Student-run Batavia newspaper for seniors earns top prize at pitch night, plans to expand
Last spring, the idea of providing a biweekly newspaper specifically targeting senior citizens in care centers or assisted living facilities sounded like it had the potential to stick.
So far, it has, considering there is a ribbon cutting event for The Windmill Weekly at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at the Batavia Chamber of Commerce office.
Batavia High School seniors Bryan Wnek and Ben Manikas, and junior Lexie Kammes spoke to me with much enthusiasm four months ago about their Windmill Weekly newspaper project as part of the school’s INCubator business program.
It’s an especially uplifting story for those of us in the news business to hear about today’s youths understanding the importance of local news and not wanting to leave residents of care centers on the sidelines.
INCubator students work off ideas to create a new business, and these students acted on their news product plan after Wnek told the story about how his grandmother in a care center, prior to her passing, mostly missed her newspaper to stay abreast of what was going on outside of the care facility.
The result has been The Windmill Weekly, a 12- to 16-page tabloid size printed newspaper with larger type size for easier reading. The students crafted this new business through the guidance of INCubator instructor Dennis Piron.
In the past few months, The Windmill Weekly team earned the top donation prize at the INCubator’s Pitch Night, in which money raised through the program is distributed to the students with the most convincing business pitch. The Windmill Weekly team walked off with a $3,400 check.
“For us, the money was for equipment, website charges and marketing,” Kammes said.
It was also important for the team as it pursues one of its main goals — expanding the concept to facilities in Aurora, Geneva and St. Charles. Based on recent feedback, this is no pipe dream.
Kammes said the team’s Windmill Weekly presentation at the first Batavia Chamber of Commerce Senior Services Business Forum “went insanely well” with positive responses.
The idea to expand got another significant boost when the team went on a Senior Living bus tour throughout the area. “We got to go to all of the retirement homes and get the word out,” Kammes noted.
The ribbon cutting at the Batavia Chamber office, 106 W. Wilson St., doesn’t signify the students are opening a downtown business location. It does mean they have joined the chamber to help get the word out, Kammes said, and it gives representatives from various retirement homes a chance to visit with the students that day.
“I love the Windmill Weekly team,” said Shirley Mott, communications and membership coordinator at the chamber. “They are so enthusiastic and passionate about their business. And the actual product is good as well.”
But how will the students keep the momentum for Windmill Weekly alive during the coming school year?
They will be in the Field Experience class, the next step after INCubator, allowing students to land internships in related fields or to work solely on the business they created.
Kammes and Manikas will seek marketing internships and continue to do that work for Windmill Weekly, while Wnek will concentrate fully on the newspaper for which he gathers press releases, helps organize photography and writes feature stories.
“I’m really excited because expanding is something we have wanted to do for a while,” Kammes said as the team begins to focus on what it would take in manpower and hours to jump-start expansion.
“To see how many people are interested in it, it’s so rewarding,” she said. “We are excited to see what the future holds in the next few months.”
Addressing mental health
Our awareness of the need for mental-health support is far better than it was 60 or more years ago. In fact, back then the public didn’t know what sort of issues or medical reasons were behind depression, anxiety and any number of other maladies that affect family life and relationships.
Today we do, but we have to continue to note the need to support those who address individuals and families in need of help to get on track in a high-tech modern world with all sorts of obstacles to mental well-being.
TriCity Family Service’s 2025 annual report shows this Geneva-based social service agency, which is nearing 60 years of helping our communities, is making good use of the donations sent its way.
For the year, TCFS served 5,547 individuals through 16,160 counseling sessions. In total, the agency staff has compiled 43,660 hours of service.
And the agency certainly recognizes others serving those in need, giving its annual Barth Award for Community Service this year to the staff at the Lazarus House shelter in St. Charles.
None of it is possible without individual donations and support from various public funding sources and community foundations.
Sarah Russe, development director at TCFS, sums it up well in the report, noting, “It’s important for people to invest in their own self-care. Many of our clients can’t do that without the assistance of our donors, our partners and our foundations.”
Some more ‘Million’
In the category of “this is no surprise,” the Paramount Theatre in Aurora says its popular “Million Dollar Quartet” show will return to the Stolp Island Theatre for yet another run.
The musical, which tells the story of the historic 1956 jam session at Sun Records in Memphis, featuring Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, will run Oct. 7-Jan. 3.
After seeing this show four months ago, I’ve encouraged most everyone I know to go see it. It’s a rousing, enjoyable trip down memory lane, whether you liked these artists or not. But who didn’t?
Slick robotic mowing
I have seen the future — and it seems like something I could embrace.
When walking through our neighborhood, I spotted something trudging along a lawn. It looked like a base for something, but it was a robotic lawn mower.
No more than two feet high, this mower was moving around, making turns and not missing a spot. And quiet as a mouse.
If this is what the future of lawn mowing is all about, we could buy into that.
I had never seen one of these in action, but an online search would lead one to believe they are growing in popularity.
I have no idea about the quality of the mowing job itself, though it looked pretty good on this particular lawn.
But who can complain if someone or, in this case something else, is doing the lawn work?
Another hearing date
The discussion about how to properly maintain the historic 1840s blacksmith shop on the former Mill Race Inn property in Geneva will continue into next month.
For those keeping a scorecard on the legal tussle between the city of Geneva and the Shodeen Mill Race Land Company LLC, the two sides agreed to continue the hearing with an adjudication officer to 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, at Batavia City Hall.
The main topic at this point is whether the developer’s use of a tarp to cover the building qualifies as proper maintenance of the site, which the city is demanding.
Did you know?
In the summer of 1943, Tri-Cities residents had a chance to see something they never imagined possible, though something many young Americans in the Navy stationed in the Pacific Theater during World War II could easily encounter.
A captured Japanese “suicide submarine,” a small two-man sub designed to sneak under Allied ships to detonate itself to damage or destroy the ship, passed through the Tri-Cities as part of a fundraising tour for the war effort.
A St. Charles Chronicle article at that time indicated the submarine was captured after it got off course in its attempt to blow up a ship in Pearl Harbor. U.S. Navy airmen spotted it on Dec. 8. 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.
These submarines generally carried a 300-pound nitroglycerin load that, once detonated, could easily sink a ship. In addition, they were designed to allow its operators to fire two other torpedoes into other ships.
As the sub toured the country and the story was told of the sub’s evil deeds, Americans were encouraged to buy more bonds and stamps for the war effort.
Newspapers reported the sub traveled through St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia on the back of a tractor trailer, with a police escort car following behind. It was a much safer approach than during earlier parts of the tour when the submarine was simply attached to the back of the truck — with its long tail and propellers exposed.
That setup on the sub’s tour had caused some damage, especially on its first stop in San Francisco, where its tail swung around a street corner and its propellers reportedly smashed out the windows of a passenger bus.
• dheun@sbcglobal.net