 Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airports serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport for information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota produced by Lakeland Public Television with host Ray Gillnow. Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents where tonight we're talking about a topic very near and dear to my heart called Let's Go Fishing. This is not a show about how to catch fish although these people probably could give you some pretty good hints on how to do that. But it's about a program that's statewide that's impacting people in care centers and nursing homes who get an opportunity to go fishing where they just haven't had that for maybe a long time or maybe even never. Everybody's cases is different. But it's a great cause and I'm happy to have my guests here to talk about that tonight. To my immediate right is Phil Nelson. Phil Meyers. I'm sorry Phil. Phil Meyers who is with the Brainerd Chapter and Phil you're also the president of the Brainerd Club. That's correct. And Carol Worley is to his right and to her right is Anita Williams and Anita is from the Grand Rapids Chapter. Welcome to you all. You're all color coordinated so you look pretty good. You look pretty official. Just tell me a little bit about how long you folks have been working with this program before we get into what the program is. Phil how long have you been with Let's Go Fishing? I'm in my seventh year. I started as a volunteer seven years ago. I was volunteering for three years. Got on the board four years ago and served. But on the board since then I've been chapter president for the last two years. And how about you Carol? Six years ago I got to be a volunteer probably two to three months into my volunteering and they asked me to be on the board. So I've been on the board ever since. And I came on board with Let's Go Fishing about four years ago and I was just basically invited to a board meeting first off and they said we know you love fishing and doing this kind of stuff. Hey do you want to join in? So you got hooked? Well who could give us kind of an overall perspective about what Let's Go Fishing is all about. Phil you want to do that? Sure. I think it's very simple. We put smiles on people's faces and fishing is a mechanism we do that. And we're primarily serving seniors who no longer have the means or ability to go out and do this activity on their own anymore. So what do they like to go out and fish? And sometimes they just like to go out in the boat and get in the lake. Many of them have ever given up hope of ever seeing the water again in their lives. And when they get on they tell my friends it's like seeing a six year old at Christmas sometimes. The absolute joy you see in their faces. And when they're done if you don't like getting hugs you wouldn't like this job. We get off the boat and get them to their transportation. There are always two or three hugs. People run up and give you a great big squeeze and walk away from that just feeling phenomenal. And how many trips does a typical chapter take in the summer? In Brainerd we schedule nine trips a week all summer long. Depending upon weather conditions we'll take out 900 to 1100 maybe 1200 guests over the course of a summer. Some of those may be repeats but it's busy. We're blessed to have over 100 volunteers that make this chapter work. It's an all volunteer organization. We have a tremendous board of volunteers and a tremendous base of volunteers that makes it all work. And through all the years at least the Brainerd chapter we have never had to cancel a trip because we didn't have a volunteer to take the trip out. You all use pontoons rather. Do you have one pontoon in Brainerd or do you have more than one? We have one pontoon in Brainerd. So when you say you're going out that many trips the pontoon's really being used a lot. It's getting used twice. Monday to Thursday we have morning and afternoon trips and a Friday morning. So are they like four hour trips? Two and a half hour trips. This year we introduced a couple evening trips and four to six hour trips too so there have been a couple of times we've run three trips a day so the demand's coming up. So you have someone who captains the pontoon? We always have a crew of two. We focus the training on besides rules of the water. You have folks who have some disabilities disadvantages. I would guess you have to have people understand how to deal with that too, don't you? Well, a little bit. Most of the care facilities provide volunteers that come out or staff members that deal with any issues that may be along those lines. Our primary training is operating the boat in safety. It's all about being safe on the water. It's not our guess before they get off the shoreline and onto the boat making sure they're seated and comfortable and just making sure everybody has a good time and staying safe. If there's issues with individuals sure, I mean we some of us just have learned to deal with different things because sometimes you have people that maybe have a little dementia in cases like that and sometimes things can occur and we deal with it but there's all the staff members doing that that we are. Our job is to get them out and you've got to learn how to figure out how many wheelchairs can you get on that pontoon at one time and make that, you know, how does that work and removing seats and So you take the seats off the pontoon when you have the wheelchair if you need that spot for a wheelchair. And then when you have how many can you take on your average pontoons that are used in let's go fishing? We often take 10 10 people? And if you have a wheelchair that might take off an extra seat so perhaps just 9 but because our pontoon is how long? 28 28, it's it's plenty long for your mobility because our main job probably like yours too is putting on worms and casting it out they do all the really men and they do the fun part for sure. Is there a minimum requirement do you have to belong to a care facility or a nursing home? What if it's a person that lives alone? Can they be involved with this? Yes, actually we service our senior center also home instead which are people that just stay at home and then sometimes the caregiver comes in once in a while we have one person who twice I took out in the last month who was blind and his wife came too and she drives them. They don't have to have a bus, a handicap bus or any kind of a bus that's suitable