:20):
for a quarter. And Southpaw isa great organization. Law firmantown Saturdley and
Kelly. They've been a longtime sponsorByerley Ford, the Don Howers and and
then Rotary Club of Southhats, Louisville. They go together to sponsor the cake
booth and they bring most of thevolunteers on Friday Night, which is fantastic.
S I m SMI Automotive over herein Saint Matthew's another longtime sponsor.

(10:41):
But I do want to call outFitness Market. I don't know if you've
heard of Fitness Market, but they'rethey're They're a great organization in town that
offers fitness equipment. They have saunas. Oh I was hoping we go there
and just get them to pay,pay them to exercise for it. Well,
you know they you know, theydo have the sauna for after when
you extra okay, so you know, and they also we'll pair of your

(11:03):
treadmills. A couple of more Martin'sBarbecue. Good friend owns Martin's Barbecue.
One of the owners from Martin's Barbecue. They have a big fundraiser in our
neighborhood coming up next week where we'regonna make about fifteen hundred dollars. He
brings all the food and then onepediatrics call your law a new sponk New
platinum sponsor for us this year.They've always been there. And then the

(11:24):
last one's Atlas Brown and I haveto I can't skip. My wife's company
High Note, great marketing and printingcompany in town. They've supported us,
you know, ever ver since beforewhen they were Allegra. We've have some
sponsors have been with us for sixteeneighteen years. So if I bake a
cake for your booth, we don'ttake homemads anything. You know, if
someone shows up at the at thebooth and I'll I'll bacon cake cut into

(11:48):
little slices and then I'll be thereby the booth and just give people samples,
you know, and this is oneof one of the things you can
win. He we've done that beforewith cakes and you know with Gg's cup
Guess why people love Gg's cupcakes andnothing gakes because they get three or four
bunts, you know, if it'sa bunch or four cupcakes and they take
them and that they can have lunchright there. What parish do you have

(12:09):
a parish that is applying the people. Saint Patrick's is the predominant parish.
So we've we've they've supported the cakebooth for over twenty years. There's a
lot of miners in that. There'sa lot of miners there, so we're
just talking about a couple of them. I actually just played golf with Chris.
I think I told you about fourin a golf league. And then
Mike, you know, make Mikecoach. Mike is there. And Mark

(12:30):
used to coach my son one,you know when he before Mark went to
Florida and then my coached him,you know, in his eighth grade.
So yeah, lots and lots ofleakages. We've known, you know,
the miners for a long time now, you of course because you you go
to that other church, to HolyTrinity. Yes, two of my brothers
are the Vince Lombardes of Toy bowlthey are, they are, and my
son went to to a couple ofthose toy bowls also, So yeah,

(12:52):
it's great stuff and I appreciate youhaving a son, and please, you
know, let's let's let's celebrate thisanonymous done and make him make them feel
very good. All right, cakes, cakes, cakes, Let's help Saint
Joe's picnic, and it is comingup in a few weeks August, what
August. Go to this website donatecakes dot com and just if you could

(13:16):
just make a donation to buy acake or two or three or whatever you
can do. And when it saysto help us track donations, please tell
us what is your parish or neighborhoodyou want them to put Terry Miners.
Put Terry miners in there. That'sthat's their parish. Archbishop Miners appreciates that.
And you're helping the kids at SaintJoe's. Good to see again,
Rich, Thanks so much. I'mall right back on news radio. Wait
forty w h A s.