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With millions affected by cancer annually, Cattails Place is committed to creating a welcoming environment where patients can find comfort and community, knowing that they are not alone in their battle against cancer. We sat down with Chief Development Officer Terri Wilczek and Program Director Jana Schmitz from Cattails Place to get the story behind an amazing facility that provides free lodging for cancer patients and their families who have travelled far from home for treatment at the Marshfield Clinic.

The short version? Terri said they kind of fell into it. For 20 years, the American Cancer Society operated the Hope Lodge, which provided lodging for cancer patients who were in town for treatment. The Hope Lodge closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and…just never re-opened.

 

Terri says, “We thought that was a temporary close. And then we received a call from them that they were permanently closing this facility, which meant we had quite a number of patients and families with nowhere to stay because we have a lot of cancer patients and families who travel considerable distance here to get their care in Marshfield.”

 

Luckily, they were able to find a former hospice house across the street. Within eight weeks, and with the help of countless dedicated volunteers, they gutted and renovated that facility. Cattails Cottage opened in September 2020, stepping into the void left by the Hope Lodge’s closing.

 

With lodging covered, they continued to negotiate with the American Cancer Society to try reopening the Hope Lodge – even if the Cancer Society wasn’t operating it. It took three years of talks, but last year the American Cancer Society agreed to donate the original Hope Lodge to the Marshfield Clinic Health System. And the Cattails team immediately started renovations.

 

Terri says, “When we were able to acquire this building, there was a lot of clean out. It had sat empty for three years. We had probably 50 volunteers that came in over a couple of days and just gutted it and took out old things and went through the rooms. Many of them are providers. They were our nurses, our staff, community leaders, our friends. Today, our managers and leaders from the health system are coming over to do yard mulch.”

 

“They're actually grabbing wheelbarrows, shovels, and doing mulch!” Jana adds. “So, that's amazing. We could not be what we are without our amazing volunteers.”

 

Volunteers help flip rooms – when someone checks out, they come in, clean, wipe counters, vacuum, and so on. When we were at Cattails Place to record the podcast, one of the volunteers was busy in the basement laundry washing wigs for oncology families. They are there for any needed support. If a patient has special requirements, the volunteers make it happen. Their volunteers are a mix of Marshfield Clinic staff and the general community.

 

There are 22 rooms, four kitchenettes, comfort areas, an exercise facility, a theater, and more. Renovations are still underway to update equipment and décor to make it as welcoming and homey as possible. It’s a much bigger facility than Cattails Cottage.

 

The bigger facility means more day-to-day amenities are covered. For example, not just laundry facilities but laundry detergent, dryer sheets, and all the other supplies are provided so people don’t have to leave. Toiletries are covered, and residents receive a goodie basket provided by community businesses and volunteers. They only have to concentrate on treatment and recovery.

 

Residents live 40 or more miles from the clinic and are referred to Cattails Place by their physician. Then the Cattails team reaches out to the patient to find out what their treatments and needs are, as well as the length of their stay. Once the patient is registered at Cattails, they get keys and 24-hour access, as they would have at their own home.

 

While Cattails Place isn’t a medical facility, they do have two staff members who can provide support services. Since there’s no medical staff, patients have to be able to care for themselves, though they can also bring a caregiver with them. Due to the immunocompromised status of their patients, they do not host children.

 

Now that Cattails Place is up and running, they have moved all their oncology patients from Cattails Cottage to the new facility. Cattails Place will be for oncology patients and their families, and Terri and Jana’s team is assessing Cattails Cottage.

 

Terri says, “We've identified some specific patient populations that we're going to start with. Patients who are coming here because they have had a trauma, palliative care patients, [patients] where we know families are often traveling quite a distance and are in need of a place to stay. Our hope is to have that reopened for other patient populations. And that may develop sort of depending on need.”

 

Both Cattails Cottage and Cattails Place are a block from the Marshfield Clinic campus, so even if a patient doesn’t have a car, they don’t have far to go. Jana is currently working with local organizations to develop a program where volunteers can prepare meals in commercial kitchens to bring in for residents. The volunteers will need to follow safety and health guidelines, and there are a number of groups who are already on board once the process is finalized.

 

Cattails Place currently has over 500 volunteers. Some volunteer every week, a couple times, a month, or whenever they are able. Some have been volunteering for decades, and Terri says they have about 150 teens who volunteer. She’s very firm when she says that without their volunteers, Cattails Place and Cattails Cottage would not be here.

