How to Keep Kids Active

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Amanda Marek – Active Youth Wisconsin

 

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Early Specialization in Youth Sports
05:22 Pandemic Sparks Outdoor Education Shift
08:45 Event Planning Logistics Explained
09:58 Supportive Community Partnerships
14:25 Youth Sports: Financial Barriers
18:58 “Full Entry Fees Donated to Schools”
22:47 Exceptional Event Experiences
24:01 “Team Effort Boosts Kids’ Triathlon”
27:44 Modified Triathlon Course for Kids
30:09 Comprehensive Event Insurance Essentials
34:36 “Abandoned Fancy Bike On Trail”
37:44 “Adopting Business Approach for Survival”
41:59 “Short Attention Span Challenges”
45:09 Active Youth Wisconsin Structure
48:06 “Grants for Wisconsin Schools Open”
51:09 Goggle Donation Success Story

Podcast Transcription:

Amanda Marek [00:00:00]:
Or now more and more is starting to become. Kids are specializing earlier. Right. So when you’re six years old, they’re saying, all right, football’s your sport, you know, and so we’re gonna go do the elite program at the gym and we’re gonna do the weightlifting and all of these. Right. It’s amazing to see these kids developing as athletes. I think it’s really awesome. But it’s so exclusive that you have this big chunk of kids, kids that are being essentially left behind.

Amanda Marek [00:00:30]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:00:33]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found@drawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, and today we’re welcoming, preparing to learn from a. Amanda Merrick, the director of Active Youth Wisconsin. I had to double check the name because you guys changed recently, right?

Amanda Marek [00:01:01]:
That’s right. Big, big, big changes.

James Kademan [00:01:03]:
Big change.

Amanda Marek [00:01:04]:
Yeah. So we just, In December of 2024, transitioned from Tri 4 Schools to Active Youth Wisconsin.

James Kademan [00:01:13]:
All right, so let’s lay the foundation here. What is Active Youth Wisconsin?

Amanda Marek [00:01:17]:
Absolutely. So Active Youth Wisconsin, we are a nonprofit, so we operate in Wisconsin. Our whole mission is get kids access to opportunities to be active, to move. That’s right, to move. We know how important that is for physical health. We also know how important it is for mental health.

James Kademan [00:01:35]:
Oh, true story.

Amanda Marek [00:01:37]:
Yeah, very, very much so. I think a lot of us have both personal experience with that. There’s also a ton of science behind how important it is too. And unfortunately, there’s not enough access to activity, whether that’s because there’s are too few programs or financial reasons. So a lot of our mission is make sure we’re kind of combating all of those different barriers and getting kids involved in after school programs and events. Triathlons, strength training, anything and everything.

James Kademan [00:02:10]:
All right, and you say kids, what is the age range?

Amanda Marek [00:02:14]:
So our programs and events spread between 3 and 14 years old.

James Kademan [00:02:19]:
Okay, so that’s a big spread.

Amanda Marek [00:02:20]:
That’s a big. Yeah, it’s a big. It’s a big range. And intentionally. Right. That allows us to really capture those kids when they’re teeny tiny and just getting going all the way to the kids that, like. Right. You’re starting to develop those lifelong habits that, like, now is kind of the time.

Amanda Marek [00:02:33]:
Like, let’s instill positive values, positive habits, so they could continue that through adulthood.

James Kademan [00:02:41]:
So I interviewed Kitty Hensel, the founder.

Amanda Marek [00:02:44]:
Of Try for schools forever ago. 2011 is when try for Schools was founded.

James Kademan [00:02:49]:
Was it really? Holy cow. I should know that. I would have failed that quiz. But tell me your second director then.

Amanda Marek [00:02:56]:
Second director? Yep.

James Kademan [00:02:57]:
Since 2011. That’s a long time.

Amanda Marek [00:02:59]:
Well, no, no. Try for school started in 2011.

James Kademan [00:03:02]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:03:03]:
Katie was here for 10 years. I took over in 2021.

James Kademan [00:03:06]:
Great. But still, to only have two directors in that time frame.

Amanda Marek [00:03:10]:
Yep. That’s.

James Kademan [00:03:11]:
That’s not that many, I guess, in my world.

Amanda Marek [00:03:14]:
No, it’s not. I think. I think that’s one of those things that it speaks to how passionate, you know, obviously how passionate Katie was and just in general, how passionate our entire staff is about the organization.

James Kademan [00:03:27]:
You as well.

Amanda Marek [00:03:28]:
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, I’ve been involved since I. Since I moved here in early 2017.

James Kademan [00:03:36]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:03:37]:
So to some extent, I’ve been involved for, you know, going on eight, nine years now.

James Kademan [00:03:41]:
Wow. How do you end up being the director of something like this?

Amanda Marek [00:03:46]:
Yeah, yeah. So I was first kind of exposed to Try for Schools when I started working at the local event management company here. So they help with all of our different equipment, timing to help us produce those events. And being a triathlete myself, being somebody who’s always been heavily involved in fitness, heavily involved in sports, I started working the events and was instantly just like, fell in love.

James Kademan [00:04:17]:
Nice.

Amanda Marek [00:04:18]:
You know, I had this moment. I was a timer for one of the races. And so I timed from like the press box, right. So I could see the track.

James Kademan [00:04:27]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:04:29]:
And I’m watching these kids run around this track doing this awesome triathlon. Some of them, Right. Three years old, like teenagers, teeny, tiny.

James Kademan [00:04:36]:
Like, I know, it’s amazing.

Amanda Marek [00:04:37]:
They learned how to walk a year and a half ago. And I had this moment where I was like, almost like tearing up just watching this happen, thinking about, like, wow, if all kids had programs like these when they were young, like, if I had this when I was young, like, how incredible would that be? And so instantly fell in love with it. So, you know, in addition to working the events, obviously at that time, that was my job, but I started volunteering, I started donating. And then in 2020, I had the opportunity to coach one of our after school programs. Because Covid. It was after school.

James Kademan [00:05:17]:
I was just gonna ask you. That’s Covid times, right?

Amanda Marek [00:05:19]:
That’s right.

James Kademan [00:05:20]:
2020 is a four letter word.

Amanda Marek [00:05:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was 2020, so obviously we couldn’t have programs at the school. What was nice is it allowed us to have programs at parks. You know, we did the social distancing mask, all of that. But instead of just having teachers coach the program, we were able to kind of open the door to any of our other supporters that might be interested. So me at the time, you know, I was working a quote unquote, 9 to 5 job, and I was like, heck yes, I would love to jump on and start coaching. So it was just kind of like one more opportunity for me to get in the door there.

Amanda Marek [00:05:58]:
And. And then Katie had decided in early 2021 that it was maybe time for her to pass the torch. And everything kind of fell in line from there. And suddenly I found myself as director of Try for Schools.

James Kademan [00:06:17]:
Nice. So do you get voted in or how does it. Or does Katie just say, hey, this is all yours?

Amanda Marek [00:06:26]:
It’s not quite like that. It’s very similar to, like a. A normal hiring. Right. You know, there’s resumes and interviews, and then the board has to vote.

James Kademan [00:06:35]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:06:36]:
I’m sure Katie had some pretty significant influence there.

James Kademan [00:06:39]:
Sure. Well, I would imagine so. Was there competition that you had?

Amanda Marek [00:06:44]:
I know there are other applicants. I don’t know much beyond that.

