July 2018 NATH Notes

I was a stranger and you invited me in..."

Matthew 25:35 NIV

Join us!

1st Annual Ride for the Homeless

Thank you to our Ride for the Homeless Event Sponsors

Bucketheads Sports Bar & Grill and The Woodpecker.

Thank you to our stops of this year's "Ride for the Homeless." We appreciate your dedication and support to ending/preventing homelessness in our area.

Thank you to our shirt sponsors of this year's " Ride for the Homeless."

Please stop and support these local businesses throughout the year.

Barry & Sherry's Town & Country

Big Daddy's: Burger Happiness Emporium; Air Conditioned Lounge; Pizzaria.”

Birchwood Rustic Bar and Lodge

Cross Country Bar & Grill

CT’s Deli

Denim & Leather Exchange, LLC

Elcho Clubhouse

Farmers Feed Store

Friendship House

Hiles Headwaters Junction

Lund & Taylor Bridal Gallerie

Moondance Bar & Grill

Oneida County Tavern League

Pizza Vault

Precision Power Sports

R & T’s Dinky Diner

Rocky’s Roadhouse

Sacketts

Sammy Jr’s

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

Join us for a fun filled evening

down memory lane

Get your Show ONLY tickets $20.00 call NOW

It's Brat Sale Time

Pictured above are Barb Mather (NATH), Dennis (VFW) and Mike Wolf (WRJO). On July 24th, we teamed up with the Eagle River VFW to assist in a brat sale. We raised over $400. The drive thru brat sale was held at WRJO, with cooking and serving of food done by members of the VFW and assisted by NATH volunteers.

July 25, 26 & 27 was our annual brat fry in Rhinelander at Trig's. This year we had many volunteers that assisted with the grilling of the brats and hot dogs and had many businesses order food to be delivered. We started out on Wednesday with a live broadcast by Coyote 93.7's very own Jim Franklin (seen below). People were able to enjoy a world famous Trig's Smokehouse Brat. We raised close to $3,000 this year during the 3 day event.

Enjoying the good food.

Director's

Corner

by Tammy Modic

Are Brat Sales Worth It?

There is more to a brat sale than just selling brats and hot dogs.

Often, I am asked how much money do we make at brat sales and are they worth the long days and hard work? Here are the numbers so far this season by event. These dollar amounts include food sales, raffle ticket sales and donations.

Trigs – Eagle River - $935 Sentry – St Germain - $282 WRJO/VFW – Eagle River - $522

Trigs – Minocqua (2 days) – Not available Trigs – Rhinelander (3 days) - $2,937

Some would say that is not a lot of money, however more comes from a brat sale than just the dollars. The outreach that happens at any of the locations we go to can not be measured in dollars and cents. At every location we have been able to educate individuals on homelessness and Frederick Place. I am often surprised how locals do not know that Frederick Place exists, much less that we have been open for over seven years.

How else do we benefit from the brat sales? We have gotten volunteers, list donations, clothing donations, and many words of support and encouragement. The brat sales have also been a way for current and former residents of Frederick Place to say “Thank you,” as they have been able to help at these events.

Our brat and raffle ticket sales have also been a way for people to “pay it forward.” In years past, we have had individuals purchase brat meals for us to give to someone who we think needs a meal. Just this year at Trigs in Rhinelander we had four gentlemen who each purchased $20 worth of raffle tickets. They asked us to give them to families so the families had a chance to win the beautiful playhouse which is first prize for the raffle.

In other words, yes, the brat sales are worth the long hours and hard work. If you haven’t had a chance to purchase a brat or raffle ticket, here are some upcoming events yet this season.

August 1 – Redikulus Day – Rhinelander August 2-5 – Oneida County Fair

August 10-11 – Save More Foods – Minocqua August 15 – Paul Bunyan Day – Eagle River

August 16-17 – Pick N Save – Antigo September 15 – Farmer’s Market – Rhinelander

September 29 – Beef A Rama – Minocqua October 6-7 – Cranberry Fest – Eagle River

Lambeau Field Workers Needed

Interested in going to Lambeau Field to help run a concession stand to benefit NATH - Frederick Place? We need volunteers to travel to Lambeau Field for home games, to work at concession stands. They are long days, lots of work, but worth getting a chance to see Lambeau Field.

If interested, please go to our website www.nathnorthwoods.com . In the upper right hand corner you will see the Sign Up Genius Logo for fundraising events. Click on that logo to see when the games are and when we need help. If you decide to help, Tammy Modic will contact you to have you do some readings and take a quiz about food and alcohol sales. Youth age 14 or older may help, if accompanied by an adult.

