November 1, 2024 at 5:50 a.m.
Let’s Minocqua awards $43,000 in grants to enhance community tourism draw
The Let’s Minocqua Visitors Bureau announced Oct. 22 five entities were awarded grants through its Room Tax Grant allocation program.
“Successful awardees demonstrated that they would be utilizing funds for tourism development and promotion in the Minocqua area,” the Let’s Minocqua press release said.
“We had a bunch of response from our communities and from our businesses and non-profits, so this year, again, no exception, every year we’ve had amazing applications.”
Krystal Westfahl
Let’s Minocqua Visitors
Bureau president and CEO
Let’s Minocqua Visitors Bureau president and CEO Krystal Westfahl provided background to the grant allocation program. She said it launched in 2021 and was a way to ensure the chamber entity is spending its room tax dollars “appropriately.”
Westfahl said municipalities, non-profit organizations and businesses were all eligible and the money allocated was within accordance with state legislation.
“We wanted to make sure that funding was utilized by us in appropriate ways, but was also being extended to the community … within that room tax legislation to be used for projects that they were working on,” she said. “Of course our organization can’t be everything to everyone, but we know we’ve got a lot of amazing non-profits, businesses out there that were putting on events that were an attraction, a draw to the community, and some businesses and non-profits were developing new things to draw things to the community as well. And that all falls within the guidelines of that room tax expenditure, and so we wanted to extend that funding out to those that could help us make a difference in the tourism landscape here in the Northwoods.”
The Brandy Park commission, owned jointly by towns of Arbor Vitae and Woodruff, was awarded $10,000; the Howard Young Foundation was awarded $10,000; the Lakeland Area Baseball Association was awarded $10,000; Rollie & Helen’s Musky Shop Summer Bash was awarded $3,000; and the Wildwood Wildlife Park Zoo & Safari was awarded $10,000.
Though those were the recipients of the funding, there were many others, according to Westfahl, that applied. This was the first year too, she indicated, where municipalities were able to apply.
“We had a bunch of response from our communities and from our businesses and non-profits, so this year, again, no exception, every year we’ve had amazing applications,” Westfahl said. “Some really awesome things that are happening in the area and we just want to make sure that they’re being funded in the correct way so that we can get the word out (and) making sure that people are coming here experiencing all these fun things.”
Applicants had to answer a list of 13 questions, which can be publicly accessed at minocqua.org/grants. The website provides everything prospective applicants would need to know in order to apply.
“The groups that we fund have to show that they’re going to be drawing new people to the area or they’re going to be creating a project or a development that will impact travel and tourism to the area because it’s a new thing that’s going to be on the landscape that they’re going want to encourage people to come to the area,” Westfahl said.
She then went through each of the recipients intentions with the room tax dollars they received.
The Brandy Park commission was chosen to help offset the cost of its pickleball court effort. The park’s tennis courts are currently being used for that sort of use, but with actual pickleball courts “the hope is … some day we could potentially bring in pickleball tournaments.”
“These are the types of projects we like to see because it shows that in the future we could host something new and exciting in the area,” Westfahl said. “So we need to get those first development projects up and running.”
She mentioned the Howard Young Foundation and the Minocqua Dragon Boat Festival it hosts each year.
Westfahl said the Howard Young Foundation applied to expand the marketing program for the event.
“That marketing extension will not only bring in potentially new teams, which is obviously what they’re looking for, but it will also bring in people, visitors and spectators that want to see a dragon boat festival in northern Wisconsin,” she said. “And they’ve done such a great job with the groundwork of that and we’re just hoping we can help extend what they’re already doing. Help elevate their voice a little bit.”
Early this year, the Lakeland Area Baseball Association attended Minocqua town board meetings with a proposal to build a 4,800 square foot baseball training facility at the Minocqua Park Complex on State Highway 70. The facility would be year-round, and in the press release announcing the association was one of the grant recipients, the Minocqua Park Complex was referenced to already be a “premier youth baseball destination.”
Westfahl said that project just needs to “get off the ground.”
“So hopefully this is going to be kind of a boost to that fundraising opportunity and I think they’re going to be able to cross the finish line with the help of this grant and other grants they’re probably going to be applying for,” she said.
The next recipient Westfahl covered was Rollie & Helen’s Musky Shop. The business has been holding a “summer bash.”
“Obviously, musky fishing is a huge part of our landscape here and how we talk about fishing, and so their outdoor event that they’ve been putting on for a number of years needs a little boost to get, again, them more exposure outside of the area,” she said. “But they bring in professional fishing experts from all over the Northwoods that are basically talking about all the angling techniques that you would need to know if you’d want to be a professional fisherman going after musky.”
Lastly, speaking about the Wildwood Wildlife Park Zoo & Safari, Westfahl said she’s “super excited” about its expansion, which is necessary for the park to bring in a new monkey species it hasn’t had before.
“They are the second largest zoo in the state of Wisconsin behind the Milwaukee County Zoo, and every time they do something new out there it’s news-worthy” she said. “Because they are really cutting edge with a lot of the products and the different animals they are bringing in, and especially the rural area that we are. The fact that they have all these outreach programs and these school partnerships and these educational opportunities is really, really important for not only our visitors, but our locals as well, our local school populations.”
The funding will also go towards conservation work, which is part of bringing in the new animal to be part of what Westfahl said is a global initiative of helping this endangered species.
“So super cool things are happening in the Northwoods and we want to help support that,” she said.
For those interested in applying for a 2025 Room Tax Grant through Let’s Minocqua, Westfahl said the website previously noted can be visited to submit an application.
Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].
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