James Kademan [00:06:48]:
All right. I don’t know how many people would line up to do something. It’s a lot of work.

Amanda Marek [00:06:52]:
It is a lot of work. But how many people line up to be entrepreneurs? Right.

James Kademan [00:06:56]:
I think most people have it in their head that someday I’m gonna do that, just like writing a book. But not everyone does it, right. Not everybody’s like, hey, I wanted to write a book, all I have to do is start typing or something like that.

Amanda Marek [00:07:08]:
I mean, I would say it was definitely, you know, of the jobs I have had, it was definitely like that. Like, oh, boy. Like, I’m stepping into a lot of responsibility.

James Kademan [00:07:20]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:07:20]:
And in this case, like, I’m stepping into some big shoes. Some big, big shoes. So whether there was competition or not, there was definitely, you know, a little bit of an intimidation factor going into that. For sure.

James Kademan [00:07:34]:
Well, I bet I’m just imagining from all the stuff that you have to keep track of. So how many events do you guys do a year?

Amanda Marek [00:07:40]:
So right now we have three youth triathlons. We have one 5K, 10K called the Birdie Derby. That’s on Thanksgiving. That’s for grown ups that families, Families, anyone and everyone. That one. We’ve had participants from 0 years old to 94. Was our oldest last year.

James Kademan [00:07:57]:
94.

Amanda Marek [00:07:58]:
So that is a wide range.

James Kademan [00:07:59]:
0, I’m assuming, is getting pushed. 94, they gotta push themselves, right?

Amanda Marek [00:08:03]:
That’s right. That’s admirable yeah. That’s impressive. Yep. So we have The Birdie Derby, 5k, 10k, we do a golf classic, and then a lot of what we do is programming, so after school programs and summer programs.

James Kademan [00:08:21]:
Okay. I guess I didn’t realize all that stuff. So that’s even more beyond. Because.

Amanda Marek [00:08:26]:
That’s. Right.

James Kademan [00:08:27]:
Hosting a triathlon. Let’s just dig into the triathlon thing.

Amanda Marek [00:08:29]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:08:31]:
I imagine there’s insurance you have to deal with. You have to do permits. I don’t know if there’s figuring out closing roads or anything. Just walk us through what all has to happen for a triathlon to happen in a city.

Amanda Marek [00:08:42]:
Yeah, absolutely.

James Kademan [00:08:43]:
Just a checklist of 50 million things.

Amanda Marek [00:08:45]:
Yeah. I would have to bring out the book, that’s for sure, if we were going to go that in detail, but yeah, kind of exactly what you said. Right. We have to get approval from cities to be there. We need to know what streets we’re closing and if they’re going to allow us to do that. On top of that, it’s. If you’re going to close those roads, who’s going to make sure they’re closed, who’s going to make sure they’re safe? So you’re getting permits and staff and volunteers for all of those things. And then that’s just like.

Amanda Marek [00:09:12]:
Right. Like the core logistics of the course. Then you’re looking at something like, well, what does our site look like? What equipment do we need? Where are we putting people? Where are we putting 600 kids and all their bikes? And then you look beyond that, right. To the participant experience. Are they getting shirts, metals, food, water? What does everything look like? It feels kind of like you just keep adding things in. It’s constant. Constant adding things in.

James Kademan [00:09:40]:
Tell me about working with the cities and the towns. Is that easy? Is it challenging? Do you get no as an answer?

Amanda Marek [00:09:48]:
Often events do get no as an answer. We’ve been lucky in that we really haven’t come across no, which has been fantastic.

James Kademan [00:09:57]:
That’s great.

Amanda Marek [00:09:58]:
Yes. It varies town by town, so some towns are definitely more supportive, more interested in having events. Other towns maybe not as much. We’ve been lucky in that, you know, we work with Sun Prairie, we work with Wanakee, we work with Middleton, we work with Fitchburg, we’re in Madison. Those towns have been very good and oftentimes very generous. So I would say, you know, we have. We’ve built relationships there that make it a lot easier for us to make things smooth year over year.

James Kademan [00:10:35]:
Fair. Totally fair. Now, the fundraising that you mentioned, the golf thing, the birdie derby. Am I missing any?

Amanda Marek [00:10:42]:
Just those two. For fundraising.

James Kademan [00:10:43]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:10:44]:
And then people just donating and donating. Yep, yep.

James Kademan [00:10:46]:
Tell me that money. You gather that money, and then what does that go towards?

Amanda Marek [00:10:49]:
Sure. So the golf fundraiser, I mentioned earlier that we’re really committed to access. So every year we provide. It’s now up to 3, 34,000 dollars in financial aid. So we have a very strict no questions asked financial aid policy. So any child that needs something to help them participate. Right. Whether that’s an entry fee to an event or a program.

Amanda Marek [00:11:18]:
Shoes, sock, bike, sports bras, swimsuits, goggles. Any of the things that you could potentially need. We make sure kids get their hands on that.

James Kademan [00:11:29]:
Nice.

Amanda Marek [00:11:30]:
And that, like I said, is very strict, and that’s something I’m very passionate about, is that we’re able to remove those barriers for kids so they do have access to something that is safe and supportive and welcoming and fun, that allows them to move their bodies. But that golf fundraiser, my goal with that is usually, can we raise that amount of financial aid? So we’re confident going in the year that whenever we get an ask from somebody, we’ll be able to say yes.

James Kademan [00:12:03]:
She can say yes.

Amanda Marek [00:12:04]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:12:05]:
You know, it’s interesting talking about this. Cause I take for granted all the opportunity that my kid has and just. We have now.

Amanda Marek [00:12:15]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:12:15]:
It’s weird when you think about when we were kids. Like a triathlon for a kid.

Amanda Marek [00:12:20]:
Yeah. Never.

James Kademan [00:12:20]:
Not even heard of. Anyways, I want to allude to a story that talks about money a little bit. This weekend, we’re at a soccer tournament for my kid, and I pull up not knowing anything about this.

Amanda Marek [00:12:33]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:12:33]:
I was just told this is where I’m supposed to be. So I pull in and there’s a guy with a tablet, and he’s like, do you want to pay cash or credit card? And I was like, for what? And he’s like, parking. And so I’m like, okay, whatever. Just what do you prefer? Right. He’s like, credit card’s cool. I’m like, great. He’s like, it’s $15. And I’m like, $15 to park? To watch a soccer game that my kid is playing in.

James Kademan [00:13:01]:
So I’m like, wait a second. I’m supplying the entertainment, and I’m the crowd to watch the entertainment. I know that you charged the team to play there and out. 15 bucks you get charged for parking. Whatever. Somebody’s got to pay for this park. I get that. But then I’m thinking, hold on A second.

James Kademan [00:13:18]:
There’s people that. That $15. They had to work an hour and a half for that $15 just to park their car.

Amanda Marek [00:13:24]:
That’s right.

James Kademan [00:13:25]:
To have their kid play soccer that they already had to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to be in.

Amanda Marek [00:13:30]:
Yep.

James Kademan [00:13:31]:
Like, that is crazy.

Amanda Marek [00:13:32]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:33]:
And from a sport like. It’s not hockey, where you all padded up.

Amanda Marek [00:13:36]:
No.

James Kademan [00:13:37]:
You’re talking about shin guards and overpriced shirts.

Amanda Marek [00:13:40]:
Yeah. And a pair of shoes.

