(upbeat music) (lively music) - [Advertiser] Welcome to Alley Cats.

(upbeat music) - I am one of the owners here.

I'm also the general manager, so I handle all the day-to-day operations.

- I'm one of the owners with him, head mechanic.

I hide in the back and work on machines and help him drill in the fresh up.

- As far as a full service bowling alley that could serve alcohol, had a full kitchen, stuff like that, we had always said that this is something that the community was missing and we thought it would go really well.

This is the second time it's been in our family, but it was my dad's aunt, she was the second to last owner.

She sold it in '89.

My parents over the years have made efforts to buy full other bowling alleys.

Something they had always wanted to do, and for some reason or another things would always fall through or it wouldn't happen and just so I pushed really hard to try and make this happen.

I would say probably the biggest struggle so far was building the place.

We closed on the building two days before Christmas, 2022.

We opened the doors August 18th.

So we took this place down to the concrete floors and the block walls.

There was nothing left.

That was by far the biggest struggle, was just getting the doors open.

- We tried to get contractors to do it, they laughed.

- They told us it wasn't possible - Because we had to have it open for leagues.

Leagues started two weeks after we opened.

So it was either make it for the leagues or we were in some trouble.

- It was do or die for us.

But since we've opened the doors, I think a lot of our issues and struggles have been fine tuning the machines and then we wanna have enough staff here that we can present the kind of product and customer service that, you know, we expect to be able to put out.

But also finding that sweet spot to where we're not, killing ourselves in labor and stuff like that.

We spend so much time here and we love our staff so much.

At the end of the day, this is a family owned business.

This isn't some big corporation, this is just five of us, you know, and we're just trying to make it just like everybody else.

And we truly do want to put out the best quality that we can and best product that we can for everybody, and want everybody to have a great time.

So the original theme was actually supposed to be like like a graffiti tag, you know, it was Alley Cats and actually it was gonna be more along those lines.

- We originally were gonna go on neon pillars and then, we tried to start color matching and found out neon doesn't go very well together.

- So we toned it down and kinda made it a little bit of a classier industrial, I don't know, kind of a hybrid.

I think it actually turned out for the better this way.

So on a normal day I do a lot of the openings.

So like do a once over through the whole facility, make sure everything's clean.

And then as I get, you know, so the other rest of the staff coming in around open, I will then transition into going through leagues from the night before, getting leagues processed, making sure if there's any issues with deposits and stuff like that.

That's my general day to day.

It's a lot of administrative side of it is what a good portion of my day consists of anymore.

- My day, I'm more of a night person, so I usually get here a little later, but when it comes to these machines, they're pretty implemental sometimes.

Thanksgiving Eve, we had a nine pin tournament, so I was here for like 40 hours without sleeping and then just working on machines.

So it honestly just depends on how they feel that day, what's gonna break.

- Lots of maintenance that goes into 'em that people don't know, don't necessarily see.

So we've got the full bar, the full kitchen, we do fresh in-house pizzas, we do a lot of birthday parties and group events, and we're getting a lot of company like team building stuff and Christmas parties and holiday parties.

We're doing a lot of family centric and family friendly stuff that we're working on.

So I think we're both really trying to start pushing more into the competitive side of stuff, getting more tournaments in here, stuff like that.

- And we just want to see competitive bowling We're competitive bowlers, we both bowl since we were like three, so we're geared towards that.

We wanna get as many tournaments and as many people into the sport as we can.

- So that's the wonderful and the beautiful thing about bowling is it, it's inclusive to everybody.

Anybody from year 18 month old to year 96-year-old grandma can do it.

And that's something we can all do together and it's a very good sportsmanship driven sport and it's very unique in that aspect.

There's very rarely like bad blood in the sport, I mean obviously it happens, but for the most part, like everybody gets along really well and it just we're trying to delve into the special Olympic side of it and stuff like that.

So trying to get everybody involved.

We have the ball tracking software, that's something that nobody around here has.

Basically you would have to go into the city to get that.

That is something kind of unique.

- So when it comes to the competitive bowling aspect side of it, we can really cater people in that.

- Hey, we don't ever want to take away business from another center, right?

That was never the goal.

The more centers we have, the more we can grow the sport and the sport of the future.