for disabilities to bring them there and Philly we talked a little bit about the software but how many lakes do you actually fish in the Brainerd area? In the Brainerd area we're fishing four. We're fishing Gull Lake, Rice Lake, Bay Lake and Pelican Lake. And how about from your area? We mostly fish pocaigama but we do bring it to Trout Lake when we do a veterans program and then there's another lake but the main lake that we use is pocaigama lake. We keep the pontoon right there on the lake. The other thing I was going to share with you is the mission statement of Let's Go Fishing and it's bringing nature's healing and well-being to seniors, veterans and the disabled. So that kind of sums up what you know our mission is as an organization as a whole. So when you say veterans I would guess that if there's someone who's handicapped they wouldn't necessarily have to meet an age requirement. Would that be fair? Exactly. Is this all catch and release? What can people keep them if they want to? They can keep them if they want. The one service we don't provide is cleaning fish. So if they wish to bring, you know, keep some home and they can keep a legal limit of fish, take it home and clean them up and cook them up themselves. That's just fine. For many of these folks and I know a little bit about the organization, it's the first time they've gotten to do this for a long time, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. And to even catch a perch. Yeah. That's five inches long. That's what we love. Yup, it's fun because it's action and that's pretty exciting to see and the sad part is that sometimes it's the last trip that some of them ever get to make. But one of the things on board that I do often is take photos of the people with the fish and then if they are able to or if the caregivers are able to tell me where their son's telephone number or where I can text it and oftentimes right on board the boat, I send off the picture to great granddaughter or great grandson or something and they text back right away of course and they're really, oh my gosh, grandpa you are out fishing. That is the coolest thing. So it's pretty fun to have the immediate satisfaction for them to even let someone else know here's what I'm doing something I'd love to do. In your area how many volunteers do you usually deal with roughly? Yeah, for volunteers we have about 50. We're always looking for more. So if anyone wants to be, yeah and we took out nearly 1200 participants this year fishing and on cruises 1000 volunteer hours so we're working hard to service the needs of our area. So when you guys take these folks out fishing to the nursing homes or the care centers or wherever, do they make all the arrangements with you beforehand? How does that, how do you line this up? Yeah, they schedule the trips I mean different chapters do this differently we have a big schedule that event at the beginning of the year where all the care facilities come together and it's kind of like a lottery. You know they draw a number one to the 30 or so facilities and then number one you get to pick a spot and then right down to 30 then go backwards again and they can fill in spots so before we even put our boat in the water we have 90% of our trips booked for our care facilities so they all know when they are and they have their sign up sheets to get their people organized we always contact them a couple days before the trip just to remind them go over any last minute details, find out when you're coming any special needs wheelchairs or otherwise so we know what to do and we're ready for that and they show up in the dock with the bus and we get them on board, you have fun. So how many institutions do you actually work with in the Brainard Lakes area? I think it's around 30s Wow, are there some that don't get involved with Let's Go Fishing or are most of them involved? I think most of them are, if we find one that isn't we will contact them and that's right and it's a free program There's no charge for them to come and do it so all our money is raised on the side that supports this program and so by making it free for the seniors I think we get more to participate. So how many chapters of Let's Go Fishing are there? Do you have any idea statewide? There's 24 right now in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin, it's in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. And this was started by Joe Holm, right? Correct and you know what year he started this? I don't know the exact year I'm thinking it's about 12 years ago roughly and it began. You operate a lot and you mentioned this a little bit but you have sponsorships you get local businesses to help sponsor and what does this sponsorship pay for? Well the sponsorship you'll see decals on the side of the boats if you just Google Let's Go Fishing you can go to the wet main website and see pictures of a lot of the boats and you'll see the decals around the side and all those people pay a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars or some fee every year to support that so the local chapter I mean that brings us in maybe twelve thousand dollars a year which helps covers our expensive fuel insurance, equipment maintenance new things like that that we have to do to keep the boats up they're safe. And for the Itasca chapter we do a couple of fundraisers we have a fishing tournament and so we get sponsors for that and then we use their names and the advertising on the back of the t-shirt and we do a lot of different stuff that way and then we also have a fish fry every spring to get everybody really excited about starting out the fishing season and so we get sponsors for that and we serve five hundred, six hundred people fish that can come and buy a fish dinner and it's fun we're all so excited to get together and put on our yellow bright yellow shirts and volunteer and help them. And does that cover a big portion of your operation for the year? It's a pretty good fundraiser for us that and the fishing tournament those are too bigger and then we do apply for some different grants and there's different things to do to help raise the money that seems like you know there's always someone to help out and be part of the organization when they hear how many people you service you know from veterans to the elderly to disabled so you've got a chapter in Bemidji I believe is there a chapter in Bemidji? Maybe not. There was. I know Grand Rapids, do you have the chapter in Grand