October 5, 2026 | Welcoming Willows, Sue's final YMCA chat, Fox Communities Credit Union

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1:30Good morning, everyone. Good morning. How about that sports weekend in Wisconsin? I know this isn't a sports show, but I think a lot of us in a great mood today because of, well, how are our teams played over the weekend? Good morning, everybody. I'm Hayley Tenpas with you from the Myron Construction Studios of WHBY. It is Monday, October 5th, 2026th. Hopefully you had the best weekend available to you, whether certainly was just lovely, almost perfect. And we had a great weekend in our household. Lots going on. This morning though, I got a text from my husband around 620 this morning. So he's in the house, by the way.

2:30And I'm thinking, why is this man texting me? He's right downstairs. Well, the text message said, I think I broke the coffee maker. And that is never a text message you want to receive early in the morning. Sure enough, it was not working anymore. It's been a great run about eight years of that coffee maker. I've already used all my Coles cash to purchase a new one. I'll be picking that up this afternoon. But my goodness, eight years of the coffee maker, but that's not a great thing to wake up to. So instead, here is how I woke up or tried to, I guess, caffeinate myself this morning. Here's the pitch. Wind ride. Basit up the middle. Yellow scores. Here comes freely to the plate to throw. Bruce Wayne. Jackson Tureo. Get some Brewers and turn that thing seriously. Yep. So that'll do. That'll do. That will wake you up. And I'll never get sick of hearing that call.

3:32An epic moment in Brewers' baseball. I've been seeing this quote shared a lot too. How can you not be romantic about baseball? It's so sure. So true. We listened to our house on the radio, of course, right here too. And you can listen tomorrow for Game 3. All right. We're going to get rolling here on this Monday with Focus Fox Valley. We have a lot of voices in studio at the moment. And throughout the morning, we are bringing in Superlowski as well with the YMCA of the Fox cities. It will be her final chat with us on Focus Fox Valley before she retires. And then in our 11 o'clock hour Fox Community's Credit Union with bringing it to you straight on some realities that their members are facing right now. And also a fraud focus romance scam. Heidi has a doozy for us today. So tune in for that in our 11 o'clock hour. Right now though, we are highlighting nonprofit work. And welcoming Willow's joins us in studio and Adult Day Services Center located in little

4:36shoot providing individuals with disabilities, support to achieve their full potential. And we'll tell you more about how they do that. And we'll also highlight an event coming up their third annual. You've got a friend in us celebration later this month. We do have the Oleks joining us here today. Brian and Tracy with welcoming Willow's. Brian also Chief Financial Officer with Network Health. Brian and Tracy, good morning to you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. And also the executive director of welcoming Willow's Greg Voss with us in studio. Great to meet you Greg. Thank you. Good morning, Hailey. Good morning. Well, let's talk first about welcoming Willow's and how this organization came to be. The support it provides. And what the space brings to those individuals with disabilities. So I'll kick it off, Hailey. I'm, as you mentioned, I'm Brian. We founded the organization back in 2023 here in little shoot to provide kind of a facility

5:39based organization for adults with special needs and disabilities. And we really found that there was a need for this for parents with adults with special needs to be able to bring their loved ones to a caring environment that was inclusive, providing social experiences, activities, programings for their loved ones. And since that time, we've been able to grow to about 15 to 20 individuals that we serve on a daily basis, clients that we call friends. Recently, in this past year, we've been able to do expanded programming, expanding the facility out in little shoot. And in the community, we've just found that there's been more and more need for these services. And I'll turn it over to Greg. Greg's going to talk a little bit. He's our newly minted executive director. Yes. Our first executive director of the organization to talk a little bit more about that, those services. It's an amazing organization.

6:42And personally, myself, I tell people I dodged retirement to come to this organization because the inspiration and motivation to serve our community specifically are adults with disabilities. And every single day, with, like Brian said, the 14, 15 friends that come in, we offer an enriching environment, a safe, compassionate environment where families know that they can drop off their children and know that they're going to be busy during the day. They're going to be active. There's a variety of activities, a menu of opportunities for them that they may not have anywhere else, quite honestly. And so we're really proud of that. We have six very caring, compassionate, well trained, certified staff that provide those programs and love and care for our friends. I love that. And I was taking note of three areas where you promote independence, creativity, and socialization. I was hoping we might be able to get a little bit deeper into what those things mean, starting with independence. How are we helping to curate independence for these individuals, for our friends, of course,

7:46or types of activities or chores and such? Are you helping them work through when it comes to independence? They, they honestly, when they come in, they all come with different levels of disability, special needs, as we say. But our staff provides many activities during the course of the day. And the activities really enrich their lives. It could be lifetime skills, life skills and cooking and baking. One of our friends, Tyler, was baking up a pizza. I love that. He had never really done that before. He added some special toppings to that pizza. But also arts and crafts activities, some mortar skill activities, some sensory activities. A lot of times we can break them into smaller groups, twos and threes, where they can enjoy each other together during the activities. Well, that leans into the socialization of it all, right? Brian, I see you nodding your head. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really great to see. And you've mentioned this, Hayley, this, this part of this community has been one of the

8:48things we've been able to do to add to that programming. Our, our friends at the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra have come in over the past year and working with Jamie over there. We've created a program where they come in. I think it's Tracy every other week where they came in and actually sat down, brought in instruments. They brought in some of their own people and they played and just watching the faces light up, something that they don't get to do and they dance and they play and and and get to do that, whether it's bringing in art instructors. So if there's any volunteers who want to come in and do an arts and crafts activity with us, we're always open to those types of things that people want to do. Things that normally they can't do in a regular structured program, but in our facility, they can do that. And through the expansion that we've done, we've created an arts and crafts room. We've created a sports type activities room as we've continued to expand.