So you can call us (660) 362-1212.

You can email us, contact us through Facebook.

All of that information's on Google online.

Contact us to our website.

I want people to have a good time, but when they come in, I want them to remember they got excellent customer service and you know, they're greeted with a smile when they walked in the door and when they walked out the door.

(upbeat music) - My full name is Salvatore Lochiano II.

I don't go by that though, I go by Sam.

My role as the owner, when I came back, my parents were kind of ready to retire from doing everything.

So I came back and basically took over.

Originally when we moved here in 1994, me and my dad just started selling produce out of the back of a van on this corner right here.

About a year later, we moved across the street into a small building.

Then we moved into a little bit larger building, had a little deli there and kind of, we've just been all over the place.

So we've been around here since '94 selling produce in this town.

We've had four or five different locations, including a restaurant, which is no longer there anymore.

They tore the building down.

So, but yeah we've been around here for a while.

We're more of a produce market, which is how we started.

That's kind of what my dad's always been in his whole life.

So we've done produce since we opened in '94, the original location, which was here in a truck, and then we added flowers and then we added a deli.

We try to be pretty diverse in what we do.

It's hard to have just produce, because produce is a really short season.

We try to carry a lot of local baked goods.

A lot of the stuff from the Amish, which is about as local as you can get around here.

When we do have small vendors in Warrensburg or in the surrounding areas, we try to carry their products too.

Roma bread, which is a Kansas City staple, we carry Manola sausage, which has been in Kansas City for 110 years.

We try to stay really local and what we carry as far as product, Louisburg apple cider, which is everybody knows Louisburg, Kansas.

They've been around forever.

We're a great little store.

We keep our prices low, which isn't what a lot of people don't expect when they come into a small store like this.

They expect high prices because we're smaller, we can't compete with places like Walmart, but we actually have sometimes better prices than Walmart, than Hy-Vee or any of the other local stores.

We really try to compete on price.

Milk, we sell milk and eggs cheaper than anybody else, but a lot of people don't know that.

We don't advertise a lot.

We don't have that kind of funding so that's kind of hard for us.

But word of mouth is really big for us.

We try to carry a great selection of things, like the local produce we try to get that all through the season, regardless of the cost for us, because sometimes we don't make as much money on it as we need to, but we still like to keep it because customers want it.

I love meeting new people and seeing new faces all the time.

I like being a part of the community.

We try to help out.

When we first opened up, we helped out with the schools as much as we could, I definitely like being a part of the community.

(lively music) We have a lot of great customers.

A lot of our customers, they like coming in here.

Over the years, I've gotten to know them pretty well.

When they call in for an order, I know what they want already.

They don't really have to tell me what they want.

We get a lot of repeat customers as far as food.

Their orders always stay the same.

They have a certain thing that they like.

So it's really easy, you call up, if I see their name on the phone, I already know what they want to get.

So when I first opened this location up, it was a open air market.

We didn't have any walls, it was just a canopy.

And that building, which this back here was the original building, this was kind of all added on and it just had a canopy over it.

No fences, no nothing.

I had a guy who I ended up being pretty good friends with afterwards, he came in, his name's Ray.

He came in, I wasn't here, took some stuff, left some money.

We kind of started to become friends after that, but he was probably one of my first customers here.

We have a lot of repeat customers in this town, a lot of the older Warrensburg people.

We get a lot of college people now.

I mean, our food is becoming really popular with the college kids, which I like.

We've always tried to spread through the college as much as we can.

So I always like being close to the campus because that's a huge part of Warrensburg.

I love being in Warrensburg for that reason.

When I first came back, my goal here was to completely tear this building down and put up a new building.

My dad's had some health issues, so that's kind of set us back a little bit.

But the goal for this place is just to provide great customer service, good products for everybody around here.

We don't want to expand because we're never gonna be Hy-Vee or Walmart or any big chain.

We wanna stay as local as possible.

Being small like this does give us access to small niches that people don't have.

We get a lot of people that have lived in this town for their whole life.

I mean, we've been around for almost 30 years and we always get people that say, we've lived here our whole life where we drive by every day, we've never stopped in.

If you haven't stopped in, stop in.

I mean, we're a good store.

