The Farmington Feed

Jim: 00:01

This is the Farmington Feed, bringing you information from the city of Farmington.

Caryn: 00:05

Hi. And welcome back to the Farmington Feed. I'm Caryn Hojnicki, the city's communication specialist, and I'm hungry for another episode of the Feed. It's that time of year to start thinking about the holidays, and in Farmington, that means Toys for Town and the Farmington Liquors donation drive. So how do those go together? Well, I have Josh Solinger here, liquor operations manager, and Jim Constantineau, deputy chief of police, here to explain to you. So hi, and welcome back, both of you, to the feed.

Josh: 00:30

Hello. Hello.

Jim: 00:31

Hi.

Caryn: 00:31

I know, Jim, you were just on, and, Josh, it's been a minute, but, like, I love having people come back. So I didn't scare you off.

Josh: 00:38

Yeah. I couldn't wait.

Caryn: 00:40

So, Josh, I know you like to have fun with the liquor specials videos, and September's was fantastic. You're also creative when it comes to donation drives. I know you have 2 a year and the second one is usually in October. This one's gonna go for Toys for Town. Correct?

Josh: 00:54

Mhmm.

Caryn: 00:55

Alright. So can you remind our listeners how the donation drives work?

Josh: 00:59

Sure. Like you said, we do 2 donation drives a year, one in October and one in April. And we get creative on how we can raise funds. We accept roundup donations at the register, and we also do a silent auction that, we get sweet things from our reps, and we auction them off. And people would get really excited about that every year.

Caryn: 01:19

Yeah. I'm sure. I remember we were doing little videos of that last year.

Josh: 01:21

Yeah. There's always so many cool things, and I end up putting my name down more times than I wanna admit and more times than I'll tell my wife that I do.

Caryn: 01:28

But Well, yeah. You can't tell her about that,

Josh: 01:30

Yeah.

Caryn: 01:31

So last year's donation drive raised how much for Toys For Town?

Josh: 01:34

Last year was a split between Toys For Town and the Farmington food Shelf. Overall, we raised more than $13,000.

Caryn: 01:41

Well, that was very helpful, wasn't it?

Jim: 01:42

Very much so.

Caryn: 01:43

Because for Toys for Town, the goal was, what, $40,000 last year? And we surpassed that. Correct?

Jim: 01:48

We blew that out of the water. Yep.

Caryn: 01:49

Nice. So this one's gonna be a little different than in the past. So what can people expect this time when they're participating in this donation drive?

Josh: 01:57

Well, this time around, we're just focusing on Toys for Town.

Caryn: 02:00

K.

Josh: 02:01

That's really the main difference, but we're still doing all the cool things like Roundup at the cash register and the silent auction.

Caryn: 02:08

Okay. Perfect. And then, Jim, you're heavily involved with Toys For Town. So how important is this donation drive for you guys?

Jim: 02:14

Oh, it's huge. It's huge. You know, Toys For Town is a living, breathing thing that, you know, we'll start getting calls from people that wanna help probably starting next week already. And, it's there's so many moving parts to it that the toy donations are awesome because quite frankly, we wouldn't wanna have to go shopping for all of that. But we do have to buy a lot of things.

Caryn: 02:34

Right.

Jim: 02:35

Such as, the kids that are 14 and up. They get a Visa gift card.

Caryn: 02:39

Oh, yeah. Because what are you gonna buy them? Toy wise?

Jim: 02:41

Well, in there, that age group, you know, the older kids, those are the ones where you get the least number of toys for.

Caryn: 02:47

Right.

Jim: 02:47

So sometimes we do have to go and buy some toys.

Caryn: 02:49

Okay.

Jim: 02:49

You know, we buy the gift card. We buy gift bags. We buy, yeah, wrapping paper.

Caryn: 02:53

Oh, yeah. Lots of wrapping paper.

Jim: 02:54

We buy the food. The food kits. We buy that food.

Caryn: 02:57

Oh, yeah. That's right.

Jim: 02:58

We have to buy the boxes for it. So when you get a 150 families, each family gets 2 boxes. That's 300 boxes we have to buy.

Caryn: 03:05

Oh, for sure.

Jim: 03:05

So the the the money, contributions really, really go a long way.

Caryn: 03:09

Okay. For sure. So and you love supporting this. Right?

Josh: 03:12

Oh, yeah. For sure. So the you said it's a living, breathing thing, and that is an absolute fact. There's so many things that go on in the city and so many good that's being done everywhere. Mhmm. But everybody knows what Toys for Town is. Everybody. It's something that nobody misses.

Caryn: 03:29

So whether they're there on wrapping day or they are financially donating or donating toys, everybody's kind of like a part of it. I remember there was like how many locations were collecting toys? I don't even remember.

Jim: 03:41

Right around 50.

Caryn: 03:42

50. So you guys

Jim: 03:42

Including some not even in our city.

Caryn: 03:44

Oh, yeah. And then

Jim: 03:45

Eagan, Rosemount, the other companies have heard about it, and they're like, hey. Can we participate?