9:49All of those are adaptable for the individuals with the needs that that they have that they can't do in a large environment with people that might be able to do them in other settings, but with the individuals that we serve, they can do it at our facility. I think one part of the work you do too, to highlight is the respite care you provide to amazing caregivers and parents and loved ones. What do you hear from parents who are bringing someone they care for so deeply, right? They're child to welcoming the most for the day, to play and to be creative and to socialize. What do you hear from those families? It's amazing. The opportunity that they have to bring their adults to our facility. And it is a time for them to go on with their lives during that time that they're there. They go on to work. Some husbands and wives both work, families work. But then the drop off time is really neat because some of our friends will come in and

10:53they'll just run to their activity and get involved right away with their other friends. But then the pickup time is even, I think even more special when we can share with these parents, the activities, the enrichment that their young adults had during the day. We hear many, many comments from the families and parents about the need in the community first of all, but what that offers them to be able to have a little bit of time for themselves. Yeah, it's a reset and a recharge for everybody, I believe it. All right. When we come back, an event to come, mark your calendars October 22nd, the third annual you've got a friend in us celebration held at my favorite Van Ovels of Holland Town. And we'll tell you more about the events and the special connection and message to those impacted by the tornado as well. We're back with welcoming willows in just a few minutes. And we're back at 1024 on your Monday.

12:10Happy Monday, everybody. Welcoming willows is kicking off our show today. Brian Tracy Gregg all here telling us more about the work and mission of the organization. But fundraising opportunity to come is also on our mind. The third annual you've got a friend in us celebration October 22nd at Van Ovels of Holland Town. And we want to learn all about this event. Third annual, so you've got some, you've had some traction here, Brian, and how much excitement is building for the third annual event. So we're really excited. As you mentioned earlier, in addition to doing this, I'm also, as you mentioned, chief financial officer and network health. And we're excited to be the presenting sponsor. Their mission and network health really aligns well with welcome willows. And this third annual you mentioned celebration is exactly that. This is more than just getting together and having a gal or fundraiser.

13:10It's to celebrate the work that's been done all over the past year and to bring together our friends and bring together the friends that help us. And so our theme this year is friends helping friends. Third annual we hope to get again about 250 people out to support. Learn about our mission. Learn about why it's so important and why having our program continue to expand is important to serve more people. This year is especially important as we were getting ready to plan this event and get things together. Something happened in our community that changed things pretty drastically. A storm came through. And as we sat down as the board, a number of our board members are on a number of large companies in the area. We said, what can we do? Everyone is shown up for us the last couple years for our friends and how can we show up going back and helping. And we know there's a lot of people with special needs and disabilities that were displaced,

14:13affected and we said, how do we give back? And wouldn't it be great if a nonprofit could actually help out in the same way? And so this year's event we're going to be giving 30% of what we raise right back into Fox Valley tornado relief efforts. We know it will happen in waves and there's been waves of relief efforts happening. We hope to be part of that next wave of relief efforts. So we're hoping that as we can raise money here at the end of the month, we can also give a nice check back into the relief efforts as well. And that's part of friends helping friends. Yeah, it's been, it's really part of that greater, I think, pulse of support that's been coming through for our tornado. Those impacted by the tornado and it's been a steady pulse of just helping next and people are fitting into that just so, so naturally and it's really cool to see welcoming willows step up in this way. So thank you for that and I'm sure the event is going to be a very special evening.

15:13What is to be expected at the event and what do you have planned? So we all know that animals is known for the chicken. So there definitely will be the famous chicken. That's almost enough for people to come. But I think the other thing is we have some really great live auction experiences, things that you can't get at otherwise. We have golfing with former packers. We have a special non-al Driver experience with Jordan Love at this charity softball game next year with a meet and greet with Jordan Love. That will be auctioned off. There will be a trip to Florida boat experiences, boat excursions. You talked about the brewers. We will be having autograph Jacob Mizorowski items that were just collected in. Hopefully our new Saai Young Award winner in a couple weeks. Speak that into existence. So think about it. You can come to an event with maybe only 250 other people bidding on items and getting some great Christmas gifts or some things that you don't have to tell anybody about and

16:17their your own gifts. Treat yourself as they say, right? Absolutely. That's incredible. And again, Van Avels, none better. Shout out to Chris and his team, a great place to host a fundraiser and 30% or more of those net proceeds will be going to support tornado relief and recovery efforts. Absolutely. And if you want to go out soon, we have been selling tickets relatively quickly. Over the last couple weeks, you can go out to welcomingwillows.org for tickets right on the main page or you can check out our Facebook page welcoming willows and you'll see a lot of postings and a list of some of these great things that I mentioned that will be getting auctioned off or being presented as part of our raffles and silent auctions. A generous community we live in that is for certain welcoming willows. Find them on Facebook or their website too, like Brian mentioned. Tracy, we want to pull you in though because you are also working on a lot that has to do with this event connecting a lot of those prizes, but also working on events to come.

17:21Tracy, what is one thing you wanted to mention today and kind of speak it out there for our listeners? Yes, I'm super excited to say that welcoming willows, electric city shooters and unseen abilities. We are all partnering and doing our first annual trunk or treat. It will be in our parking lot. As of right now, we have over 20 trunks. It is going to be on Tuesday, October 27th from 5 to 7. But along with that, we also will have the building open. We will have unseen abilities open for a sensory area. We will have welcoming willows open to come in and get a hot drink. There will be a craft going on inside. So there will be lots of fun and we are super excited to get out in the community, partner with a couple of businesses and include everybody. I love a trunk or treat. They are a great way to gather some candy and prizes and things in a very short span of

18:25time. You don't have to walk too far. So I would imagine that works really well for a lot of the friends of the program too to be able to experience. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we really wanted to do is show up in our community and give some great opportunities for people to get to know us, but also give back to the community. As Tracy and some of our board members came back and said, how can we do this? This was one of those things that we said we really need to do. And being located on Main Street in Little Shoot, we said, where is a better place to do this? And we are really hoping that a lot of people stop by. It gives them a chance to see our facility right there, but it also gives us a chance to give back to our community. So if you are jotting down notes at home or want those dates mentioned one final time for you, the big third annual, you've got a friend in a celebration coming up October 22nd at Ben Obles of Holland Town and a Trunker Treat Experience Tuesday, October 27th