James Kademan [00:13:41]:
Pair of shoes.

Amanda Marek [00:13:42]:
Right. But it all adds up.

James Kademan [00:13:43]:
Relatively cheap. Relatively cheap sport. I suppose every sport can be as expensive as you want to make it.

Amanda Marek [00:13:48]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:48]:
But I compare it to goalie year for a set.

Amanda Marek [00:13:51]:
Oh, yeah. I can’t imagine. I don’t even want to.

James Kademan [00:13:53]:
It’s like you can either live in a house or have goalie year, which you want 100%.

Amanda Marek [00:13:58]:
But this is, you know, this is one of those. If we want to talk for the next three hours, I could get on my soapbox about youth sports. Sports.

James Kademan [00:14:05]:
It’s insane.

Amanda Marek [00:14:07]:
It’s really. It’s crazy. And I absolutely love to see kids out there playing all the traditional sports. Right. So you’re looking at your hockey and your soccer and baseball, football and all of those. Unfortunately, they’re becoming more and more exclusive.

James Kademan [00:14:25]:
Totally.

Amanda Marek [00:14:25]:
And typically it is finances is what they’re exclusive by. And you know, whether that’s just like the entry fee to get on the team or now more and more is starting to become. Kids are specializing earlier. Right. So when you’re six years old, they’re saying, all right, football’s your sport. You know, and so we’re gonna go do the elite program at the gym and we’re gonna do the weightlifting and all of these. Right. It’s amazing to see these kids developing as athletes.

Amanda Marek [00:14:55]:
I think it’s really awesome.

James Kademan [00:14:57]:
They.

Amanda Marek [00:14:57]:
But it’s so exclusive that you have this big chunk of kids that are being essentially left behind. Right.

James Kademan [00:15:06]:
They just wanna play.

Amanda Marek [00:15:07]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:15:08]:
Not necessarily aiming to go pro.

Amanda Marek [00:15:10]:
Exactly. Right. And like, what are those percentages for the sports? 0.001% of fractional. Yes. So fractional. Right. It’s going to be people like us that are out there playing pickup softball on a Wednesday night and doing hobby triathlon. But the goal is still like, give those kids experience now when they are young, when they can go out and have fun with it.

Amanda Marek [00:15:39]:
And so so much for us is creating those opportunities. Right. And so when we say create, that’s obviously hosting the events and the after school programs, but it’s also giving the Kids the resources to be able to show up. Right. Because we can’t pay, you know, thousands of dollars for hockey gear.

James Kademan [00:15:59]:
Right.

Amanda Marek [00:15:59]:
But I could scrounge up a bike and some shoes and some, you know, and make sure that that kid gets the opportunity to move.

James Kademan [00:16:05]:
So you get your bikes from. Oh my gosh. I gotta think of the place.

Amanda Marek [00:16:09]:
Bikes for kids.

James Kademan [00:16:10]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:16:10]:
They help us. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:16:12]:
So way back when I was volunteering for big brother’s big sisters.

Amanda Marek [00:16:16]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:16:17]:
And I helped get a bike through them.

Amanda Marek [00:16:18]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:16:18]:
For my little brother.

Amanda Marek [00:16:20]:
Oh, nice.

James Kademan [00:16:20]:
At the time, he was, I’m gonna say, 13, 14 years old. Never been on a bike.

Amanda Marek [00:16:27]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:16:28]:
And me just being this oblivious kid, I’m like, what do you mean you’ve never been on a bike? Like, you never been on a bike 13 years old.

Amanda Marek [00:16:37]:
Yep.

James Kademan [00:16:38]:
And I just. I grew up in a time where that was your transportation. Like you either walked, ran, or biked.

Amanda Marek [00:16:45]:
Yep.

James Kademan [00:16:45]:
As a kid. And you left for the whole day.

Amanda Marek [00:16:48]:
Oh, yeah. You were gone. Yeah, gone. I mean, it was no different with us. Yeah. But I think people like you said, we take for granted how special that is. Right. Like the freedom that a bike gives you.

Amanda Marek [00:17:01]:
And then you. Do you hear of kids that don’t know how to ride? You know, I mean, we have a 26 foot trailer that we drag around town that’s filled with bikes to give schools the opportunity to teach kids how to ride bikes.

James Kademan [00:17:14]:
Really? Okay, tell me more about that.

Amanda Marek [00:17:16]:
Yeah. So. Oh, gosh, I don’t know what year we got the trailer in, but we have a big trailer. It’s filled usually between like 30 and 40 bikes. And we cart it around to all the different schools in the community. And teachers either use it for our after school programs. So if it’s at a school where there’s a big chunk of kids that don’t own bikes, we’ll have it there so they could be taught how to ride. And then we’ll also let it circulate just for like PE Programs.

Amanda Marek [00:17:44]:
Right. A gym teacher wants to teach biking. So it’s like, sure, we’ll pull the trailer over there, drop it off, and teach your kids how to ride bikes. We’re about it. It’s super cool.

James Kademan [00:17:55]:
And from a cost to the school.

Amanda Marek [00:17:58]:
Nothing.

James Kademan [00:17:58]:
Nothing?

Amanda Marek [00:17:59]:
Yeah, nothing.

James Kademan [00:18:01]:
Very cool.

Amanda Marek [00:18:01]:
So same. Same with all of our programs. We don’t charge the schools to host a program. In fact, we give them money.

James Kademan [00:18:08]:
Okay, I was just. You’re alluding to that. So I love that. Thank you for the segue. So you donate money because I know when you sign your kid up for the triathlon, you put in there something about what school you want money to go towards. Right. Can you tell us about that?

Amanda Marek [00:18:23]:
Yeah. So really kind of tri for schools started with this, the whole white childhood obesity kind of movement. And we quickly learned, well, no. Start developing those healthy habits early and then it never becomes a problem. And so when Katie did that first triathlon, that was kind of the goal behind it. Right. Make it fun, make it exciting, get the kids moving. And then it was like, well, what do we do with the money that we raised? And she decided, well, let’s give it back to the schools.

Amanda Marek [00:18:58]:
And so what’s unique about us? And as far as I’m aware, and I’m involved heavily in the event industry, even beyond Try for Schools and Active Youth Wisconsin, we are the only organization that does this. We donate 100% of the entry fee, so it’s not proceeds. We take all of that entry fee money. Say this is what we’re giving back to the schools. So when a child registers, they’ll like you said, select their school at the end of, I’ll say, the season. Right. So all three of our races, we count up how many kids from Sandberg elementary did the school or did the races, and we cut them a check, and we specifically direct that check to the physical education departments.

James Kademan [00:19:40]:
Nice.

Amanda Marek [00:19:41]:
Because right now we know in general, school budgets, not great, not challenging times. It is, yes. Right now, average budget for a physical education department in Dane County, $100.

James Kademan [00:19:57]:
Annually.

Amanda Marek [00:19:58]:
Annually for the whole hundred dollars. Right. So like these days, was that like.

James Kademan [00:20:02]:
10 basketballs, 10 shoes?

Amanda Marek [00:20:03]:
Oh, no, it’s like three basketballs. If you’re gonna do like decent, maybe a jump rope you could throw in there too.

James Kademan [00:20:10]:
Yeah, a jump rope.

Amanda Marek [00:20:13]:
One jump rope. Right. And then you’re looking at class size. Right. Average class size, I think, at least in Madison school district is 17 kids.