Caryn: 03:50

Yeah.

Jim: 03:50

Sure. Why not?

Caryn: 03:51

Not but then now you gotta go pick up, those toys.

Jim: 03:54

We do. We do. You know, last year was great. Enterprise Leasing donated the use of a, 26 foot box truck for the

Caryn: 04:02

I remember seeing that.

Jim: 04:02

For the entire week of Toys for Town. So we were able to put the toys in there, put it in the maintenance garage overnight, and, you know, it saved a lot of time.

Caryn: 04:12

Oh, for sure. Instead of putting in a bunch of people's pickup trucks.

Jim: 04:14

And or putting in a trailer, taking it out of the trailer. Put in the trailer, taking it out of the trailer.

Caryn: 04:18

Yep. Josh, when did you guys start doing donation drives? Has it always been a thing?

Josh: 04:24

The donation drives, started well before my time here, and I've been here for 3 years. What we added in was the roundup donations and the silent auction. That was something completely new to us.

Caryn: 04:35

Okay.

Josh: 04:35

So, typically, they just did dollar and up donations, which is a little bit harder to get people to contribute because

Caryn: 04:43

ok

Josh: 04:43

it's a dollar more. But if you're talking about rounding up 7¢, nobody's gonna bat an eye at that. And that's what we found anyways. Then the People

Caryn: 04:51

are more likely to do that is what you're saying.

Josh: 04:53

Oh, much, much. And like I said before, the silent auction, that's something that people have been asking for for the last few months. Like, hey, when's your next auction? When's your next auction? You know, I got that White Claw sign last time. I want another one for the garage. It's something that people look forward to, and it's a significant source of our, fundraising efforts.

Caryn: 05:11

With Toys for Town, has that always been part of donation drives?

Josh: 05:15

I don't think so. No.

Caryn: 05:16

No. No?

Jim: 05:17

No. Toys for Town, it was years ago, it was, the most of the money that came in came from the high school.

Caryn: 05:24

Oh.

Jim: 05:24

They raised the money.

Caryn: 05:25

Oh.

Jim: 05:25

And then the community started getting involved and the the kids would still raise the money. They purchased it to do it through the community. And and, people just wanna give. Yeah. The people around here just wanna give.

Caryn: 05:35

Yeah. The PD recently got help from Farmington Liquors, on our last podcast that we were together, Josh, talking about supporting K9, Smoke. What what was that able to do for Smoke?

Jim: 05:46

Well, as you can imagine, if you've seen Smoke, he eats quite a bit. The canine program in Farmington uses no taxpayer dollars other than the, you know, paying the handler and the vehicle and that sort of thing. So the support of Smoke is all through donations. So it pays for his food, pays for his vet bills.

Caryn: 06:05

Mhmm.

Jim: 06:05

He just had a he had a surgery earlier this year to to prevent a potential problem from occurring.

Caryn: 06:12

Mhmm.

Jim: 06:13

So that was, you know, a couple $1,000. And so, yeah, it it just helps us maintain Smoke's health and his drive.

Caryn: 06:20

Yeah. So without that donation drive, you wouldn't have had that money.

Jim: 06:23

Absolutely.

Caryn: 06:24

The donation drive goal this time, I think I remember you telling me you you kinda kept it close to your chest and didn't really wanna advertise it. Do you have a goal already set or for you and your employees? And, if so, would you like to share?

Josh: 06:36

Well, I'd like to I'd like to set our goal at $12,000.

Caryn: 06:40

K.

Josh: 06:40

That seems reasonable based off of our history and based off kinda where we are economically. I I think we can do it. Yeah. I definitely can do it.

Caryn: 06:48

Pretty reasonable. Does the staff, your, like, liquor staff have their own little, like, internal competition to see who can get the most roundups or anything fun like that?

Josh: 06:57

It can get pretty heated. We they get they get pretty competitive. So, the staff that'll be working at the Pilot Knob location will be watching what the downtown location is raising.

Caryn: 07:07

Oh, so even between the two stores.

Josh: 07:08

Yeah. And they've yeah. There's been some smack that's been talked, and it could get pretty heated. They're just excited to do good as as what we're all You know,

Caryn: 07:17

that makes it fun too. Why is it important that people support Farmington Liquors in general, not only for the donation drive, but just every day?

Josh: 07:25

100% of our proceeds go right back into the community through police, fire, and parks. Mhmm. So when you're spending your money at Farmington Liquors, you know that it's gonna go right back into the community. That's that's a big thing. Plus, we have a helpful, friendly staff that love being there. So as long as we keep shopping there, we can keep supporting that staff as well.

Caryn: 07:44

Oh, for sure. You recently had a tasting event, and and that was at Celts. This event does occur occur often, and is that is a is that a fundraiser as well?

Josh: 07:52

No. The the tasting events are free to the public. It used to be exclusively for our wine club members.

Caryn: 07:59

Mhmm.

Josh: 07:59

And then we charge $3 admission for non wine club members. But I've gone so far outside the scope of what we're sampling that it's not really a wine tasting anymore.

