Former NBA player takes on farming

Down ON THE Farm

Former NBA player works to connect kids with the land

by Tracy Ouellette

STAFF WRITER arcus Landry, former Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers player, who retired from the NBA last year, is hard at work down on the farm – in East Troy. The newly formed Beulah Family Homestead Farm officially opened in December.

“I decided to retire from the NBA eight months ago and I was always interested in farming and the land and animals and different things like that,” Landry said. “I knew this is what I wanted to do.”

Landry said he’s been involved with agriculture for several years, teaching people about the land and working to provide fresh food for those in need in the inner city.

“I even ended up starting a food pantry in 2019 at my local church on the south side of Milwaukee,” he said.

His move to create the Beulah Family Homestead just seemed like a natural progression of his work to bring awareness of farming, especially to the inner city kids and adults who may not have had a chance to experience life on a farm.

“I feel like farming has become sort of a lost art,” Landry said. “It needs to come back. The main thing I feel like a lot of kids feel the only opportunity, especially in the inner city, is to dribble a basketball. There’s so much more out there than that!

“I want to give them the opportunity to see someone like myself, who has played in the NBA for 12 years, that there’s so much more out there.”

According to a news release, the Beulah Family Homestead was established to help revitalize the community by integrating agriculture and sports; with the vision of cultivating stronger relationships through planting (agriculture) and playing (sports) with the intent to provide lessons and skills to help build a solid family foundation.

The mission of the farm is to provide a platform to enhance opportunities for underprivileged youth and families as well as to educate youth and families, including athletes about the importance of agriculture to help build self-sustaining homes.

“Sustainability is so important,”

Marcus Landry, former NBA player, lives on the Beulah Family Homestead Farm in East Troy with his family. The farm’s mission is: “to provide a platform to enhance opportunities for underprivileged youth and families as well as to educate youth and families, including athletes about the importance of agriculture to help build self-sustaining homes.”

SUBMITTED PHOTO Spirit of Geneva Lakes

Landry said. “We’re teaching that and the importance of agriculture with classes for kids and adults. We teach all this with biblical principals, based on the sheep and cattle we have. We teach a lot of that.

“That’s another reason we do this, to share the Gospel with people.”

Landry lives on the farm with his wife and four children and said they are enjoying getting to know the area and community.

“The kids love living out here,” he said. “I want them to know there is more to life than the picture the world paints. I think a lot of the time we get the image that everything needs to be glamorous, like social media depicts, but that’s not real. There is more happiness out there in the real world than on social media.

That’s the image that people get, that everything has to be perfect and glamorous and I think that effects kids when things don’t go their way. They can’t handle it because they don’t know how. With the farm, they see that life isn’t perfect and it’s OK. They’re OK.”

Youth visit the Beulah Family Homestead Farm in East Troy to learn about agriculture and form a connection to the land.

SUBMITTED PHOTO Spirit of Geneva Lakes

Collaborating to provide more

The Beulah Family Homestead is collaborating with WestCare Wisconsin and Harambee Community Involvement Center,

a community-based organization that provides information and services to meet the needs of City of Milwaukee residents and the community at large. They offer a platform of working together through direct action, advocacy, and community services.

“When we were looking for land and ended up finding some out here, we moved from New Berlin, and we connected with WestCare. We started doing things like chickens and turkeys with them. Since then, our partnership with WestCare has really grown. We teach about the sustainability of turkeys and gave away turkeys for Thanksgiving.”

WestCare Wisconsin, an affiliate of WestCare Foundation, is part of a family of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that provides a wide spectrum of health and human services in both residential and outpatient environments. The collective services have the necessary expertise to be that resource to the communities we serve in the areas of prevention, substance abuse and addiction treatment, homeless and runaway shelters, domestic violence treatment and prevention, and mental health programs.

The services are available to adults, children, adolescents, and families. The agency specializes in helping people traditionally considered difficult to treat, such as those who are indigent, have multiple disorders, or are involved with the criminal justice system.

Youth from the inner city often don’t have the opportunity to learn about farming and ranching, Marcus Landry said. His farm in East Troy is changing that.