James Kademan [00:20:22]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:20:22]:
Right. So.

James Kademan [00:20:23]:
Well, it’s smaller than I expected.

Amanda Marek [00:20:24]:
Okay. Yeah, but still. Right. So you have three basketballs and a jump rope for 17 kids.

James Kademan [00:20:29]:
Nice. Have fun.

Amanda Marek [00:20:30]:
Uh huh. I mean, I’ve been to some schools in the area where you know what the shell of a soccer ball looks like? Where the shell is just gone. It’s just like the inside, all the little shapes are. Yeah. Just gone. It’s like, wow, I wonder how long that soccer ball has been getting kicked around. 20 years.

James Kademan [00:20:48]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:20:50]:
So the point is that that money is basically handed to that physical education teacher and they’re told, use this for what you want, you know, not combined into the mass budget of the school as a whole.

James Kademan [00:21:04]:
Sure. That is so crazy. I’m trying to think, like, you give them 34 bucks and you just jumped up, like, whoa, it’s 34%.

Amanda Marek [00:21:13]:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, like, you think about the schools that we cut a check for $1,000, too.

James Kademan [00:21:18]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:21:19]:
That’s pretty impactful. So even when you’re looking at those, like, smaller dollar amounts, in a lot of cases, we are quadrupling the budgets of a lot of these schools that we have.

James Kademan [00:21:32]:
That sounds like a lot of checks to cut.

Amanda Marek [00:21:34]:
I imagine it is. Yeah. Our operations director, Rachel, she’s a godsend.

James Kademan [00:21:38]:
Okay. Cause I imagine you get one kid from one school, and there’s other kids where you’re like, hey, we got 10 kids at this school. 15 at this one, one at that school. So that’s like, hey, here’s your.

Amanda Marek [00:21:49]:
We just had our wanakee kids triathlon last weekend. I want to say we had 92 different schools present.

James Kademan [00:21:56]:
Wow.

Amanda Marek [00:21:57]:
So a lot of different schools.

James Kademan [00:21:59]:
It’s hard to keep track of.

Amanda Marek [00:22:00]:
It is, yes.

James Kademan [00:22:01]:
All right, are there any schools that say, hey, we don’t want that money, or what do we do with this?

Amanda Marek [00:22:07]:
We do. Every year we get schools that are kind of like, what is this? You know, they’re not exactly sure, but it’s almost nice because that gives us the opportunity to, like, say, like, hey, this is what we do. This is why we’re here. This is why you got this check.

James Kademan [00:22:20]:
All right. So you can spread the word a little bit.

Amanda Marek [00:22:22]:
That’s right. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:22:23]:
Tell me a story. Let’s shift gears into the triathlons themselves.

Amanda Marek [00:22:26]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:22:27]:
You gotta market to all these kids, and you have to have the. I guess you and the parents of these kids say, hey, you wanna do a triathlon? And the kid’s like, what’s a triathlon? And we’re like, set your controller down and get outside. And get outside. Tell me about getting the crowd of kids to a triathlon.

Amanda Marek [00:22:47]:
Sure, sure. One thing that we’ve done really well is word of mouth marketing, and that’s been built up through the experience that we provide. I always like to say that I get to say from an unbiased standpoint that our events are really, really awesome. And I say it’s unbiased because I got to experience the events before I was an employee of active youth Wisconsin. We really, really create just an amazing experience. You know, I love when we have either it’s a new participant, a new family, a new volunteer, and they come in afterwards, like, it was a real race. Like it was an actual triathlon. It’s like, yeah, I know they’re amazing.

Amanda Marek [00:23:37]:
But a lot of the marketing is done just that word of mouth side of things. We’re on the standard social media, but we actually rely heavily on the teachers. Oh, the teachers in the schools. Right. Okay. So we’re communicating with them, whether it be through our after school programs or just in general, because. Right. They’re getting money when the kids are doing our races.

James Kademan [00:24:00]:
Doesn’t hurt.

Amanda Marek [00:24:01]:
No, it’s helpful to them. And we’ve had kind of those champions over the years that once they got that first check that was like, oh, 30 bucks, I could buy another basketball. Then suddenly they’re like, kids, Everybody’s in, everybody’s doing the triathlon. Sign on. Right. You know, they’re handing out postcards and all the things. So we really do. It’s kind of like a whole team effort, I guess, to make sure we’re getting the word out and getting kids to the race.

James Kademan [00:24:27]:
All right, let’s shift gears into logistics of triathlon.

Amanda Marek [00:24:30]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:24:31]:
Cause you got water, swimming, all that kind of stuff. You got the biking. I imagine water stations, start and stop and timer. And I don’t know if the kids have little things to keep track of their time.

Amanda Marek [00:24:40]:
They have timing tags. Yep.

James Kademan [00:24:42]:
Tell me about all that.

Amanda Marek [00:24:43]:
Okay. So this is kind of the world that I come from is event management.

James Kademan [00:24:49]:
Got it.

Amanda Marek [00:24:49]:
Right. So I moved to Wisconsin to take a job in event management. I’ve always been the like A to B logistics person. And then having been a triathlete myself, having been a runner, it was of a lot of interest for me to jump into event management. But start to finish, like you said. Right. Swim, bike and run. It certainly adds some interesting elements to it for us.

Amanda Marek [00:25:18]:
We don’t do any open water swimming.

James Kademan [00:25:21]:
No lakes, no ponds.

Amanda Marek [00:25:22]:
No, I don’t want to go down that road.

James Kademan [00:25:24]:
Fair. Totally fair.

Amanda Marek [00:25:25]:
Yes. So we do. All of our swimming is done in pools. So for Wanakee is in the high school, Middleton is in the outdoor pool in Middleton. And so, you know, we basically line the kids up. They file in almost like one by one. We’re putting them into the water. And then with triathlon, you have a transition area.

Amanda Marek [00:25:44]:
So. Right. That’s where you stage all of your gear. So for the next discipline, you’re gonna have your bike and your shoes and your helmet. A lot of kids will put a towel in there. Right. So then once they get out of that water, they run down, they find their bike, put on Their helmet, their shoes and they take off onto their bike. Once they’re done off their bike ride, they’re coming back, they’re doing the same thing, Right.

Amanda Marek [00:26:10]:
Getting off their bike, taking their helmet off. Hopefully. We have a lot of kids, they’re very speedy and they frequently forget. So you’ll occasionally see a kid with their helmet on crossing the finish line. Safety first. But then those kids will head out on the run course. And then most of our runs again are on the track actually depending on where we are. So the kids just kind of count their laps.

Amanda Marek [00:26:32]:
They have a certain number of laps to do based on the distance they’re doing and then they cross the finish line. But it is, it’s a whole real setup. Right. Like we have the full finish line with the banners and the shoot and the kids are timed professionally. Like we make sure it’s like a real experience.

James Kademan [00:26:50]:
Nice. Tell me about distances because I’m imagining a three year old.

Amanda Marek [00:26:54]:
Yeah. They’re not doing an Ironman five miles, right? Yeah. So we separate our courses, our triathlons, into four different distances. So our long course kids, they’re going to do 100 meters in the pool. So it’s four lengths of a standard pool. Depending on what location we’re at, it’s probably going to be around like four or five miles on the bike and then a one mile run.

James Kademan [00:27:20]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:27:21]:
Down to our medium and intermediate course. So the bike distance on that is going to be usually like 2 to 3 miles and then a half mile run. Our difference between the medium and the intermediate is the swim. So the intermediate the swim is only a 25. The medium the swim is a 50.

James Kademan [00:27:42]:
Is that there versus there and back?

Amanda Marek [00:27:44]:
Exactly, there versus there and back. And the reason we did that was because we realized that swimming skill wasn’t there for every child. But they still wanted to do that longer distance on the bike and the run. So we decided, well, why don’t we just make another course that allows those kids to just swim a little bit shorter but still compete. And then the longer distances on the bike and the run and then our short course kids. So like the teeny tiny ones, right? Those are your three to five year olds, which I know, I didn’t know how to swim at 3.

James Kademan [00:28:19]:
No.

Amanda Marek [00:28:19]:
But there are some pretty impressive kids. Those kiddos though, we have them just go horizontal across the pool so it’s not even a full length. And occasionally you’ll kind of see like a lifeguard just like handing them to the next lifeguard along the line. And then depending Again, depending on what site we’re at, you’re thinking like, a block for the bike and then kind of just like, straight into the finish line from transition.

James Kademan [00:28:44]:
All right. It’s gonna be cute to watch.

Amanda Marek [00:28:47]:
Oh, my God. It’s adorable. It’s adorable. It really, really is nice.

James Kademan [00:28:51]:
Tell me about insurance.

Amanda Marek [00:28:53]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:28:54]:
Because that’s the topic that everybody loves. Right.

Amanda Marek [00:28:57]:
Everybody loves.

James Kademan [00:28:58]:
Because I imagine you introduce water and like, ah, we got a problem there. You introduce a crowd. I got a problem there. Introduce something where you need a helmet with biking. Got a problem there. And introduce. Just not sitting on a couch in a shell. Got a problem there.

James Kademan [00:29:12]:
So just tell me about how that works.

Amanda Marek [00:29:15]:
Yeah. I think, you know, an organization as a whole. Right. Because you mentioned. Right. We have, like, our standard, like, office operations. You know, like, we are a nonprofit, but essentially. Right.

Amanda Marek [00:29:26]:
A nonprofit is a business. So you have those just basic insurance needs. We have equipment that we need to insure. Oh, right. We have.

James Kademan [00:29:36]:
You’re talking timers and stuff like that.

Amanda Marek [00:29:39]:
So in our case, not the timing side of it, but. Right. Like, we have cones and a finish line and a million tents and a whole bunch of other stuff that, when you price all that out is a good amount of money. And we need it all for our events. Right. So we have two storage units, and it’s basically, you know, an event in each storage unit. So we’re insuring equipment. I mentioned our bike trailer.

Amanda Marek [00:30:09]:
That bike trailer needs to be insured. The people who move the bike trailer need to be insured. And then. Yes, the complicated part of event insurance, you know, so you are every element you add to it, from being in a pool to being on a closed road versus an open road. Right. Can any cars get on? Versus can some cars get on? And then we have a lot of volunteers. We make sure those guys are covered. You know, we have our staff.

Amanda Marek [00:30:40]:
So it’s when every February rolls around, it’s when we renew our insurance. It’s a rather lengthy process.

James Kademan [00:30:47]:
All right. Has there ever been a challenge when an insurance company will say we can’t do it or won’t do it or. Or we can, but it’s $10 billion or something.

Amanda Marek [00:30:58]:
Not really. Knock on wood. We have not had that happen to us. Way back in the day, we used to have a mud run.

James Kademan [00:31:06]:
I was on the mud run.

Amanda Marek [00:31:08]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:31:08]:
With my little brother.

Amanda Marek [00:31:09]:
There you go.

James Kademan [00:31:10]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:31:10]:
So, you know, the mud run, it’s basically an obstacle course race.

James Kademan [00:31:14]:
It’s phenomenal.

Amanda Marek [00:31:14]:
Yes. A lot of fun. Super awesome, high energy. So dangerous.

James Kademan [00:31:22]:
So dangerous. Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:31:23]:
So dangerous, right? You’re sending out a thousand kids into a little obstacle course.

James Kademan [00:31:27]:
Is that what you had? A thousand?

Amanda Marek [00:31:28]:
Usually the mud run was around a thousand. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:31:30]:
That’s a lot of kids.

Amanda Marek [00:31:31]:
Okay. Yes. Yes, it is a lot of kids. The last year of the mud run, we had a child step on ground bees.

James Kademan [00:31:40]:
That’s what I heard. Okay. Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:31:42]:
That was the end of the mud run. We were no more.

James Kademan [00:31:46]:
All right, but that you’re in a park. That could have happened.

Amanda Marek [00:31:49]:
It could have happened anywhere. Absolutely. But it’s one of those things. Maybe we don’t need this risk. Plus, then Covid hit and it just.

James Kademan [00:31:56]:
Yeah, okay.

Amanda Marek [00:31:57]:
Never came back.

James Kademan [00:31:57]:
No. That was a blast. I took my little brother. I still have this picture of my little brother. I’m trying to think. There must have been some little creek that we had to cross.

Amanda Marek [00:32:06]:
Yep.

James Kademan [00:32:07]:
And he was sliding down the thing and he fell into the creek. And so whoever caught this picture of him falling down with his look on his face. So every once in a while when I see him, I’m like, hey, Danny, you remember this?

Amanda Marek [00:32:21]:
Oh, I’m sure he loves being reminded.

James Kademan [00:32:23]:
Of that because, I mean, that’s the game, right? You’re having fun. You’re getting muddy.

Amanda Marek [00:32:27]:
Well, yeah, right. It’s exactly what we’re talking about.

James Kademan [00:32:29]:
You’re trying to run with 20 pounds of mud on your shoes.

Amanda Marek [00:32:32]:
Yes. Oh, yeah, we had a lot of shoes. Just that never made it back home.

James Kademan [00:32:38]:
Yeah, a bit. Yeah. I think I went on some mud run. I don’t remember what it was. Where they had some shoe donation pile.

Amanda Marek [00:32:45]:
Yes. Yeah, Usually that’s what it is.

James Kademan [00:32:47]:
I don’t know what you guys are doing with them, but you seem to.

Amanda Marek [00:32:48]:
Want them, so we’ll leave them here.

James Kademan [00:32:50]:
Yeah, definitely. I didn’t choose my favorites there.

Amanda Marek [00:32:53]:
Good.

James Kademan [00:32:54]:
So all good. Tell me next thing about volunteers.

Amanda Marek [00:32:57]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:32:58]:
To put on an event like this, you need people.

Amanda Marek [00:33:00]:
That’s right.

James Kademan [00:33:01]:
And they’re not. I mean, some of them are staff. Some are crazy good staff. But you can’t have millions of staff on.

Amanda Marek [00:33:07]:
No, no. So we have. There are four active youth Wisconsin staff.

James Kademan [00:33:12]:
So that’s it. Four.

Amanda Marek [00:33:13]:
That’s it. Yeah. So it’s myself, I’m full time. Rachel Hagan, she’s our operations and program director. She’s full time. Then we have Casey Segali, she’s our. She’s a program director. So she helps us with birdie Derby primarily.

Amanda Marek [00:33:28]:
And then Katie Brazel is our race director. She’s also part time. So that’s kind of Our lean and mean crew of women that make it all happen. But then we have. We really rely on incredible volunteers. And we over the years have just created this, like this. Honestly, it’s a massive army of people that just, like, truly care about the mission. Because, yeah, every event, we usually try to find 90 to 100 people to come out.