Dates Available:

August 9

August 16, September 9

September 16, September 30

October 15, November 11

December 2, December 9

December 30

and then of course, when we make the playoffs,

any home games that happen.

Click to print Summer Raffle

Get your Tickets NOW!!

This year our 1st prize is a 6' x 8' homemade playhouse built by Zach Olds, at Rhinelander High School student. Zach did an independent study with the Building Trade class. This playhouse is on display at Frederick Place (204 W Frederick St. Rhinelander) and at future events.

A New Back Patio

Thank you to Jim Barnes and a resident of Frederick Place. They have been busy redoing our back patio. Pictures to come of our new backyard.

In Loving Memory

Pat Emerick

Faces of NATH

by Susan Statezny

I created this for the amazing woman I mentioned I would be writing about in June’s “Faces of NATH.” Unfortunately I was unable to give it to her because she made that one decision that resulted in a totally different life. I have not seen or talked to her in a couple weeks, but I do know she is as “ok” as an active alcoholic can be. I was going to put this off for another month because of my own emotional pain. I lost a kindred spirit, a fellow female alcoholic who “got” me like no fellow alcoholic ever has. The more I thought about putting this off until my pain lessened, I realized how selfish I was being. Her story needs to be shared with the emotions I have today and not a month from now when I could write this without tears streaming down my cheeks. How her time with us ended does not take one thing away from the amazing things she accomplished, nor does it devalue the woman herself. If sharing her story helps just one person, she would be humbled and grateful that she made a difference. She knew I planned on writing about her, but because I have not spoken to her, I will be using a different name and leaving specific details out. I chose a variation of my name as so much of her story mirrors the life I was living in 2006. It just feels right to do so.

Susie stayed with us for not quite 24 hours in 2012. With the exception of signing all the required forms, passing the drug test, and blowing zeros on the breathalyzer, she remembers nothing else. Once the intake process was complete, she began drinking on the sly. When her hidden stash ran out, she stole a bottle of vodka. Shortly after she returned to Frederick Place she was arrested, and that was the end of her stay. She began inquiring about returning every so often in 2017. We would hold a bed for her, but she never showed up until March of 2018. I truly believed this stay would come to an end within a day or two, but Susie proved me wrong.

Susie was the type of alcoholic who “had it all” and lost it all. Susie and her husband ran a very successful business and eventually welcomed a daughter. I don’t know when the switch from social drinking to alcoholic drinking was flipped and neither does she. One day you are in control of your drinking, and suddenly the alcohol controls you. As most alcoholics do, Susie made changes in her drinking repertoire to prove she could drink normally. Once the threshold between hard drinking and alcoholic drinking is crossed, an alcoholic cannot become a normal drinker, just as a pickle can never change back into a cucumber. Eventually Susie gave in to her disease, and did so ad infinitum. This led to divorce, loss of the business, and loss of custody of her daughter. Acquiescing to her disease also resulted in a prison stay, approximately 200 hospital detoxes, and multiple stints in treatment centers. She managed to stay sober for a year when she was living in a mission bible camp but relapsed shortly after she was discharged. That year most definitely served a purpose, for it was proof that she could get sober, and it gave her hope that she could achieve sobriety again.

Susie came to Frederick Place last March with that glimmer of hope but no self-esteem. She could have thrown in the towel at any point, but she chose to trudge along the road of recovery. She enlisted the help of a recovery coach, the Women’s Outreach program, and Frederick Place staff, and attended an AA meeting every day. Much like the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus is Coming to Town , Susie put one foot in front of the other, and the prospect of walking out the door sober was within reach. In a relatively short amount of time all sorts of good things began happening for Susie. She began doing home health care and excelled. Her clients loved her, and her services were in high demand. Susie actually had to turn down a client because she feared it would interfere with what she needed to do to remain sober. It took a bit for Susie to find a home to call her own, and when she did it was all she talked about. At first. As her move out day crept closer, she became less enthusiastic and was a big ball of anxiety. She had never lived alone and was terrified. Susie equated living alone with picking up the bottle again despite declarations of support from everyone who had been walking her path with her. As her move out day crept closer she started committing minor rule infractions which Becca and I saw as self-sabotage. You see, if she was kicked out for breaking the rules, she would lose her funding, and no funding meant no living alone. Susie also began talking about her drinking days more often. At this point Susie and I had several chats about losing everything for which she had worked so hard. My ego told me that I had succeeded. My words alone had prevented a relapse. I wish my ego would have shut up and let my heart take over. The day after our last chat, Susie did not come home.