19:29from 5 to 7 at the Welcoming Willows building and parking lot in Little Shoot. Lots going on. Thank you all three of you for joining us here today. And if people want to follow up to learn more about utilizing Welcoming Willows services or perhaps they are compelled to volunteer their time and talents, how can they connect and be part of the organization? Greg? Thank you, Hayley. Welcoming Willows.org. We're really ramping up our volunteer opportunities as a matter of fact. We have a corporate group from Fox communities, Credit Union coming in Monday to do work. So that's part of the socialization plan with our friends, but also corporate opportunities come and join the party. That's great. Fox communities Credit Union coming up on the show in a little bit. Thank you Greg. Thank you Brian. Thank you Tracy. And again, more details can be found by visiting their website with Welcoming Willows. We'll link it over at WHBY.com. We'll pause here and the YMCA of the Fox cities.

20:32It might be our final chat with Sue Polowski before she retires. That is on the way. You're listening to Focus Fox Valley. Welcome back, Focus Fox Valley. Checking in on this Monday with the YMCA of the Fox cities. And this one's for my girl, Sue Polowski, because, oh my goodness, the bittersweet tone of our talk today is that Sue is retiring and this will be our final chat with her representing the YMCA of the Fox cities. But I don't know Sue, I think we'll have to find another way to get you in the studio.

21:35Do we do? But I must say, this has been such a special segment for me. Number one, because we love the Y with our family and we are there every single week, multiple times a week. I found my meet time there. We've grown our kids' abilities there. We've had family swim nights. It's such a special place for our family and you have helped me learn more about so many different corners of the Y beyond the physical strengths that you get there. It's the mental strengths you can find there. It is the faith you can find there. There's so much to find at the Y and you have been an amazing message bearer for the purpose and the mission of the Y in our time together and for all the years before that. So for me to you, my friend, just thank you so much for all you've done. I don't know how I'm going to turn it off. You will always be an advocate for the Y. I am. I will.

22:35I will. Well, we've brought some fun things together. We're going to talk about the history of the YMCA of the Fox cities today. Sue was digging, re-cleaning out your desk, Sue. Yes, well, I was doing a little history looking through some things so I could connect some families from way back to the Y. And then through the years, people have always dropped off little things. Like, I had, if I could read it, I would have brought it. But it was a handwritten note with pencil from a man in the service to Ginny. And it was, it was arm services. He was in, and he's right, it's a love letter to her. Anyway, I need to hear from you before I leave Germany. It was so cute. He mentioned the Y. He was on a Y stationery. Oh, my goodness. Because he was in the arm services. Why? Is that cool? Yeah, that is cool. Yeah, but I can't read it all because I can't read his handwriting. So I thought, I don't want to screw it up on him, but these, this is years and years

23:37ago. So I wonder if you would put that into little chat GPT if it would be able to. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. What the heck? I mean, marketing, I shouldn't own that. Jod it down. I will. Got it. Okay. So, wow, that's amazing history. And, you know, we get people dropping off things too once in a while. I found this old sticker, this old shirt, the logo for the Y. How that has evolved, right? Oh, gosh. It has. And it's 2010 was our last revised revision of the logo. And they actually weren't doing the logo. They were doing the brand. The logo came with it, right? Because obviously. So, and it's just really cool because I've seen all of the logos through my time too. And at one time I just found something we had a Y logo and then we had this owl on top. And we called it the Y's owl.

24:39That was cool. We've come a long way. That's amazing. That's amazing. Oh, I love whoever's brain came up with that. I know. That was a good one. And we had a mascot, an owl costume that Nancy Mickey and I would wear. And it was Woodsy the Owl. That's amazing. We've talked about having you come back in co-host with Nancy when I'm on vacation. She's the voice of reason, so I think we'd make a good team. She's very wise as well. Okay. Amazing, Sue. Yeah, different chapters in Y history have come across your time there. What are some moments that perhaps stick with you? And it could be anything from the Y's response in a crisis to moments of joy or moments of growth. What does stick with you? Well, let me tell you one thing that we always talk about. We want to be the most welcoming place. And when I was much younger in my career, I, you know, I was, came from a Catholic family,

25:42you know, I went to St. Mary's. I was very sheltered probably, although I was a rebel. But I, I always, I thought I was Catholic. I thought everybody was from a national. I thought, well, you know, whatever. And I used to encounter people that were less fortunate coming into the Y. And they were, there were some people really down and out. And at that point, when I, and I still can see some of these people walking in the door, I can see myself meeting with some of them. And at the point when I was encountering this, I wasn't the one who was sitting down and saying, hey, what do you need? You know, then I got to be that person. And that's something that's really close to my heart. And that because the Y does it, we don't turn anyone away. You don't have to be all the way down and out. You can be in the working poor, you know, mom and dad are working it, but it's so expensive for things. So that just really resonates with me that it's membership for all. It's a program for all. So we don't turn people away.

26:44And I never wanted to treat those individuals any different than the multi-millionaire that's walking next to them on the track. And that has always been my thing, but the Y also, that's who we are. And when I look back at some historical things, it talked about belonging and including everyone. So it's nothing new. It's just continuing. So that just resonates with me. I love that. And I think that's such a great reminder because you're so right when you're lacing on, lacing up your shoes and, you know, going into the gym, you don't know the person's story. You don't know. You never know what people are carrying. And that's the thing, not knowing the story, shame on you, don't make a judgment, right? Early on, I was like, oh, why is that guy? He just pulled up in a really nice truck and all this stuff. So I decided to ask him. And he was coming in for help. And he said, I just got gifted that because my dad passed away, whatever. So I'm like, OK, what am I doing? You know, and so anyway. But it's such an important piece of the Y.

27:46If you had to pick a spot in one of the locations of the Y to find a moment of calm or time for yourself knowing how well you know our locations, what might be a secret spot for you that you've always enjoyed? I think it would be in, well, it's in the pool for me. I love the pool. Nina Mnasha pool. I love that. But Nina Mnasha has this, it's used to be called the salarium and they added on. And it's a room that the sun shines in and it's in the back of the building over the river. And it's really pretty. And yeah, there would be a place that I'd go sometimes. I needed to get away. But that's pretty cool. Nina Mnasha building is getting old though. But it is. It's like a little sanctuary. It's nice. The plants back there and it's just nice to sit and relax. Kids and moms and dads come and the kids are doing homework and all of that kind of stuff.

28:48So yeah, you can find so many of those little corners. Oh, yeah. Every one of our branches has that. It has something like that. Well, we're in a season right now where there is one night a week where myself and portions of my children because we start with three and we whittle a town as the night goes on. We tag team it, of course, but we're at the Y for three hour chunk of time. So usually we bring snacks. We bring, I bring my laptop. We bring books and we are at the Y for three hours. And that's a great place to be. Yeah, basketball. We play pool. We play air hockey all of that. Exactly. Sue has a treasure in front of her though that we're going to dig into after the break. And let's first hear about how this came into your possession. Well, someone, oh, what is it by the way? A friend of mine. It is a book of favorite recipes compiled by why auxiliary Appleton family wine, CA.

29:49And I think the auxiliary was made up of women if I'm not mistaken from 1969. So this is a book of recipes. I mean, it cost $1.50 back then. So I'm talking, this is big stuff. But it is so fun to look through this and see the names, the names of the different people that are still, those families are still involved in the Y somehow. But yeah, got some recipes. And I thought it was appropriate to bring because of this used to be the old good neighbor show when the recipes. We still share a recipe or two. You did that when you were little. So I did call him. I sure do. I'll send you someone we can share some. I cannot wait to look at this during the break. And then we're going to pull a few recipes and we're going to share them with all of you. If you have a request, like the strangest thing we can find or something that includes the most dairy products, anything like that will do a quick run through. There's notes in there. Sue. I know. That's how you know it's a good one. And there's food residue. Okay, to use bok choy. There must be that must be a good one.

30:50There's food residue on the pages. That's how you know it's good. That is so fun. Okay, we'll be back. It's super lousy with the YMCA of the Fox cities. On it like my mother's, when you're going to live your life out. On the TV, not the function of one. And girls, they're all a fox. Oh, girls, just one of a fox. Welcome back to 1051, having fun with super lousy. The YMCA of the Fox cities with a very cool item in front of us. A vintage 1969 YMCA cookbook with some really fun and nostalgic recipes in there. As we're paging through here, Sue, which have caught your eye. Well, okay, you know the old Tater-Tot Castrol. I mean, that's around now. I love Tater-Tot Castrol. Every family, easiest thing. So Tater-Tot hot dish.

31:51Now I never realized things were called hot dishes. I always called it, I was growing up castorals. Well, I think it's also regionally more minous soup to call it hot dish than we do here in the Midwest, in Wisconsin, correct us or chime in at 211-1150 on what you call it in your home. So this is, it's got four ingredients. It's got hamburger, Tater-Tots, can of cream and chicken soup and milk. So now, and it's layered. This is layered with the Tater-Tot Castrol. Now we put all of that in it with veggies. That's what I do. But I thought that was kind of cool. Then tuna Rockefeller. So back in the day, tuna was a big thing. I remember tuna castorals, because tuna was probably very reasonable, I would think.

32:58Shelf staple, honestly. Yep. So tuna Rockefeller, it's got spinach and parsley, watercress, salt and tarragon, cayenne pepper, paprika, mayo, melted butter, lemon, juice, tuna fish, drained inflaked. And then you put it all together, tap with buttered crumbs, and my mother-in-law used to make it with potato chips on tap, crushed potato chips. I'm hungry for that. That is a comfort food. That really is. And it reminds me actually of the best fish I ever had, which was a baked haddock in Boston with a cracker buttered topping. Oh, that sounds good. Right? Yes. So that was, so Gene Reeve, that was her hair. The Reeve family was really big in the wine. Like Reeve you and C.A. Oh my goodness. The wine C.A. back in the day, or the name of Orbersons in here, Abraham. I mean, it's so cool to see these names of people that are still, their families are

34:00still somewhat involved in the wine C.A. as well. And then we, oh, Venish Knitzel. So that's, you know, like we do the, what do you call it, the Veal and stuff. And this is done with Veal and so easy, but they put roll bread comes with rolled anchovies. I don't know about that for me. Well, I don't know. Can't fishers really making a comeback. I know. I know. Really is. And then chopped, hard boiled legs. So this is a little different one, but it's fry. They fry it. And there's a lot of lamb dishes in here, which I wasn't, I wasn't really big eating lamb when I was young at all. No peak chicken I've heard of that one before, but it's the old rice mushroom, cream of mushroom, cream of celery, lip to nonean soup, chicken breast on top, boom, in the oven, right? Are there any aspects in there? Hmm.

35:00I have to go to the table of contents. But when I think of, when I think of classic cookbooks, it always amazes me the meat aspects that made their way to the recipe books. And you went, people really did make these. They really did. And they were fancy. And what about ham steak? That was a big one for. Oh, sure. There was, I can't find it right now, but there was one in here that about a ham steak and then it had a lot of like, oh, barbecue ham, party barbecue ham. I've never. So it's like ketchup, butter, lemon juice, orchard sauce, and four ham slices thin. So then you put it together in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil and then put them over there and then I know that. That sounds kind of good. Maybe in your retirement, Sue, you can cook your way through this recipe book.

36:01Sue cooks your way. They're the YMCA. Yes. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Smoked ham, ground ham, oh my. I love ham. Cheries. Oh gosh. Okay. But anyway, so there's just so many fun things in here. Like I said, I'm going to send you a couple so then we can share because it's just so fun. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that. You're so gorgeous. You're welcome. Yeah. Our way. What a fun find. I mean, you can keep for a little bit if you want to look through it at all. I'll let that's better in your safe hands. Okay. Well then, yeah. Send me some fun. And that's what we're going to miss, sir. Yeah. For your quick wit, but also your love and work in your new suit. Thank you so much. Thank you. What's the next chapter looking like for you? Oh, my next chapter is looking like I'm probably going to do a little bit of volunteer work at the Y. I'll give it a little time. And actually, I'm going to have a little spot at the vintage mall in Nina and sell some

37:03vintage items. I started collecting and I had tons of things at my house. And I just thought it'd be fun to do so I can get out and be with people. If I get bored, I'm just going to go the grocery store because I talked to everybody, no matter where I am. You should listen to this show and I will listen to the show and call in. So then I'll be that, I'll be that nagging caller. Oh, it's her again. But I might disguise myself as Zuzu because that's what my niece is in nephews call me. So you'll never know. Thank you for everything. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was fun. Thank you, Sue. All right. We'll pause and bring you more of the Focus Fox Valley after this.

38:03And a reminder that this presentation is brought to you by Fox Community's Credit Union and is intended for educational purposes only. This does not replace independent professional advice and statements and opinions are those of the presenter individually. Fox Community's Credit Union deposit products are federally insured by NCUA equal housing lender. Welcoming in for this first half of the hour, Rick Dennis, the financial wellness manager at Fox Community's Credit Union, who has been there for more than 25 years. He's a certified credit union financial counselor and uses that knowledge to help their members navigate through all phases of their financial journey.

39:03He is passionate about helping and educating others to make sound financial choices and to create lasting habits that lead to financial independence. Rick, good morning and welcome back. Good morning, Hailey. Sounds like you had a great weekend. I did. I don't want to go too far off script here. But my wife and I did attend rally for the Valley of quite an amazing event and dear right, I think they raised a lot of money and entertainment, all that stuff, which is awesome. And I was fortunate enough to be at the brewery game yesterday and just amazing electric atmosphere in that night ending. It was pretty amazing. How are your ears doing? Because the roar of the crowd, what we heard over the radio broadcast yesterday, it was incredible. Yeah. It was unbelievable. And I think when you get to play off baseball, play off whatever, just the level just heightens that much more. Oh my gosh, yeah. It was super fun to be there. So cool. Well, I'm happy for you and go Brewers.

40:05Absolutely. Go Brewers. Well, we've got some really important topics today that kind of help us understand how we navigate the day to day of costs. And the prices that we see out there can be a little bit disappointing and frustrating. And if you're budgeting, really tough for a lot of families, we're going to highlight some of those challenges. And we're also going to just discuss financial health, I should say, in general here today. So where do you want to begin on this topic here, Rick? Yeah. It's a really, I think it'd like to hit three things, just kind of what financial well-being overall kind of looks like. Right now, how it's impacting our community and our credit union members. And then what Fox can do to kind of help that out. I know this isn't specific to today, but I was like to hit you with a little bit of a stat of the day coming from our friend Jean Chatsky, a national financial coach and has a lot of good words to say.

41:06But she says 57% of parents say discussing drugs, alcohol and sex would be easier than talking with their children about money. And usually one and third avoid the conversation altogether because of their own financial baggage. And again, let's say, again, as we get into the rest of this conversation, I guess it is intertwined at some level, right? So one thing, awesome that the state of Wisconsin now has its requirement for half credit of financial personal finance in the high schools now for graduating seniors in 2028, I believe. And that a lot of other states are along in that mix because they recognize how important it is to get to where you thoroughly. As you said, we don't have to tell everybody about the rising costs. They're real. Whether it's the gas pump or whether it's the grocery bill or whatever the case may be, the cost of essentials like that, utilities, housing, transportation, healthcare, childcare.

42:06It's putting a strain on a lot of the households. And what I wanted to do is I don't want to be total doom and gloom, but I did want to share some statistics from the financial health network. Great organization that really does a lot of research and different things to try and really get the pulse of what our nation is kind of feeling when it comes to financial well-being. So we'll talk about maybe debt challenges first. The share of households reporting unmanageable levels of debt rose from 29% to 31% from last year. It's really one in three households, Aley. It's a pretty big number. The share of student loan borrowers who were financially vulnerable rose from 21% to 27% and as we know, a lot of those loans are now back in repayment. They were deferred for some periods of time and maybe they were already struggling to make ends meet prior to those loans coming back to do again. And now that's really kind of setting things off pretty move at the top. Yeah, and I really feel for students or former students in those situations who maybe

43:07had a moment of, okay, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but are now facing just uncertainty and figuring out the plan to pay back those loans as well. Yeah, absolutely. It is an incredible challenge. The solutions are difficult when it comes down to it, but what we do are best to try and find a way at Fox at them. Let's talk about day-to-day money management. The share of households who reported spending less than their income over the prior 12 months decreased from 49% to 47%. Erasing some progress that was made over the previous years. This basically means that 53% of households actually spend more than they make. The math, I mean, from a math perspective, doesn't add up, right? It means you have to supplement with credit cards or loans or you have to dip in the emergency savings or hopefully you don't have to dip into whatever retirement funds that you've been saving for the future, so on and so forth. But that's a real challenging thing when it comes down to it.