Amanda Marek [00:33:59]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:34:00]:
All right.

Amanda Marek [00:34:00]:
Yes. Kids are really unpredictable.

James Kademan [00:34:03]:
No joke.

Amanda Marek [00:34:03]:
Yep. Man. We can work as hard as we can to cone them to go left, but as soon as that first kid goes right, they’re all going right.

James Kademan [00:34:13]:
Oh, that’s funny.

Amanda Marek [00:34:14]:
So I always lovingly refer to our volunteers as our human cones.

James Kademan [00:34:18]:
All right. I remember volunteering. This was a long time ago because I was at. Must have been a transition place. And there’s kids. I think most of them are there for fun.

Amanda Marek [00:34:30]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:34:30]:
But I feel like this was an older kid that was determined to take on the world.

Amanda Marek [00:34:35]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:34:36]:
And they transitioned with their bike. And I feel like that bike was a fancy looking bike. Looked like it cost more than my car. I remember he got off it and he kind of threw it and then just went off running. And I’m like, what in the world? That’s bizarre. Like, you can put it in a place, whatever. They just kind of threw it and it was blocking the trail, so I had to move that. But I’m like, who’s your mom? Who’s your dad? Who’s telling you to do this? Whatever.

James Kademan [00:35:02]:
But it’s just one of those.

Amanda Marek [00:35:03]:
Like, what just happened?

James Kademan [00:35:04]:
Yeah. What if everybody did that? We’d have a problem here.

Amanda Marek [00:35:07]:
Oh, yes. Absolutely we would.

James Kademan [00:35:08]:
It’s kind of interesting to see.

Amanda Marek [00:35:10]:
Yes. I mean, it’s a lot. And it is. Right. You know, we were talking earlier about the logistics of a triathlon. There’s a lot that goes on when you’re racing. It’s an insane one. It is.

Amanda Marek [00:35:19]:
Yeah. And as you know, a kid anywhere from 3 to 14 who maybe hasn’t done this before, it is confusing. Right. What do I do with my bike? Where do I put my helmet? What do I do with my shoes? So we do rely on those volunteers that, you know, help and make sure those kids get out of transition and then make sure they get back into transition.

James Kademan [00:35:37]:
And I imagine there’s a consoling that needs to happen because I know with.

Amanda Marek [00:35:41]:
My son, every once in a while.

James Kademan [00:35:42]:
Yeah, he was freaked out. Yep.

Amanda Marek [00:35:45]:
Every once in a while we, you know, honestly, we don’t have as many tears as you would expect. Kids do a really good job.

James Kademan [00:35:52]:
My son, I mean, this was years ago. I don’t remember if he was 5 or 6 or something like that, but I think when he went in the pool, it was just loud.

Amanda Marek [00:36:00]:
It is loud. It’s overwhelming. I would say more often than not, it’s the overwhelming that gets kids.

James Kademan [00:36:06]:
And we’re just cheering him on, like, go, bike. And he’s like, what are you doing, Nana? This is you. Get moving. That’s funny. Tell me, what have been some of the challenges since you took over as director?

Amanda Marek [00:36:19]:
Oh, boy.

James Kademan [00:36:22]:
What are we doing for the next three hours here?

Amanda Marek [00:36:23]:
Oh, no, I don’t know about that. We’re a nonprofit, right. Funding is always a challenge.

James Kademan [00:36:29]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:36:30]:
You know, so whether that’s looking for new donors, if it’s looking for sponsors, grants. You know, we right now live in a tough political and economic environment for nonprofits, and we’ve definitely seen. We also nonprofits as a whole have seen, you know, a reduction in just individual donors. Post Covid. There are a lot of grants that nonprofits relied on, you know, year after year that just never came back.

James Kademan [00:37:04]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:37:05]:
You know, they completely dissolved and just don’t exist anymore. So that kind of pool of money is starting to shrink. I think one thing that is a little bit different for me versus coming from Katie, as I do come from a little bit more of, like, a business background. Right. You know, that’s what I went to school for. That’s what I love. That’s what I enjoy. I am definitely like a put my head in spreadsheets and be perfectly content kind of person.

Amanda Marek [00:37:36]:
So the first thing I had fun with when I got to try for schools was we’re gonna build this massive budget. So that’s what we did.

James Kademan [00:37:42]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:37:44]:
But, you know, kind of, as we’ve seen, this reduction in funding, whether that be from donors or grants or sponsors, kind of started now to take this approach of, you know, we really can’t survive on. We do good. Give us money instead. There has to be something. Right. You know, I provide you with something, and you, in turn, either donate or purchase something from me. Right. Taking that business mindset and that opportunity really kind of came through when we secured taking over the Burby Derby.

James Kademan [00:38:17]:
Oh, okay.

Amanda Marek [00:38:18]:
So the Burby Derby, that’s the 5k, 10k in Fitchburg on Thanksgiving. That race had been around for 20 years. In 2023, we were approached, and they decided that they were, you know, maybe done with. With hosting the event. Like we’ve talked about, it’s a big, you know, a big undertaking to produce an event like that. And so we were able to acquire the race, we rebranded it to the Birdie Derby.

James Kademan [00:38:48]:
Birdie as in Birdie?

Amanda Marek [00:38:49]:
Birdie as in Birdie. Birdie as in Turkey. Yep. We rebranded, it became our race. And again that for me was like probably the most exciting, definitely the most exciting thing that had happened for us in terms of creating opportunity was being able to get a race from that. Right. Because we’re good at producing races. I knew going into the Birdie Derby we would do a really good job with it.

Amanda Marek [00:39:19]:
And that is now our right. I produce a great 5k, 10k for you and you pay an entry fee to do it.

James Kademan [00:39:27]:
So it’s a fundraiser.

Amanda Marek [00:39:28]:
It’s a fundraiser. Yep, yep, it’s a fundraiser. So that one for us, all the proceeds go to our grant program, which is something we didn’t touch on either. Oh, that.

James Kademan [00:39:39]:
Wait, there’s more.

Amanda Marek [00:39:39]:
That’s right. There’s always more. Which I’ll get to the next part of. There’s always more.

James Kademan [00:39:44]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:39:45]:
So our grants, those were created, I want to say 2015 and those are for teachers to apply for like larger dollar amounts. Right. So like anywhere between like 500 and $3,000 if they want to do some sort of either a bigger project or an activity. So I think we’ve funded like 12 or 15 Gaga ball pits.

James Kademan [00:40:10]:
Oh, I love Gaga Ball.

Amanda Marek [00:40:12]:
Uh huh. Yep. We got Gaga Ball pits all over Dane County.

James Kademan [00:40:15]:
Nice.

Amanda Marek [00:40:16]:
You know we’ve done wellness trails, we’ve done just like simple equipment. Right. Replace the 20 year old basketballs that are falling apart. But so the proceeds from the Birdie Derby, they go to support that grant program. I want to say over the past, over the three years that I have been at Triforce Schools, we’ve had five times the number of requests that we could actually fund.

James Kademan [00:40:40]:
Five times?

Amanda Marek [00:40:41]:
Five times, yeah.

James Kademan [00:40:42]:
Wow.