Josh: 08:08

It's

Caryn: 08:09

Not just wine?

Josh: 08:10

Yeah. It's a tasting event. So we've got spirits, beer, wine, nonalcoholic beverages, and mixers there. So we want people to be able to try all these new things.

Caryn: 08:19

Yeah. I heard about the new, gin and juice.

Josh: 08:22

Mhmm. Yep.

Caryn: 08:23

Have you tried it? Is it worth the hype?

Josh: 08:25

I I haven't yet.

Caryn: 08:27

Do you have that at the tasting event?

Josh: 08:28

It hasn't been at a tasting event yet.

Caryn: 08:30

Oh, okay. Because it's newer. Do do you kinda feature some of the newer products at those?

Josh: 08:35

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's it's up to our reps though.

Caryn: 08:37

Oh, they choose what

Josh: 08:38

What they taste.

Caryn: 08:38

What they bring.

Josh: 08:39

I can throw out suggestions, but at the end of the day, they have their preservatives when it comes to the tastings.

Caryn: 08:44

Okay. Just curious.

Josh: 08:45

Yeah. I it's been selling okay.

Caryn: 08:48

Okay.

Josh: 08:49

Okay. So we'll see. But I haven't heard anything bad about it. And usually if something's bad, I'll hear about it right now.

Caryn: 08:55

Oh, they complain right away?

Josh: 08:56

Yeah. Yeah. The fact that I haven't heard anything is great.

Caryn: 08:59

That's a good news. Yeah.

Jim: 09:00

So in other words, people around here like the taste of pine cones?

Caryn: 09:03

Yes. What makes Farmington Liquors different? And then Jim, I'll throw it to you. What makes Farmington PD different?

Josh: 09:10

Sure. I think what makes us different is our crew. My staff, they're focused on three things. They're focused on great customer service, keeping a clean store, and keeping an organized store. And that's what we do every single day. That is our main goal

Caryn: 09:25

Mhmm.

Josh: 09:26

And customer service being the most important. So you're gonna come in and you're gonna see that same smiley face ready to serve you, ready to help you out, and that's what makes it special to me.

Caryn: 09:36

Okay.

Jim: 09:37

You know what? I would echo that. We have had some changes, and we are preparing to have some changes, with some retirements coming up, but we've got a got a lot of young, newer officers, several of them Farmington High graduates.

Caryn: 09:50

That's awesome.

Jim: 09:50

And we're reaching out. We've got some new, some new programs where we're reaching out for people, that may have a college degree, but not in law enforcement and wanna get into law enforcement, getting in that training, looking for people from the community. The support that our community provides to our department is second to none. It's what's kept us going over the last few years. You know, it makes it easy for us to do those extra things for the community because I gained 5 lbs in May of May of 2020, if everybody knows what happened then, May June, because they kept bringing treats in for us.

Caryn: 10:24

Mhmm.

Jim: 10:24

So it's just the the dedication that we have for the community is a direct result of the dedication that the community has for us.

Caryn: 10:31

For sure. Yeah. I mean, that's that was in the last episode when we were chatting about it. Mhmm. And it's gonna be in a future episode about the career transition.

Jim: 10:39

Very good. Yep.

Caryn: 10:39

Yep. We're gonna be talking to Nate about that. So is there anything else you'd like to talk about with this donation drive, Josh? Or are we good to wrap up?

Josh: 10:47

Yeah. Come on and support it. On October 1st, we're gonna activate the, roundup campaign. So you can come in and choose to round up or donate whatever you'd like.

Caryn: 10:56

Mhmm. And, oh, let's remind listeners. Just on a card, cash, how do they how do they

Josh: 11:01

Either way.

Caryn: 11:02

Okay. Either way.

Josh: 11:02

Card or cash.

Caryn: 11:03

Okay. Either way.

Josh: 11:03

The auction has changed a little bit this year. It's gonna be cash or check only. But for the roundup campaign, however they wanna donate Perfect. They can accommodate for it.

Caryn: 11:11

Alright. Well, thank you so much, Josh and Jim, for coming to discuss the donation drive and the importance it has in the success of Toys For Town. So that being said, I do wanna remind listeners that the drive starts October 1st and runs through 31st. You wanna donate, get in touch with Josh. If you wanna do more than just your round up campaign.

Caryn: 11:30

If you wanna get more involved with toys for town, mark your calendar now for wrapping day. It's on Saturday, December 14th starting at 9 AM at Farmington High School. Monetary donations will be accepted at the police department during lobby hours and that's Monday through Friday 8 AM to 4:30 PM. If you're unable to stop by during that time, just email a Toys4Town@FarmingtonMN.gov, and that's toys, the number 4, town at FarmingtonMN.gov. Well, that concludes this month's episode of the Farmington Feed.

Caryn: 11:55

Thank you for listening. We look forward to connecting with residents with this podcast. If you have any feedback, guest requests, or ideas, email me at Communications@FarmingtonMN.gov. Don't forget to subscribe to the Farmington Feed wherever you like to get your podcasts.