 

The other piece of their operations puzzle: Cattails Place and Cattails Cottage are 100% donor funded. Patients are not charged for staying there.

 

Terri says, “It is through philanthropy that we were able to make these places possible. So Jana and Robin, there's the staffing, 100% donor funded, as well as all of the costs that are associated with running these facilities. So we definitely rely on donations to make this place possible. And we're really proud that we can provide this great facility to our patients during a time when they're very stressed and it takes away one more worry. So we have grateful patients who make donations. We have businesses, we have community leaders, others who just feel really passionate about this, or maybe families who've utilized a facility like this who want to help.”

 

They hold Comedy Against Cancer every January, with proceeds supporting Cattails Place. There are also opportunities at Cattails Place for local businesses and organizations to support and sponsor renovations. Even though the facility is structurally sound, they are constantly updating amenities. They added hotel-style key cards to the doors, updated flooring, and have been updating and modernizing everything they can to make it as cozy as possible.

 

Lyle and Julie Lang and Lang Furniture helped with a lot of the updating, with Julie donating her services as a designer to update the living room space and freshen up the look. Julie renovated one bedroom and completely decorated it from top to bottom with new flooring, new paint, everything. The bedrooms are fine as they are, but updating the look and feel helps put patients at ease and makes a much more pleasant experience.

 

“I mean, I really need to thank the Langs,” says Terri. “Julie Lang specifically. The time and passion she has given to both of these facilities is beyond belief. And her talents are amazing. She has really helped to make both of these places [with] Lang Furniture donating all of the furniture for all of the bedrooms throughout both facilities.”

 

The Langs were eager to help. Terri mentions that when Lyle was a teenager, his brother passed away due to cancer. When he was getting treatment in Marshfield, they were able to stay at the Hope lodge while their mother took his brother for treatment. He never forgot how important it was to have that resource.

 

He's not alone, either. There are many patients who want to give back, families wanting to donate as a tribute to lost loved ones, and people who want to make sure a facility like Cattails Place is available to future patients and their families.

 

With more bedrooms left to renovate and update, they offer naming opportunities and funding opportunities for any businesses interested in donating to help transform those spaces. Right now they have donors committed to eight of the 22 bedrooms.

 

There are also other spaces in the facility like meeting rooms and common areas that could use a little love, whether it’s new paint, flooring, wall art, or anything. Anyone interested in pitching in or donating can reach out to the foundation, and Jana will outline all the ways to help. Even if you’re an individual, any monetary donations are very welcome to help fund staffing, buy toiletries, fresh fruit, bottled water, coffee, snacks, frozen dinners in case a meal isn’t lined up, and other consumables provided to residents. They have a wish list of items posted on their Facebook page.

 

“Think of a 22 room house and how many bathrooms,” Jana says. “What you need to keep that running. And so anything like that. Phone chargers is one thing that people forget a lot. And laundry detergent is great. Garbage bags, ChapStick, hand soap. That kind of thing that it sounds like it's not a comfort item, but it really is because they don't have to think about it.”

 

Things like K-cups, Swiffer pads, disinfectant wipes, and small snacks don’t sound like much, but they make a world of difference. To make things even easier, they have a Target charity registry and an Amazon Wish List that include tables, lamps, towels, and other items like that. Even snacks!

 

“When the Hope Lodge was open years ago,” Jana says, “we had a lot of like national relationships through the American Cancer Society, which ended because of them closing in the pandemic. And so there were a lot of vendors that would provide things like paper towel, which we have a lot of, right? We don't have some of those. So I think if a business or a company manufactures or creates some of these things, and they say, ‘we'd love to get in a routine of providing K-cups every month’ or something like that, it could be a really nice way for people to get engaged. And toiletries. So if you go to a hotel and you don't use them - I'm not encouraging you to take them, by the way - but if they fall into your bag and you drop them off here, that'd be great. So we put those, that's how we refill ours is all hotel toiletries. Little travel size ones.”

 

The goodie bags and room amenities offer a personal touch and the comfort of home for patients staying at Cattails Place. They usually include a travel-sized Kleenex pack, a notepad, mints or a pack of gum, and a book about Marshfield with area information that’s put out by Mackie. Each room has a toiletry basket with toothpaste, lotion, shampoo, conditioner and that sort of thing. Their aim is to make sure patients don’t have to worry about forgetting something at home.