Amanda Marek [00:40:43]:
Five times. So having the Birdie Derby, having that large of an event, that’s why it’s so important for us, because we know that needs there already. But like I said, the kind of the business mindset behind, you know, you participate, you pay to participate, getting the Birdie Derby and now kind of having that really kind of set the stage even more for where I thought the organization needed to go from try for schools to something else. And this is kind of, I guess shifting topics a little bit.

James Kademan [00:41:21]:
No, you’re good, you’re good.

Amanda Marek [00:41:22]:
But in the same sense still in line. Right. Try for schools. Triathlon for schools. It’s very narrow. It’s very hard to explain what it is exactly that we do. So I noticed as I got deeper into fundraising, deeper into developing more programs, developing more events, it was like, oh, my goodness, it’s taking me like 10 minutes to describe everything we do. You just had that moment.

Amanda Marek [00:41:55]:
And there’s more. There’s more. There’s always more.

James Kademan [00:41:57]:
Right.

Amanda Marek [00:41:59]:
And we live in a world where our attention spans are about yay big. You know, I can’t communicate all the incredible things that we do in five minutes. Talking to somebody. How are we going to take it and put it into one sentence, into a five second video, into a one sec, you know, maybe a one minute explanation? We really couldn’t. So there is that element of it. Then. There was also an element of kind of what we were talking about earlier, that there’s just not enough. Right.

Amanda Marek [00:42:30]:
There’s not enough opportunities to do different things. And so we finally just said, I kind of had this moment of like, we can’t stay, try for schools. We’re holding ourselves back and we’re potentially at a more extreme way, stomping ourselves out.

James Kademan [00:42:51]:
Oh.

Amanda Marek [00:42:53]:
You know, and that’s kind of twofold. Right. It’s the not being able to get people, not being able to attract people because we’re confusing. Right. And then you also look at it from the triathlon side as now it feels just really exclusive and small. Right. Cause we’re not just triathlons. So I think it was about like a year and a half of me preaching to the board, like, we gotta make a change.

Amanda Marek [00:43:20]:
Like, we gotta rebrand. We gotta. You know, that’s scary, right? That’s scary.

James Kademan [00:43:25]:
I’m just trying to imagine a board meeting where they’re like, okay, does anybody else have anything to mention? And you’re like, hey, this whole brand that we have here, we gotta, we gotta expand that, change it all.

Amanda Marek [00:43:38]:
Yep. That’s why it took me a year and a half.

James Kademan [00:43:40]:
And they’re like, oh, let’s circle out next month quick. Solve world hunger.

Amanda Marek [00:43:46]:
That’s right. Yes. Right. It was, it was a big undertaking, especially. Right. Try for schools. When I walked in, the door was hitting their 10 year anniversary.

James Kademan [00:43:56]:
Yeah.

Amanda Marek [00:43:58]:
That’s a long standing brand.

James Kademan [00:43:59]:
It is very.

Amanda Marek [00:44:00]:
It is. So. But, you know, more and more, you know, as we got again, more involved with more programs, when we took on the Birdie Derby, it was like, we have to rebrand or create this umbrella organization so we can expand.

James Kademan [00:44:19]:
Right. Well, I think it’s a great idea. It’s needed.

Amanda Marek [00:44:22]:
Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was well needed. Right. It’s different.

James Kademan [00:44:26]:
Boards are usually slow to move. What’s that boards are typically slow to move.

Amanda Marek [00:44:30]:
My board members are. They’re incredible. But yeah, we get together once a quarter. Okay. So it’s only once a quarter that we meet and you kind of have to go through. We have to vote on all of these things. So, yeah, it can be a little bit slow moving with some of those bigger decisions.

James Kademan [00:44:47]:
Yeah, yeah. So did you get. I don’t know if you want to answer this or not, but did you get much pushback when you said, hey, we got to rebrand or I would recommend that we rebrand?

Amanda Marek [00:44:56]:
I wouldn’t say I should backtrack too. And I try to refrain from calling it a rebrand because what we’ve done is we’ve more or less created like an umbrella organization.

James Kademan [00:45:08]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:45:09]:
Right. So you have Active Youth Wisconsin. And then underneath that, we kind of have all of our brands. Right. So, like, Try for Schools are still our Try for Schools races. You know, our training teams are still our after school programs. Birdie Derby is still Birdie Derby. Just everything falls under that active youth umbrella.

Amanda Marek [00:45:28]:
And then it’s also now what’s allowing us to add more. Right. So, like, we already have since, you know, we started. We made that switch in December. We’ve now already added three summer school programs. We’re hoping to have a ton more in the fall. So. Right.

Amanda Marek [00:45:43]:
It’s doing what we wanted it to do.

James Kademan [00:45:44]:
Wow.

Amanda Marek [00:45:45]:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s exciting.

James Kademan [00:45:46]:
We added more summer school programs and we’re not even in the summer yet.

Amanda Marek [00:45:49]:
That’s right. That’s right. That’s impressive. No, it’s exciting. But, yeah, going back to the brand, I wouldn’t say that there was pushback. Right. I think everybody, the way I had explained it in terms of needing to do this, to expand, it all made sense to everybody. I think there’s that hesitation.

Amanda Marek [00:46:11]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:46:11]:
It’s like you just see how much work it’s going to be and you’re like, or we could just stay where we’re at.

Amanda Marek [00:46:18]:
I think even more so we have a lot of people that are. They’re kind of like day one people. Right. They’ve been around forever.

James Kademan [00:46:26]:
Oh, this is how we’ve always done it.

Amanda Marek [00:46:28]:
Right. Well, there’s a. This is how we’ve always done it for some people. And those are words that will, like, make me jump off a bridge.

James Kademan [00:46:35]:
True story.

Amanda Marek [00:46:36]:
I don’t like those words.

James Kademan [00:46:37]:
Never a good reason to do something.

Amanda Marek [00:46:42]:
100%. 100% agree. So, yeah, this is how we always do it does not work for me. It’s more so it was like the emotional attachment to the brand. It was kind of getting people around that, which is actually how it really kind of. Cause my initial jump right in and just make all these changes was kind of the concept of, like, we’ll just rebrand it all.

James Kademan [00:47:06]:
Yeah. Flip that switch over there, would you, when you get a chance?

Amanda Marek [00:47:10]:
Right, right. Yeah, just a quick switch. But that’s kind of that. Seeing that emotional attachment and also seeing, like, the brand recognition that we had with Try for Schools really kind of is where it switched from this rebrand to this house of brands or this umbrella organization. But it took some good explaining and some. You know, I feel like I provided some good data and reasonings and ideas, and we were able to get it through. And now, like I said, we’ve added three summer programs already. We’ve got a bunch coming in the fall.

Amanda Marek [00:47:45]:
It’s doing what we wanted it to do.

James Kademan [00:47:46]:
That’s cool.

Amanda Marek [00:47:47]:
Yes, it’s very, very cool.

James Kademan [00:47:49]:
You mentioned grants. Yeah, let’s talk about grants.

Amanda Marek [00:47:52]:
Sure. Our grants or grants we apply for.

James Kademan [00:47:56]:
I think you mentioned grants that you offered teachers and stuff like that, right?

Amanda Marek [00:48:00]:
Yes, yes. Those are the ones that are more exciting, in my opinion.

James Kademan [00:48:04]:
I meant money. Going out is always more fun, right?