SUBMITTED PHOTOS Spirit of Geneva Lakes

The farm has also partnered with OpCom, a hydroponics company, which donated hydroponic units.

“We do hydroponics classes with kids when they come around,” Landry said. “It’s just another way to teach sustainability.”

The Beulah Family Homestead is a working farm with a greenhouse, gardens, hydroponics and livestock of chickens, turkeys and cows. According to the website, the farm serves more than 100 families a month.

For more information on the farm or to book a tour, visit www. beulahfamilyhomestead.com.

Visit our Liquor Department for some holiday spirit!

6515 352ND AVENUE • NEW MUNSTER, WIS. 262.537.2639

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC - NO MEMBERSHIP FEES! VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR WEEKLY SPECIALS: WWW.BESTBARGAINSINC.COM VISIT OUR CASH & CARRY OUTLET HIGHWAY 50 & KD, 8 MILES EAST OF LAKE GENEVA Open Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.; Saturday 8:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.; Sunday 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

FULL SERVICE CATERING

PARTY TRAYS LET US HELP YOU PLAN YOUR BRIDAL SHOWER * * * REHEARSAL DINNER * * * RECEPTION

DELI TRAYS

MEAT DEPARTMENT USDA Choice

DELI SEAFOOD

Lake Geneva Clue Room offers mysteries to solve

Escape room activity rises when rain and snow fall

by Jennifer Eisenbart

STAFF WRITER

Imagine being in a locked room, needing to figure out not just one puzzle but several – each leading to the next – in order to engineer your escape.

This basic premise has led to “escape rooms,” a chance to solve a mystery or a crime – a new indoor form of entertainment.

Andrew Currier, the general manager at the Lake Geneva Clue Room – located in the downtown area at 772 W. Main St. – said business is starting to pick back up after more than a year’s uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re still here,” Currier said. “It’s a matter of people feeling adventurous enough.”

“We’re seeing quite the uptick (in business),” he added. “In all truthfulness, we’re probably the only one in town that prays for the bad weather, the rainy weather, because that drives people indoors.”

In addition to providing immersive experiences – visitors have an hour to tackle everything from a double agent to the mob to a string of carnival murders – Lake Geneva Clue Room has also adapted due to the pandemic.

One of the biggest promotion points, Currier said, is that the site is taking extra precautions for COVID-19. All staff members are masked, and guests are told masks are recommended. Air purifiers are also in the rooms, and staff cleans the rooms afterward.

But perhaps the best part of the rooms? Once a room is booked, it is kept booked for that one person or a group that may join them – or in other words, customers set their own social circle.

“Even before all this stuff started happening, we were kind of leaning toward that,” Currier said. “People like to have rooms to themselves.

“For the vast majority, people like to have their own group, or bubble, or stay with that.”

The four different rooms range in difficulty, starting with the three-key difficulty of the double agent up to the fivekey difficulty of the carnival murders and the mob.

In between is the four-star “Pilfered Playbook,” which has competitors trying to get their opponent’s playbook for the big game.

In that case, there are two identical rooms, meaning a group can pick which team they are fighting against or book two at the same time and have two groups

Among the themed rooms at the Lake Geneva Clue Room is the “Pilfered Playbook,” where participants work to get the opposing team’s key information for an upcoming rivalry game.

JENNIFER EISENBART Spirit of Geneva Lakes

compete against each other.

Each room is themed and atmospheric. Double agent room is like a regular person’s apartment, while the carnival room has your normal variety of midway games.

Without giving away the secrets, well, the secrets are in the details.

“My all-time favorite quote is ‘oh, there’s not much here,’” Currier said. “And sometimes they’re stuck in there for the full hour.”

It is a matter, Currier said, of finding the right clues and then being able to piece them together. That then allows a team to open a lock, solve a puzzle or figure out a code.

“With the eventual hope of finding the code to escaping,” Currier added. “Everything is completely family friendly. For the most part, everything is rudimentary and in the room to help you out.”

There is a per-person cost for each room, with a minimum of three people per room on the weekends.

While rooms are still available, Currier said the last week of the year is “notoriously busy.”

If interested or looking for more information, visit the website at www. lakegenevaclueroom.com.