In hindsight I should have spent more time trying to get Susie to see what I and countless others saw in her. I should have enlisted her daughter’s help so she could see how her sobriety resulted in their reversal of roles. For most of Susie’s daughter’s life she was the parent and Susie was the kid. Susie was now the mom, and she and her daughter became closer than they ever had been. There was something about Susie that made people want to spend time with her. My painfully shy granddaughter crawled right on her lap the first time they met. Every time Stevie came to visit, the first thing she did was run to the room Susie was in. Even now she goes looking for Susie, expecting her to be on the couch they sat on together. Susie was often the “go to” person for other residents when they needed advice. Her gut level honesty in meetings prompted several people to thank her, and tell her how much her words touched them. Her absolute faith in God made others wish their faith was as strong hers, so they began taking steps to improve their relationship with their own higher power. I wish I would have said all of this to Susie.

Susie is one of those residents none of us will ever forget. I feel like I’m grieving someone who is still alive. I suppose I am. Susie was in my life for only a little while, but I know I will never be the same. I miss this woman who became my friend. I miss our talks which were full of “me too!’ I miss the deep conversations we had about being raised Catholic, about God, and how our faith has helped our recovery. I miss laughing with Susie about things nobody else may have laughed at. I miss the energy she brought to the house and the levity her presence created. I even miss the nights she couldn’t sleep so sought me out when I was working in the basement and scared me more than Emma (our resident ghost) has.

It is my hope that one day I will be able to say all of these things to Susie in person. I pray the day comes when Susie forgives herself for the past and realizes she is worthy of and deserves to live a happy sober life full of serenity. Because she does.

Ways you can become a NATH Partner and donate

Introducing the new Humble Partner Program

Pay Pal Giving Fund

Humble Bundle is a distribution platform selling games, ebooks, software, and other digital content. Since Humble's founding in 2010, our mission has been to support charity ("Humble") while providing awesome content to customers at great prices ("Bundle"). We started by offering only game bundles, but have branched out to include an online storefront, a monthly subscription service, a publishing initiative, and lots more.

As a leading retailer of digital games and eBooks, Humble Bundle offers its customers the opportunity to support a charity with every purchase they make.

Using Humble Bundle’s existing Choose Your Own Charity feature during checkout, customers can choose to benefit your charity with any purchase they make on the Humble Store or selected Bundles . To help raise even more funds for good causes, Humble Bundle are also introducing the Humble Partner program for charities .

www.humblebundle.com/store?partner=149112&charity=149112

A New Way

to Donate

We’ve joined the Buzz Points network! Buzz Points has partnered with Ripco Credit Union or Park City Credit Union to give their cardholders a free rewards program.

Here’s how it works:

Ripco Credit Union

Park City Credit Union

Cardholders earn points for every dollar they spend using their enrolled debit or credit card.

When enough points are accrued, they can be redeemed for rewards to local or national businesses. Points can also be redeemed as a monetary donation to local charities on the Buzz Point network.

If you’re a cardholder of either establishment, it’s now easier than ever to donate to a local cause. When your ready to redeem your points, our organization will be listed in the Buzz Points online and mobile Rewards Directory. Please consider donating in this manner to NATH.

If you debit or credit card is not registered go to https://www.buzzpoints.com/

Thrivent Making a Difference

Are you a member of Thrivent?

Apply for your Thrivent action Team to assist NATH.

Go to Thrivent.com/action team to get started. Here are some questions you may see when applying. What is the need you and your volunteer team want to tackle? How will your volunteer team spread generosity in your community? When will your project take place? How will you use your $250 seed money to make a bigger impact?

Once you submit your application, it’s typically review within a few days. When you project is approved, you will get to customize a hand packed Thrivent action kit based on what your team needs, including promotional banner, Live Generously T-shirts, step by step guides, invitations, thank you notes and a $250 Community Impact Card to use as seed money to get your project off the ground.

Some of the ways you could help NATH/Frederick Place, would be as a sponsor for Summer Raffle, Anniversary Benefit, Harvest Hoedown, Soup for Shelters, Golf Scramble or by preparing a meal or two for the house residents. Any contributions are greatly appreciated.

Amazon Smile

When you shop online!

Click to visit Amazon Smile

Thank you to all who use Amazon Smiles

to Help NATH when you shop

What is AmazonSmile?

AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com , you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com , with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. You can choose from nearly one million organizations to support.

How do I shop at AmazonSmile?

To shop at AmazonSmile simply go to smile.amazon.com from the web browser on your computer or mobile device. You may also want to add a bookmark to smile.amazon.com to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile.