 I'm the director of senior services with the city of Sheboygan I have a lot of people to think in a few minutes But first I'm gonna invite Mayor Ryan Sorenson to say a few things to us all. Good morning Well good morning everyone it is a beautiful day in Sheboygan And I'm so glad to be celebrating it with all of you today on this exciting new project right here in Sheboygan, Wisconsin I think if you look around the rooms There is a lot of friends families partners project managers neighbors Community leaders that have played an integral role in making sure that this project could happen So I'd like to just recognize a few folks here today We have we couldn't have done this without the support of the city council So we have some of the council members in the room tonight. We have older person Grazia Pirella. Grazia. Could you give a wave? We have older person Angela Raimi in the back there We have our council president Barb Felde up here in the front As well as we have form former city council person who supported this project as well Marcus Savalio Marcus And I'm really hoping I'm not missing any other council members as well as this is a community collaboration to I know that We have several county board supervisors in the audience here as well today And we just want to thank everybody on the city staff as well I know that a lot of the speeches will be a lot of thanks and remarks from a lot of folks as well, too But just internally from the city I know our director of planning and development Chad Pelschek is somewhere in the room He's done a lot of great work With with grants planning moving some honey around making sure that this project could happen as well Our department of public work staff. I know they're floating around here. Mike Wilmes is in the room Director David Bebel is here They've really been great leaders There he is Great leaders and making sure that that their staff and their team really saw this project moving forward as well I know from we have some friends from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the room here as well Too who helped prioritize Funding for this project as well And I know that Emily will recognize them as well, too But I think that this is just an amazing project when you talk about revitalizing a neighborhood Bringing a community together This is this is something unique It is usually traditionally hard to convert an old grocery store into anything else besides a grocery store But we did it right here in Sheboygan giving a lot more love and attention To to this neighborhood, so I hope everyone can enjoy the day take a tour enjoy the treats come say hello Check out the building. There's a lot more room for expansion and opportunity here And we're exciting excited to celebrate the state with you today So take a lot of pictures And with that I'll turn it back to Emily Thank You Mary Sorenson Next up I want to invite Hunter Milner up to say a few words hunter is with J. H. Hassenger our Contractor good morning hunter Morning everybody nice to see you guys on a beautiful Wisconsin day. I love the snow. I don't know about you guys but I Think the mayor knocked it off He did a great job in starting to sell it, but I'll re-emphasize on a couple things For people that know what this building was before we started this project to what it is now It's a heck of a transformation We've been working with growth design groups and the city of Sheboygan and Emily throughout the last year on this project And I am proud of it I hope everybody else that's around this area is a proud of it as well, too And it's been one heck of a project and we look forward to expanding our portfolio up in this area as we've done Some projects prior and want to keep doing work for this community. Thank you for showing up today. Thank you Thank you hunter and then I want to invite up to speak with you Marilyn Montemay or who many of you might be familiar with if you're not familiar with her You've probably recently seen her picture on a billboard or a bus wrap or WSCS when she leads our cooking shows on TV and she's like country famous people watching her cooking shows so Welcome to the microphone Marilyn Thank You Emily. Thank you. And I am on that billboard and on that bus and they told me about it after the fact But that's fine. It's nice to be here in this gorgeous building see lots of friends and lots of new faces And of course, I don't remember most everybody's name. I really like name tags very much. I Started at the senior center the old senior center. I think in 2005. I think that was it I've tried to imagine Before the renovation of the old senior center Before Wendy Schmitz was director is Wendy here or Anne Kraft. What was the name of the director before Wendy? Well, whoever that director I can see her face. I send her a Christmas card, but at that time By the way a little inside information and Kraft and I are probably the oldest ones here and Uptown social is a wonderful name. But do you know in 1965? When I moved here and Anne will attest to this Uptown social was the name of the Northside House of Prostitution. I think that's gone. I don't think you That's not why we named it that Marilyn Everybody should know that and that will be cocktail conversation forever regarding the Uptown social This is not that kind of club. We'll remember the name Lots of physical fitness, which I usually do not participate in lots of crafts lots of projects in lots of programs organized and taught and By volunteers there are a few hired people who do programs But most of them are by volunteers sometimes they last for years Sometimes it's only two or three weeks or a month and I've participated in some of them But mostly I just hang out at the senior center and now at Uptown social any questions about the past I remember the past very well, I was talking to same young people at the art center Just chatting and they said oh you have a lot of stories. I said by the time you're my age You also will have a lot of stories every single person here has a story or two or ten Everybody has had an interesting wonderful life. I know there's one gentleman here that was Dive under the ocean and all those sorts of things and lots of What was Kennedy's program peace corps? Every old person has a story or two. I'm glad you're here Thank You Marilyn. I don't know that we can ever invite you to speak again I have notes in front of me because there are so many people and I want to make sure that it's so many people that We need to thank and I want to make sure I don't miss anyone So I'm gonna reference my notes But first I've got to tell you I've been in this job in this role almost two years Marilyn was one of the first people I spoke with on the phone because this was late 2020 deep in the pandemic We're still masking people are still on zoom. We're still very remote and I talked to Marilyn on the phone And she said you know Emily You youngsters feel sorry for us oldsters and you shouldn't we feel sorry for you And she said because everything you're going through we've already done it And we're glad to be done with it And it really resonated with me and I've taken so much from working with this population About how to enjoy life all stages of life I have to admit I'm my kids are little and they're terrible and awful And I find myself very jealous of the people who get to come here and hang out every day playing sheep's head and working out With Josh and doing all sorts of fun things while the rest of us are in the slog with newborn newborns So thank you Marilyn for helping me adjust my attitude about oldsters Marilyn says she loves being old I just walked by our library and saw a book and the title was something like The only you only have to worry about getting old if you're a cheese or you know It only matters being old if you're a cheese and to that we say the older the better, right? So anyway before we cut this ribbon. I have a lot of people to think this has been an exemplary Situation of cross-departmental collaboration Inside the city outside of the city volunteers paid staff everyone This has just been a huge project that's been in the works for a long time And I'm so grateful that we all get to be here experiencing it today Also, I think it was Bonnie Bonnie somewhere in this room Bonnie Feld pointed out to me this morning Emily you're terrible at scheduling these events because when we had our groundbreaking last February It was a beautiful Wisconsin day much like today and here we are again with snow coming down the big difference is that today We get to be inside. So isn't that lovely? All right, first up to our friends at J. H. Hassinger to hunter Scott Mike Thank you for doing such a phenomenal job on this renovation Thank you for prioritizing this project and getting it done before the snow flows flies I wrote this before I knew it was gonna fly Maybe not everybody in this room knows what a challenge construction is right now And so throughout this entire process people would ask me How's your project going and I would say really great Things come up and then they tell us about issues and they offer solutions and we keep moving forward and it's been Really just incredible. So thank you to the team for offering solutions and for getting this done and really for prioritizing us up here in Sheboygan Thank you To Mike and Joe and Katie at growth design group. Thank you for designing this beautiful building Who would have thought that this used to be a grocery store and a pet store that? That the first time I walked through there was a dead mouse right in that corner We're not gonna have that nowadays no no no no We're getting an office cat to take care of any pests Just kidding just kidding But really such an incredible building if you do want to pop your heads into the future gymnasium You might see a savalant grocery cart in there that we sometimes use to move things around But just truly what an upgrade for this neighborhood this building Who'd have thought that we could be in such a light filled space in a former grocery store? To Paul with EBI Paul. Where are you? Hi Paul? Paul is our furniture guy And so Paul took me and another member of the DPW team to the furniture showroom And you better believe we sat our butts in an example of every single chair You're sitting in and some we'd look at and say you remember this don't look at me like you're pretending You know this happened that we would look at a chair and think wow that looks really nice And then we'd sit in it and say but it feels Not as good as it should and so all the furniture that is here has been personally vetted by Paul and personally vetted by Our teams butts and so we hope that you are just as comfortable Enjoying all of the furniture here as we as we had fun picking it out for all of you Thank you Paul and Paul brought us some beautiful flowers at the reception desk. Thank you Paul To the city's common counsel and city leadership that Mayor Sorensen pointed out Thank you for prioritizing and supporting this project I know I've got some other senior center friends here in the room with us Kathy and Noreen from Fond du Lac in Ripon you can give a wave They came to visit us What's been incredible about this project is I have already heard from directors and other communities calling to ask hey How are you doing this in Sheboygan? How are you getting your community to prioritize a project like this to put funding behind a project like this? How are you making this happen? And so what I say to that is Bravo to Sheboygan Bravo to the common counsel and city leadership For thinking into the future and preparing us for this next wave of retirees So we can take care of people and so we can have a fun place for Maryland to come and say inappropriate things into the microphone So thank you to the common counsel and city leadership To Gary and the team at HUD Gary. Can you give us a wave? Oh? He's over here the rest of your teams over there So if you don't know this first round of construction was Paid for primarily with a community development block grant loan through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and so Gary and his team were huge in making that happen and Getting us the funding to make this happen It was sort of this perfect storm No pun intended of bad things happening at the old building pandemic opportunity here and just making it happen So thank you. Thank you Gary And of course right along with that Thank you director Peleshek for your work on this and to your team Chad did a ton of work behind the scenes to make this project happen to help find the site to do a lot of paperwork That's way above my head. So thank you and and for those who don't know to the rest of Chad's team You know people leading up to this event everyone kept asking me if I was sleeping at night And I said well no everything's fine Jane Brill's here. She took care of everything I didn't have to worry about it, but leading up to our soft opening. That was the scary part So when I talked to Scott with Hasseinger and he'd say well if you want to have this grand opening on November 15th And I'd say there is no if There's no if we're doing it and and then you know They'd say well we can we can probably be ready by the 15th And I said well we got to be ready by the 7th because that's when we're letting all of our members in and his eyes Got real big and we made it happen and you might not know that we got our Temporary certificate of occupancy the Friday before at 3 48 p.m. 42 minutes to spare Before the office closed and we were about to have to email all the members and say sorry see you next time so just Incredible to Chad's team of inspectors for getting us through all the paperwork to make sure that this is a safe Place for everyone to be I Still have lots of things so like take a deep breath. We got to keep going up to the clerks at City Hall I don't see any of them here, but they helped direct a lot of our people who were lost at City Hall looking for us on third floor So thank you to them for putting up with us to the mayor and Veronica and everyone else in sweet 300 at City Hall Thank you for putting up with us squatting in your conference room for two for two years two years We squatted in the conference room. I'm sure things are much quieter now And I promise we will get the rest of our junk out tomorrow Tomorrow it's on my calendar. It's on my calendar To our colleagues at DPW. I know we had a shout-out to Mike and director Bebel earlier I see their hands in the back there. They've been incredible Throughout this project. I joke and it's not really a joke that I call Mike Wilmas more often than I talked to my husband He's just been my right-hand guy throughout this whole thing and director Bebel Thank you for being the bad guy and doing some tough love with the contractors and the architects So I could always be the good cop. Thank you Also, lots of lots of help at DPW Joe Kerlin's team for putting up with us in their Park shelters for two years offering programs at Park shelters and cleaning up after us Thank you so much to them To Don Cukolowski who's no longer working with the city but was very involved in the beginning and Al and Steve for cleaning up after us at City Hall and Juan and Travis for coming here yesterday to make sure this place was Spick and span for everybody and for everyone who helped move all of our stuff over from the old building just a huge huge effort And I can't thank them enough real quick one to the finance department. I don't see Caitlin here But thank you to them for paying the bills A huge shout out to our friends at the Meade public library for hosting some of our programs over the past year You know, I asked Josh yesterday if I should make this joke and he said I shouldn't but I'm gonna do it Anyway, so to the Meade public library. Thank you for hosting our participants over the past year We know those sheepshead players can be curmudgeonly and we're grateful to you for putting up with them And I say that as a fellow sheepshead player To the senior services commission, can we get a show of hands commission members that are in the room? Thank you rich our chair. I know we've got thank you to our commission members Thank you for your advocacy and your guidance in getting this project going and I hope you're ready to buckle up as we revive And renew our livability plan in 2023 To the friends of Uptown social Thank you for all of your time spent live uplifting this organization for those who aren't aware Uptown social happens With a lot of support from the city and then a lot of support from the friends of Uptown social Which is the non-profit 501c3 that raised funds so they have their own board of directors Can we get a show of hands all of the friends board members? Thank you. Thank you and Actually about a third of our annual operating funds flow through the friends So when you purchase a membership when the cafe opens and you buy a meal when you make a donation It's all going through the friends of Uptown social, which we couldn't do nearly Well, we would have to do a whole third less of what we do without their support. So thank you to them I have to mention that we're currently Wrapping up our first phase of construction the second phase that we hope to complete next year is the big gymnasium there's some signage by the entrances that gives you an idea of what's coming and the friends have committed to fund raise to make that happen and So if there are people in this room that feels so inclined to want to be a part of that project I would love to have a conversation with you Scott Johnston our board president He's hiding but he would love to have a conversation with you about what that looks like and you'll be hearing a lot more from us coming soon about ways to be involved in that process and Speaking of supporting the friends. We have some sponsors in the room that have already signed on to be a part of this project So thank you Kohler company for both a financial contribution and about $30,000 worth of in-kind plumbing it features in this room so in this building. Thank you Also big thanks to Bader philanthropies the Alliance Energy Foundation. I think Laura's here somewhere if you want to give a wave Sheboygan senior community. I know Stephanie's here She waved good. Thank you Sheboygan senior community and Pine Haven Christian communities I saw Sam somewhere. Hi Sam and And the town of Sheboygan. I don't know if we have anyone from the town of Sheboygan here today I see a hand wave thing. Oh hi Karen So thank you to those sponsors that have already signed on to help us get that gym built. Thank you. I Promise I'm all I'm almost done. There's just so many people to thank here To all of our volunteers Thank you as Marilyn mentioned this place runs on volunteers and you all have been so incredibly patient with us as you've moved with us from the old building To City Green to Deeland Park to Roosevelt Park to Kiwanis Park to City Hall To the library and now to here. Thank you for your patience and your perseverance And I I hope I hope you're as excited as we are to get settled into this building and really make it our own So thank you all Of course a huge. Thank you to the staff You might not know that our entire team turned over throughout this project So to to our former colleagues Vicki Schneider Melissa Wolf and Rachel Connery who were here getting this project started And we're very involved in the initial concepts Huge thank you to them for their work and then of course to Jane. I haven't even seen Jane in like an hour She's just busy. Hi Jane. Thank you Jane for doing so much Jane's been with us for a month and she's just been doing amazing things and of course, thank you to Josh If if if you ever want to do a fitness program. He's funny. He's caring He enjoys mashed potatoes I Just encourage you to check out a fitness program with Josh. You won't regret it You might it don't ever tell him what you're what moves you don't like because he'll make you he'll make you do them more And you'll regret it forever. So don't do that And and finally finally thank you to all of our members our participants our visitors Thank you to all of you who've been here today. Thank you for being here Thank you for coming back again, and thank you for telling all your friends so we can continue to grow That's it. I'm sweating let's get this ribbon cut So the Sheboygan County Chamber is here. Let's have them come forward I'd like to have anybody who was involved in the project. So our architects our contractors our staff our commission Our alders anyone who wants to be here. We want you to be a part of this ribbon cutting We're gonna do it right here. So come on over