44:09And really an eye opener, in my opinion. And then only 68% of households reported paying all their bills on time over the past 12 months. That's a 3% decrease from 2025. So again, we're seeing some of the stuff at the credit union as well too, but those are the challenges that we're facing. Then maybe this is more of a feelings over numbers perspective, the financial stress, because the financial health network does measure financial stress, but the share of consumers reporting that they feel a high level of financial stress increase from 13 to 16% between 2025 and 26. And they said that's near, that's returning to near pre-pandemic levels, unfortunately. And then only around 6 and 10 households were completely confident in their ability to a 40 cent of such as food, utilities, household and transportation. And those who were less confident were more likely to be in that financially vulnerable. We didn't really talk about that. Financial health network categorizes most folks into three categories, financially vulnerable,

45:09financially coping and financially healthy. And they've got different metrics as to how to get that, but obviously the vulnerable are folks that are in a most challenging position. All right. We have a lot to get to, including some of the things that you're noticing locally from members at Fox will highlight what they see people struggling with right now. And maybe some help on the way from Fox as well. If you're looking to find ways to better budget or better manage and stay tuned for our fraud education later on, Heidi, our fraud focus, world romance scam prevention day. And we'll talk more about what Heidi is hearing about. After the break, you're listening to Bring It To You Straight with Fox Community's Credit Union. We are back with Bring It To You Straight. Straight answers to your financial questions or concerns with Fox Community's Credit Union.

46:14Rick Adenas joining us for this first half of the program. And let's talk while struggles, Rick. We've highlighted a lot of the well frustrations that folks are dealing with, high grocery prices, gas costs, childcare costs. And we want to just narrow in a little bit more locally if we can. What are you hearing from the people that you talk with about some of those big concerns? What are they struggling with right now? Absolutely. I work a lot with our lending department and with our member solutions team. So we kind of see a lot of what's coming in from our members and what they're struggling with what they're asking for help with all that sort of stuff. We'll start maybe in that financial vulnerable space a little bit. The number one thing I really see is just the escalation debt which we already talked about. But our members do call us for short term loans to get assistance. But many of them are using a lot of these non-bank resources that are out there. So they're using the buy and out pay later.

47:14Is right here, Klarna's and your affirms after pays and things of that sport. Oh, this is, I think I already gave the answer to this. But can you guess what the highest rising category is for the use of a buy and out pay later? It's groceries. No. And that's not the design for a buy and out pay later product, right? But people will find it if they need to make ends meet. And so it's difficult. So yeah, we see an awful lot of that. So we try to, a lot of our members may call us after they've gotten to some of that trouble and will do our best to help them out. When it comes to the coping side of things, many of our members struggle with a lot of expenses tied up in fixed payments. And what I mean by fixed payments is I mean your mortgage, your auto loan, personal loan, credit cards, all that sort of stuff. We get to a point in time within our income where we're making the payments, right? We manage the payments. And I just say we manage payments.

48:15But there's little wig loom for anything else. You can't really save. You can't do anything. And if something hits that is unexpected, and all of a sudden puts you over the top. And I know this gets into the financial psychology of things. But I do like to mention this all the time. If there's always one thing I could tell people, especially kids early on in life is they're going through financial education and all that sort of stuff, you don't need to try and keep up with the Joneses. They really don't care what kind of car house you have. And quite of many of us just trick ourselves into thinking people accept us a little bit more. If we project that we have nice things, it's, you know, all that does is put us in the greater debt. And I'll be honest, you know, your neighbor who might have the really nice stuff too, who's to say that they don't have that same level of debt trying to do the same thing, right? Well, I can think of someone I care very deeply about saying on occasion, how do they afford that? And there is a lot of curiosity on how people are affording things right now.

49:19Where is that money coming from? Right? I think that's a fair question. A lot of us might be curious about. It's a very fair question. And then I guess I can tell everybody it's listening is take care of yourself. Make sure that you really understand where your dollars are going and how best to utilize them. So I think, you know, we can kind of morph into what are some things that Fox can do to help you out at this particular point in time. Absolutely. I'd like to say, you know, call us first. My favorite line is Fox first. I am, you know, call Fox first. I'm not a marketing person at the credit union, but I love, I'd love for our members to call us first. Our teams are here to listen and provide the guidance you need. You know, again, another thing I see is a lot of folks are using AI to try and get financial advice, so on and so forth. But I don't know the last time I checked, checked GPT, Kent, London, empathetic year and really help and seek to understand what your situation is. And I believe that's one of the superpowers that Fox has and other credit unions in the

50:20Valley have as well too when it comes to really listening to their members and trying to do the best we can to help them out. You know, if you're a Fox member that has loans with us, give us a call. You know, we, we go through some comprehensive financial health checks, just to kind of see where you're at and really just devise plans to figure out how we can best help you out. You know, very specific example that obviously is the recent tornadoes and storms that came through. We had a lot of members who homes homes were damaged and their employer was damaged. It couldn't work. They called us up and you know, we provided quite a bit of relief for them on their loan payments to help them focus on rebuilding and getting back into a good spot. So just call us, right? Just call us and we'll do exactly everything we can possibly do to help them. As we've talked about in the past, we do offer free financial counting, counseling and that's both through with internally at Fox and through our partners at Greenpath. Then you know, as a financial coach, I usually don't consider this as a first option, but

51:21we do offer competitive rates and personal and debt consolidation loans. If you give our loan department a call, we'll do our best to help you find the right solution based on your goals. We're certainly a better option than the paid-heal loan stores that are out there and some of the other options that are there. But sometimes we're going to find out that a loan isn't the answer. We may not always be able to say yes, but we have other solutions. We have other things that we can do to try and help you out. I guess that's where I want to get into lastly. We're just not here to do loans. Our mission statement says that we partner with you to build a stronger financial future. It doesn't say that we're helping you get into greater debt. So we love to help our members. Don't give me a round. We love to help you get your first mortgage, get your first car or get your dream car. Your dream vacation home or wherever the case would be. It's absolutely what we're here to do. But we also want you to save and achieve your goals as well too. Because I think everybody knows that a financial household, a financially healthy household is one that has a strong savings habit.