Rapids? Yeah we are a task a chapter and I think St. Cloud, does St. Cloud have a chapter? You know I'd have to look exactly and see where those Yeah I'm just curious Spicer area in London, Alexandria and so do you folks get together on a yearly basis at all your boards and do you talk about the challenges of raising money Yeah we have a yearly and it's some really interesting training they try to give us a lot of support and help us to be able to lead our individual chapters and give us some ideas we can have round table discussions and get to meet great volunteers like this at those meetings too I really enjoy going Yeah they hold those every year in the spring And then if it's rainy or windy you just maybe have to reschedule if you get those this year we've had a lot of that this fall anyway We don't go out if it's stormy or even the summer if it gets too hot it's dangerous as rain you have a bunch of seniors on the boat so it's a call we make usually on the day and that's up to the captain's prerogative to decide if he wants to go or not and contact the facility and they will discuss the options and make a go or no go decision And I know that funding has been an issue off and on as it is with most volunteer organizations it's just impressive about how many people do volunteer the number of volunteers you have in Grand Rapids and Brainerd that's a phenomenal number of people So how many captains do you have trained in these two communities that just operate the boats with the pontoons We must half our volunteers Oh half our really so I know they go through a training program on water safety and all that sort of thing That's pretty impressive That certain protocol and with the liabilities the captains and co-captains need to know just exactly what the product what is the let's go fishing way of doing things you know for example get those life jackets on the participants before you get them on the boat And how long does your season go? Starts in May Our starts in May and goes until I mean it's I think officially considered done and finished now So sort of into September Although one great thing we have in the Atasca chapter is accessibility to a couple of ice houses so we can take out ice fishing even Does Brainerd do that too? We've talked about that but we have not taken that to the next level yet One of our volunteers a couple of them have ice houses and they say hey I love to go fishing I would be more than happy to Wow So you fish mostly pan fish when you go out so you fish along the weed lines I would guess for the most part So you get crappies Do you get some crappies and sunfish? Sunfish and when we get into big rock bass that's when it gets to be fun because when you get bigger fish on they have a ball and you get into a pound or two rock bass and you get a good fight on your hands when they have a lot of fun doing that So do you obviously need rods and reels and you need tackle is that all part of your fundraising efforts then and does that stay with the pontoon when you get that kind of equipment there that kind of thing Yeah Has there been any efforts to get funding from the state at this level for this operation or is it mostly through volunteer fundraising? Most of the chapters are fundraising for themselves The state has embarked on a capital campaign to try to raise some more significant money at the state level to try to expand the program into more areas than that currently exists And we pay a little of this every year that covers our insurance and administrative overhead costs So that's coming out of the money We collect, you know, for our chapter we pay some to them and the rest is going into taking care of our boat and any other equipment that we need So your overhead is really minimal when you don't have any labor costs Well you do wear out a pontoon It's amazing how If you weren't out of pontoon Yeah, we had to get a new pontoon Absolutely We could procure a new motor this fall that will be on the boat next spring You must be hard on pontoons We're taking a lot of runs I'm sure Yeah, we've replaced our carpet with a hard floor much easier to clean We've had re-upholstery done because it was falling apart We want it to be comfortable and the people want to have comfort inside Yeah, have it set up on a nice basis So if someone wants to get involved as a volunteer with Let's Go Fishing from your communities How do they do that? Probably the easiest way is Google Let's Go Fishing and that main page you can go to there's a link to all the different chapters and then there's phone numbers for every chapter that you can call and find out more information Call any of the presidents or anyone on the board or you can even ask any of the other people that are volunteers hey, how can I do this how I got involved is someone that was on the board said hey, you love to fish why don't you come join me at a meeting and see if you're interested and I thought oh, so I think that's important that us as volunteers try to put that invitation out there to others to see hey, maybe this is a good fit for you guys So some of your volunteers must be younger like you are or you have jobs and you're doing things as Phil you're said yourself employed and you kind of work out a schedule with your own business Sure, I can Do you act as a captain from time to time? Yes, absolutely I haven't got out as much in the last two years since I took over as president because I've been busy with a lot of that stuff but fortunately my schedule allows me to take a morning off here but for younger people working a regular full-time job it can be hard because most of our stuff is during the week so we have a lot of older volunteers and as one of our former board board members said we're really old people taking older people fishing How is that though? One thing we've done this year we partnered with a census which is a large company in this city and they have something that they do for their employees which I think is good they want them to volunteer and so they partnered with us so their volunteers actually come and drive our boats during work time they get released from work during the work day and it's not called vacation it's called volunteer You see more and more companies doing community services for their employment, don't you? And these are younger people, these are millennials so we are talking millennials working with an elderly population which is a really good match That's really cool It would be nice to see