 

Their donors and volunteers all make that happen. Jana says that Terri sent a last-minute text the weekend before Cattails Place was set to open in the old Hope Lodge building asking if anyone was available to help with a final clean and purge before the big reopening and get it ready for their first patients. Fifty people showed up to help.

 

“It was amazing to see the people,” Jana says. “They just came to give their time and on a Saturday morning, no less. That day we wiped right through this place. It was kind of crazy. There was a lot of other work that obviously has been done, but as far as kind of cleaning out, getting it ready for patients, that was very crucial to get.”

 

Terri adds, “I would say probably 80 to 90% of those were my colleagues and friends up here at Marshfield Clinic because they know how important this place is from our president to our CFO. I mean, they were all here scrubbing, cleaning. And so it was like, it's go time. Let's dig in and do it. And people did.”

 

The week before we visited Cattails Place to record our podcast with Jana and Terri, Partners Bank came in on a Thursday afternoon for a full-on Thanksgiving dinner for the four families staying there. A warm meal can do wonders, so Jana and the team try to make that happen as often as possible. Every month they order from Chip’s Restaurant and bring the food back for their patients. Scotty’s Pizzas has been very generous. And anybody who wants to help can arrange a day to come in and cook dinner, order from a local restaurant, or even send a gift card (for a restaurant or Festival Foods for fresh groceries) for the Cattails staff to place an order when they need to.

 

“A lot of people want to help,” Kathy says, “but they just don't know how. And even they have only so much time. So to have the option of a gift card, or you call and take care of it, but we know we want to be there to help. It's really amazing for all individuals to be able to support and to be able to help those that need it.”

 

What’s impressive about the local volunteers and support they get is the simple fact that most of them are from the Marshfield area, and because of how close they live to the hospital, they would not qualify to stay at Cattails Place themselves.

 

Terri says, “I think it says a lot about Marshfield and the surrounding communities that we're caring for people we're never going to meet. And it's not our friends or neighbors, it's people coming from other communities, I think, which is really neat. There was a family here from Stevens Point and they said ‘we wish we could thank everyone who's made this possible, we just don't know what we'd do without this facility.’ That's why we're here.”

 

 

Road Trip: Fred Smith’s Concrete Park in Phillips, WI

 

For our Wisconsin Road Trip, we featured Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park up in Phillips, Wisconsin. Fred Smith started working as a lumberjack in his early teens in the late 1800s. He started a family with his wife Alta, grew ginseng for sale in New York and Christmas trees for sale locally. Their house, located on 120 acres just south of Phillips, had a sunroom that Smith converted to a rock garden room for his wife. The room featured a brick trough with a fountain and running water, decorated with a full landscape built from rocks.

 

In 1936, Smith built the Rock Garden Tavern with John and Albert Raskie, who built lovely stone buildings in the area. A self-taught artist, Smith channeled his creative drive by making tavern signs for local businesses, and when he finally retired from lumber work in 1948, he started making larger-than-life concrete sculptures – an artistic endeavor that would last 15 years.

 

The Wisconsin Concrete Park, as Smith called his collection of massive sculptures, contains sculptures inspired by local legends, historical figures like Native Americans and regional settlers, other figures and animals. They’re made with concrete over a wire form with inset glass, stones, reflectors, and other interesting found pieces. He created 237 sculptures between 1948 and 1964, when he suffered a stroke after finishing a massive Budweiser display. Smith died in February, 1976, but his artwork lives on.

 

The site was purchased by Kohler Foundation, Inc. in 1976, which funded a restoration project the next year to help restore a few pieces that needed attention. After a massive windstorm damaged many of the sculptures, the restoration project had its work cut out for it. Two artists, Don Howlett and Sharron Quasius, restored the sculptures, and in 1978 the Kohler Foundation deeded the park to Price County so it could become a public park and museum.

 

The local community at first did not see the glory of Smith’s creations, writing him off as an eccentric and hoping that eventually his sculptures would be torn down. It wasn’t until the mid-90s when the park was finally celebrated as a brilliant artistic installation.

 

Next time you find yourself up in the Phillips area, make sure you swing by Fred Smith’s Concrete Park. It’s really something that needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate! Find out more (including an in-depth history and biography with plenty of photos) by visiting their website at https://wisconsinconcretepark.org/