Amanda Marek [00:48:06]:
Well, yeah. I mean, applying for grants, that’s definitely part of my job, but that is not exciting. Our grant program, so it’s called Grants for Schools. The applications are actually open now, so all across Wisconsin. Any teacher, any community member, really, they could just go to our website and apply for those grants. We make it very, very easy intentionally, because we know that in the grand majority of cases, most teachers are overworked and underpaid to begin with. And so a teacher goes in and basically just tells us, hey, these are our hopes and dreams for this project. This is how much it’s gonna cost us.

Amanda Marek [00:48:51]:
Can you help? And then we have a committee of about 10 absolutely wonderful humans who volunteer their time to read through anywhere from 30 to 50 applications. Yeah, it’s a lot of applications.

James Kademan [00:49:07]:
Is this once a year?

Amanda Marek [00:49:08]:
It’s once a year. We do this cycle. Yep. So these grants, our applications are open now. They will remain open until, I want to say, September 9th, and then we’ll award the grants on September 22nd this year.

James Kademan [00:49:21]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:49:21]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:49:23]:
So that would be for the beginning of. Beginning of the following school year, essentially.

Amanda Marek [00:49:28]:
25, 26 school year. Exactly.

James Kademan [00:49:29]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:49:30]:
So then the hope is that those teachers have essentially that whole school year to complete whatever project that they have applied for and received funding for.

James Kademan [00:49:40]:
So I imagine. I don’t know this for sure. So help me if I’m wrong. A lot of these probably look the same, right? You want X because of Y. It’ll help the kids 100%. So how do you differentiate? Or say yes to you, but no to you?

Amanda Marek [00:49:54]:
It’s really, really tough.

James Kademan [00:49:55]:
Okay. You’re like, I like that you put a comma there. Or is it pull them out of a hat?

Amanda Marek [00:50:01]:
That’s one thing in grant writing. Unfortunately, a lot of grants like that we apply for. So like a non profit applying, say from a government, they’ll get down to some of that. Of, well, you didn’t put a comma here. So that’s.

James Kademan [00:50:21]:
Well, imagine they have to differentiate somehow somewhere, so it becomes trivial.

Amanda Marek [00:50:26]:
Right? So for us, we try to make it not trivial. Right? Like I, you know, they’re teachers, I know they know grammar. If they missed a period, I could really care less.

James Kademan [00:50:37]:
So I guess my question is, out of those 30 to 50, how do you decide how many do you get to typically say yes to?

Amanda Marek [00:50:43]:
So it just ballpark it. Totally. It totally depends. And it also depends on what you want to consider. Yes. As. So when I see grants come in, my head’s like already going in ways of like, how can I fulfill these without dollars? Oh, right. So like last year a grant came in for goggles.

Amanda Marek [00:51:09]:
Right. A school was gonna do a swim unit, didn’t have enough goggles for all the kids. So I went through and every goggle provider you could imagine sent emails, made phone calls, see who I get connected with. See, like, hey, can you donate like two pairs of goggles? You know, can we scrounge up 50 pairs of goggles? So they did. Right. And we didn’t spend, we spent $0 on there, but we fulfilled that a lot of time. Yep. But we fulfilled that grant and that left money to potentially fund another grant.

Amanda Marek [00:51:38]:
Oh, good. So like I said, the goal with the birdie derby, and hopefully this year we’ll be able to prove it as we get through this grant cycle that we won’t have to say no to any grants. Oh, wow. That’s the goal. Or that’s at least my personal goal with when we get a grant request in, I want to be able to read that grant and confidently say, yeah, we could fund that. We’re good.

James Kademan [00:52:07]:
Fair.

Amanda Marek [00:52:08]:
So.

James Kademan [00:52:08]:
So that’s cool.

Amanda Marek [00:52:09]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:52:10]:
I feel like we missed a spot about what you mentioned. You mentioned trainings, trainings for kids.

Amanda Marek [00:52:18]:
Oh, our after school programs. Yes. So we have, we started out with our spring after school programs. So those are Eight to ten week programs. I like to say that they’re holistic training programs in that we’re not just training kids to do a triathlon. Right. Like, obviously, that’s the goal. We want them to complete the triathlon, but along the way, we want them to learn about teamwork, how to set and achieve goals, confidence building, all of those really important skills that they can take into adulthood.

Amanda Marek [00:52:53]:
It’s kind of like the core of our programming kind of starts with all of that. And then we build the physical activity around it. So we have those in the spring. And then now we’ve added Minds in Motion, which is another after school program. Six weeks for that one. It’s all running with the same exact concept. And then as I mentioned earlier, now we have summer programs that we’ve thrown into the mix that kind of take that same approach.

James Kademan [00:53:21]:
So are you using schools as far as location goes?

Amanda Marek [00:53:25]:
Yeah, so that’s. That’s one of the other, like, unique things. Not necessarily unique, but convenient things about our programs is they’re all at schools.

James Kademan [00:53:35]:
Okay.

Amanda Marek [00:53:36]:
Right. So that eliminates that transportation barrier. Right. Of the I have to show up and get my kid at 3 so I could take them to this soccer field. And then later in the day we’re gonna go to that hockey rink. That’s not possible for everybody.

James Kademan [00:53:49]:
No.

Amanda Marek [00:53:50]:
And even for the people it’s possible for, it’s chaos. So we have our programs at the school. So the kids bell rings, they go down to their gym and they start practice.

James Kademan [00:54:05]:
Oh, that’s cool. So who is putting on those events? Is that volunteers or is it.

Amanda Marek [00:54:09]:
So we pay the coaches? So we ask for at least two people to coach, one of which has to be a staff member at the school. Just so. Right. We could get in bathrooms, all of that stuff.

James Kademan [00:54:22]:
All right, very cool. So we’re running out of time here, Amanda.

Amanda Marek [00:54:26]:
All right.

James Kademan [00:54:26]:
So before we leave, is there anything, I guess, you want the world to know as far as triathlons or kids or whatever?

Amanda Marek [00:54:34]:
I mean. Right. It goes so much more than triathlon. I think the biggest thing, you know, that I have experience both from sport and from being in this role, is how physical activity, it helps you build a community. Right. Those people of, like, mind, you know, things that they enjoy, things that you enjoy doing, and then it gives you all of those tools that just naturally help your mental and physical health.

James Kademan [00:55:04]:
Oh, totally.

Amanda Marek [00:55:06]:
And that’s why programs like ours need to exist.

James Kademan [00:55:10]:
Totally agree.

Amanda Marek [00:55:11]:
Kids need that foundation. We need to set that foundation for them so then they know how to do it the rest of their lives.

James Kademan [00:55:17]:
Totally agree. Where can people find you? Online, I imagine.

Amanda Marek [00:55:20]:
ActiveYouthWisconsin.org all right.

James Kademan [00:55:22]:
ActiveYouthWisconsin.org Easy enough. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. As a reminder, we are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give us a big ol’ thumbs up, subscribe and of course share it with your entrepreneurial friends and those friends that have kids that I guess we want to be active.

Amanda Marek [00:55:50]:
That’s right.

James Kademan [00:55:51]:
Which is safe to say is we want all of them, including us older kids we’ll call it. We’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guest, Amanda Merrick, the director of Active Youth Wisconsin. Can you tell us that website one more time?

Amanda Marek [00:56:04]:
Activeyouthwisconsin.org Easy enough.

James Kademan [00:56:08]:
Past episodes can be found morning, noon and night at podcast link found at drawincustomers.com.  Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. We want you to stay awesome and if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.