52:22We just want to help you get there. Again, if you're not a Fox member, I welcome you to give us a call to see how we can help you achieve your goals and dreams too. And maybe you're just trying to get by. Give us a call as well. We're here to help in that area as well too. And there's no shame too if you're in a tough spot right now and you're going, I don't know how I get out of this. I don't know how to get out of this. I'm in over my head. I feel overwhelmed. I don't know who to turn to. Even if you're not a member at Fox, you can call Fox and talk with them because they are likely going to help you find a path that maybe can create some light for you. Yes. Going back to that stat that we just started out with about how parents don't want to talk to their kids about money. People are reluctant to talk about money. There's some shame. There's some guilt. Whatever the case may be. If there's anything I can do in the rest of my career at Fox, I want to help people overcome that and know that conversations about money matter. They need to happen that we're here to help you get through it.

53:26All right. With Brick, if people want to follow up, if they have a question or if they want to learn more about some of the programs we've highlighted today with Fox, the best way forward for them. As always, I mean, give us a call at 920, 939,000 or you can visit our website at FoxCU.org. There's some financial wellbeing resources and different things that are out there. Obviously, different ways to be able to get in touch with this to that channel as well, too. All right. Brick, thank you so much for joining us here today and we will check back with you very soon. Thanks, Hayley. Goal Brewers. Goal Brewers. And here on WHBY right now, it is bringing it to you straight. Straight answers to your financial questions with Fox communities credit union. And if you want more information from Fox, visit their website at FoxCU.org. On the way, romance scams, which continue to be in the top three scams that consumers fall for, losing millions of dollars every year. As world romance scam prevention day was just this past Saturday, October 3rd, Heidi is

54:32back highlighting how you can protect your loved ones from being coming a victim of a romance scam. That is next after this walk in the Midwest Garden. And welcome back to Focus Fox Valley and our bringing it to you straight segment with Fox Community's credit union. They are more than just loans, accounts and rates they are committed to building genuine relationships by getting to know you and understanding what you truly want. Fox can provide what you need when it matters most. So visit them online at FoxCU.org or go check out the teams of smiling bases at any of their locations. And that's what healthy relationships look like by the way.

55:33Today, we're going to we're going to highlight some unhealthy relationships and unhealthy romance situations through our fraud focus world romance scam prevention day, just a few days behind us. But Heidi Keeker is here right now assistant vice president of fraud BSA officer at Fox Community's credit union with Fox for more than eight years, a passion for educating members, many members and communities while helping protect them and their assets. And as fraud continues to be on the rise, Heidi to the rescue, understanding the need for fraud and scam awareness. Therefore, implementing a variety of educational programs at Fox and bringing so much amazing information and knowledge to our program today. Welcome back Heidi, great to hear you hear from you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me, Haley. All right, and this is wild, but romance scams continuing to be in the top three scams that consumers fall for losing millions of dollars every year.

56:36This is true. Yeah, yeah. So I thought, you know, always with a good opportunity, I feel like scam and fraud prevention is not just like highlighting a day out of the year or highlighting a month, but it is often nice to kind of take advantage of what, you know, those national prevention days look like and taking the opportunity to just talk about romance scams and how we can prevent listeners from falling and becoming a victim to them. All right. So Heidi, let's start where these scams might begin, which patterns, what do you hear from, what do you see when it comes to the beginning of these romance scams? Yeah, and I know we've talked about romance scams in previous shows, but you know, they, again, they're not going away. Like you said, they're in the top three scams that consumers fall for. So as we know, and I've talked about, we know that they start from like unexpected private messages on social media platforms or even that unexpected text message that you maybe innocently responded to that said they reach out to you for the wrong number in person.

57:40I mean, raise your hand if you've gotten those text messages. I think everybody has. You know, and honestly, there's a stat of 40% of people who said they lost money to romance scam last year said the context started on a social media platform. So now we know how, you know, scammers intentions are and how they started, you know, of course, the intent is to get you to send them your money. But then really what comes before that and how does it all start after that first connection? So it's after that private message or front and request that you receive unexpectedly, you know, some that you don't know. It isn't just sent to you personally. But same message goes to thousands of other people as well. So once scammers send those messages and push those messages out, they wait for people to respond. That's really what they're waiting for and waiting for you to act upon it. Because really if they know that you're responding, they have in that vulnerability or that what

58:42we say easy target with someone who is willing to engage with them. So when you respond, the scammers start doing the research. Now you've given them information on who you are and they're going to start to look at your social media profiles, get to know who you are, what you're interested in, who you're connected with. And then after researching you, they're going to then start to engage in that conversation. You know, seeing what you're interested in, let's say for example, you do game night every Thursday night with your friends. When the scammers have those getting to know you conversations, they may say, oh, my hobby is playing board games and my favorite scabble and you respond by saying, oh my gosh, me too. Well, that's crazy. All the while you're thinking, wow, look at all the things you have in common. Even though they know a lot about you, they're still going to ask you all those personal questions to kind of make you feel that connection right away.

59:47So then after that initial conversation, they quickly move it to another app and we commonly see like WhatsApp or Telegram. And the reason they go to those apps is they are private and encrypted and there's no way for anybody to see that activity which makes it even worse. So they search a chat with you right several times a day. You know, the scammers will avoid providing their own personal information about themselves and things won't make sense. They'll try and establish, you know, like I said, a bond quickly by creating maybe a patent name or they may say things like, have never felt this way before. And really what are they doing to try and create your trust making you feel comfortable with them? Again, having those interactions via text message typically maybe through a video chatting service. But I think what happens is the victims just don't notice, have you ever met them in

1:00:47person? You know, the scammer always initiates communication and then a call that maybe you initiate never seems to go through. And anytime you might bring up meeting in real life, they always have an excuse of why they can't meet. Really, you know, again, the result is eventually asked for your financial help whether it's because they're out of the country and can access their accounts. So if they need you to do it for them or their second customs and need to pay fees to get home, whatever the excuse is, the goal really again is just to try to get you to send them money. I just got a text like this over the weekend, Heidi. And I'm trying to recover it so I can read it to our listeners because it is exactly like you said, one of those very vague messages that you think, oh, in it, this is what it said, it said, I just realized it's been nearly a year. How dare you not reach out?