something like this for kids because one of the things and I've been in the fishing industry a long time we see so many kids who are not interested in the outdoors as much mostly because they don't have an opportunity they don't own a boat and they don't know somebody they can go walk down along their shore and go fishing and it's a similar thing with your clients when they were sitting in nursing homes before they didn't have these opportunities it's pretty cool We do take some youth groups out from time to time I've had a group of somewhat challenged youth where our focus has always been seniors but the boats here will accommodate anybody if you have a group and you think it would be good for them by all means contact us and we'll do what we can to get you on the water We volunteer with camp confidence also about wounded veterans we take out actually entire families if we know there's a veteran that would like to go out fishing we will find out to their family five generations on the boat really? it's just wonderful we'll take out entire groups of families I've done some work with wounded veterans how do you make the connection there? that connection is usually made through the legion they are the ones that do the contacting and they contact us and we work it out I bet they really appreciate that too everybody does it moves us too it's very emotional I don't think and we've got some video we're going to show when we're doing this interview and I hope people can see the smiles on folks' faces I haven't seen your video yet but I'm sure that will come through won't it? when the boat starts leaving the dock and everybody is saying goodbye you'll see the smiles because you think of some of these folks have been in some of these facilities for a long time most of the time if their families can't come and take them out they're pretty confined aren't they? and you know what's one thing that really surprised me is taking some of these from the nursing home out and they actually have kind of lost the ability to communicate they can't communicate like you and I can but they catch a fish and you see that excitement and you know that they are very aware that they did something really good they're the big cheese for that moment and that freedom and that sense of self-confidence that you can see you can't sit and have a conversation maybe with some of them like we are able to but it's amazing how they you get such positive feedback from them and you can tell that they just are thoroughly enjoying fishing or being out for a boat ride do the facilities make the decision about whether the person is capable of I would guess you have to because you're not in a position to know that if they can get them there along that same line I had an Alzheimer's patient out an old gentleman I've known for years he had no idea who I was anymore but as soon as I put that rod reel in his hand that was all there and he was catching fish like crazy really? and then when I met his couple of his kids later in the year and we talked about told him what a great time his dad had out there I mean they were so thankful because they had seen dad and dad talked about fishing but they don't know if he was talking about fishing when he was a kid or something just happened now so what we did was good for dad and it made the kids feel real good because I knew he was out still having a good time wow that's really cool I've taken a 93 year old woman out fishing to and part of me sometimes they say I hope someone's taking me fishing when I'm 93 that's pretty cool so if someone wanted to make a contribution to the organizations in Grand Rapids how did they do that? they would contact any one of us board members or Bev Taylor is our president contact her you could also go through the website let's go fishing I task a chapter make the contact there that's what I would say or you can go contact the whole organization corporate office and then make your mark money for a certain chapter too if you want to or you can give just to the organization as a whole so there's it's easy to give sure and how about the brain organization where do they go if they wanted to make a contribution of some sort really same thing look on the website I guess you can call our number 218-454-FISH that's our chapter phone line so 218-454-FISH you might get a recording right now but somebody will be happy to get back to you and that would be similar same information if someone wanted to be a sponsor sure and what does a sponsor get out of it you said to put a sticker on the on the pontoon do they have any other benefits there's stickers on the pontoon there's also a portion on the website under each chapter that lists all the sponsors that are there we try to promote those sponsors when we have some of our training facilities our end of season we try to encourage people to do business with those who sponsor us and we do that too at our Christmas party or annual Christmas party we put together a really beautiful Christmas party for all the volunteers and we do give plaques and awards to those that have sponsored and been donors so they can hang that in their business wall that hey we are a proud sponsor of let's go fishing and what have you got in store what's coming down the pike anything new next year I'll put you all in the spot you mentioned a partnership with children and that may be an interesting thing to look into to have future partnerships with kinship for example I think that's a great idea there's so many young kids that would get excited a lot of us old timers had grandpas and grandmas that took us fishing that's missing for a lot of families and a lot of kids now so that would be something really wonderful to do for several years in a row we've taken fifth graders from forest lake elementary and green rapids and they can sign up whoever and we will rent and bring a couple more pontoon so we can get everybody in in a two day period of time and let them have a little fishing trip so it can be the first introduction to some of those youth that may not otherwise have a chance to be on the boat or go fishing or enjoy that well we're out of time thank you all for coming it's a wonderful organization and I know you guys are doing great work thank you for the volunteer efforts that you put in it's just a marvelous program thank you for being on the show you've been watching Lakeland Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about I'm Ray Gildow so long until next time