1:01:48You okay? Question mark? And very, you know, that's a text message that perhaps an old friend from college might have sent me or a friend from school or whatever chapter of life. And they were hoping I'd respond to this and go, I'm so sorry, you have the wrong number, I don't know who this is, right? And then that's how they start that conversation. Yes. And then they're going to ask, oh, who is this or who did I get? And then it's just again, innocently, right? They're trying to point them in the right direction and yet that's how they're trying to engage that person. Then sort the conversation and take it from there and see if they can hook that person into that relationship or any type of scam that they might be trying to use. So yep, that's a perfect example. And I know you have another example too, Heidi, you're going to share with us. I do, yeah. And I think it's more the social media route. So I know, someone I know lost their husband who had, right?

1:02:51He was in the military, he had great regard for it and love what they stood for. And that information was revealed in that husband's obituary. And of course, once you know, not long after his passing, she had received one of these unsolicited friend requests from a, I'll say quote unquote, Borsestar General in the Army. And I'll kind of share what the message said to give some indication of how a message may start. So, I'm bare with me as I read it. So it says, hello, how are you? I hope you had a wonderful day. I looked in the directory and found you a profile. Although I'm worth talking to, can you please add me so we can become friends? Thanks. And I get that this is really difficult for radio. I'm a visual person, so I'll try and help visualize it. So I'll kind of give you a visual that he had pictures on his profile of him, a good looking

1:03:52guy and his military suit with posts that show a military burial. What appears to be him receiving an award and other, I say, official kind of military photos. I'm trying to emulate or see the procedure of the person. And I'm not saying that that's bad by any means. It's just, you know, another post says, I made it again, but it's a painful day. My wife is no more. I believe one day I will her real face again to be happy again. Okay, as I say, I'm not the grammar police, but that was a really long run on sentence and doesn't even make any sense of what they're saying. So the reason I talk about those and give those examples is it just, we need to just be careful when we make get those unsolicited messages and just talking about the red flags. So she just lost her husband who's in the military then shortly after received a message

1:04:55from a four star general in the army. Okay, kind of weird. The punctuation grammar do not make sense for someone with that integrity. Why would he ask her to friend him? Why wouldn't he just friend her to begin with? And all of his Facebook photos are military photos. There's no personal photos like with, you know, your dogs or, you know, things that you do in your free time and then really just to top it all off as you look further into the post. They were all posted on the same day. So red flag, red flag, red flag, all of the above. So it's just kind of being more mindful when you get those types of requests. Definitely. Well Heidi, after the break, we'll talk a little bit about how people can protect themselves and an education opportunity coming up for people to really understand and to be able to spot those red flags as well.

1:05:56Our fraud focus continues after this. We are back with a few minutes left and our fraud focus is what we are highlighting. Romance scams, Heidi Keker back with us. Heidi, where can we head next in protecting ourselves from falling for these scams? Yes. So I would say pay attention to the red flags as they kind of alluded to before the break. So don't respond to those unsolicited messages of friend requests. Review your social media account information, protect it. Everyone doesn't need to know everything about you just because it's open to everyone. So if you want to make it a little bit more private, if a person is claiming to be overseas and no access to phone or video chat and communication can only be through a text or an app, again,

1:07:00the reasons why they can't see you in person, if it feels too fast and the love comes too quickly. And really, I think the bottom line is, it never send money or gifts to a person. You have never met in person. Just always be cautious with who you are talking to and sharing information with online. All right. So you have a good, important reminder. And you actually have kind of an educational session or opportunity coming up for people to dig in even further with this. What does it look like? When is it? Yes. So I do want to take the opportunity. So we offer a box kind of as our purpose, similar to when you were talking with Rick about, our organizational purpose is really having the passion to help people thrive financially and protecting them right from the ever growing threat of front and scams. And one of those ways of helping that is through an edge. So as we know, the front scams continue to evolve and anyone can become a target.

1:08:02So that's why we offer a free fraud awareness training session for community groups and organizations. It's not a specific date, but I'll just say it's one, our presentation that we go and give participants learn about current fraud trends, identity theft prevention, online safety, common scam tactics, kind of all the practical steps you can take to protect your personal and financial information. We talk about the different age groups and how they're impacted differently and really just taking our firsthand experience and different trends that we see and sharing that with our communities. And it's not again, it's not just a fox situation or scams. It's not just a fox city's issue. It's just a worldwide kind of scams that we talk about. So we regularly present to like nonprofit organizations, civic groups, community organizations

1:09:05and other local groups that might be looking for just relevant educational topics. So it's completely free. So you know, reach out and if it's something that you or your group is interested in, you can just reach out to the 92099399000 and ask for Heidi and we can certainly have a conversation about how this could help your group and bring more awareness to our communities. Yeah, none better than you, Heidi, truly. And if people really want to dig in and learn a little bit more about scams and there's more than just romance scams out there, believe me. How can they, for sure. Yeah, so how can they connect and help inform themselves? Yeah, so we do have several channels, again, like Rick was saying. So if you would like to go to our website, FoxU.org, we have a fraud and security section on our website. We have a blog that has great educational articles.

1:10:08And again, if you are interested and you have a group that's interested in having us come present for, you know, an hour or so, just reach out and give us a call at 92099391000 and ask for Heidi and we'll certainly work through any details and help protect our listeners, our members, our communities from falling victim and protecting themselves. Well, thank you so much, Heidi, as always, for all the information you share. And hopefully some great takeaways for anyone listening today. Thank you, Heidi. Yeah, thank you, Haley. And thank you listeners for being part of another episode of Bringing It To You Straight. Well, let you know what's coming up on a Tuesday edition of Focus Fox Valley in just a moment.