We don't carry everything that Walmart does, but we try to have a good selection.

Just come check out our food, we got great food.

I like it, I don't eat bad food.

Just come check us out.

(lively piano music) - My name is Mia Kim and I'm a professor of music here at the University of Central Missouri.

I teach piano to music majors and non-majors who are learning to play the piano for various reasons.

So I have played the piano since I was three years old.

Once I got on the piano bench, I never left.

By the time I was in late elementary school, I was pretty certain that piano was my thing.

It was always a matter of, I'm going to do music, how that's going to take shape, I'm not sure, but we're gonna find out.

And I will say that I did not plan on being a teacher.

When I was in college, we were required to take a teaching course and it was just the most fun thing ever.

I never looked back, that was going to be part of my life.

And then as time went on and went through school and then I figured out that my dream was to teach at a university so I could work with all kinds of students.

And in 1996 I landed here and have been very happy ever since.

Performing as about connecting with people, telling stories, creating a space where they can experience their own stories.

I also think of it as like being a chefs and you make dinner for people.

I mean, I can make dinner for myself and I enjoy eating plenty, but I really love to share it with other people.

It's so performing as a way to do that and share music with other people.

And so I think of live performance as being you are there, I am here.

We are sharing energy in the room, that doesn't transcend a spree.

You can sort of feel like it, but it's really, it's different.

This past January, I had the great privilege and enjoy my two perform in New York City's Carnegie Call.

I was there as a part of a program featuring the music of a Greek composer, Athanasius Sarvas.

And so we got to perform there for a full house and it was just, it was very exciting.

I've played a lot of interesting places in the world, but this, because it was so historic, was especially cool.

In February, I performed a solo recital here in Hart Recital Hall.

Actually, this was the first time I had done an all solo program in maybe a decade.

I was shocked when I really looked at the calendar, but it was really fun for me because these are pieces that I have wanted to learn for years and they've just sat on my shelf.

So it was a real labor of love.

I think of my job as a door opener and I help students open doors.

Sometimes I introduce them to the fact that a door exists and sometimes I help them open it, sometimes I push them through it.

But either way, once you walk through those doors and you've learned something, you're not the same.

You can't go back to not knowing things and not experiencing things and not feeling things.

I love seeing how students go from, you know, which is my right hand and which is my left hand, to expressing themselves at the piano, finding enjoyment at that and discovering that it's a whole, music as a whole language that they can speak and love helping them speak that language.

Well, if somebody came to me and said, I would like to study music, maybe I'd like to do it for college, maybe I'd like to do it for a job, I'd be super excited because of course I think music is a language and anytime you can learn a new language should go for it, 'cause language helps us communicate with people.

Communication is connection and connection is the reason we exist.

If somebody says, I wanna study it and I wanna make this my life profession, I'd say, well, I will tell you that I think it's most fun thing you can possibly do.

I don't know any other job I could possibly imagine more.

I will also say that a lot of times people don't realize that being a musician and liking music are not the same thing.

Be ready to think about forging your path that it won't be forged for you, that you will have to think of a way forward and lay those stones down the path.

But if you do, it is something that you literally, even on the worst days, I enjoy it very much.

You're not gonna scale Mount Everest in a day or even a semester or a year.

Learning to play the piano takes many, many years to do it well.

And in fact, even when you can do it well, it's a lifetime project to do it better.

But if you can be persistent and just do a little bit every day, you might be amazed at how far down the road you can get.

One of the things I have enjoyed the most about my 28 years here at the University of Central Missouri is how connected the community is to this department.

And so that has led me to several of the things that I do on the side.

One of which is I'm the founder of the President of the Warrensburg Friends of Music, which is a philanthropic group of folks who want to support music in our community.

And so it's something we love to do.

I like to think it just, the community gives to me and I can give back to it.

And I also run the University of Central Missouri Community Music Program, which is a program by which students, children and adults can take lessons here at the university with teachers who are trained in how to teach kids and adults and they can pursue music recreationally and have a good time.

So be patient and being regular, a little bit of attention every day just reaps you a lifetime benefit because you learn a new language, it's like you open these doors and you walk through them and have all these adventure, never (indistinct).

(lively music) - I am Whitney Cromley and I am the founder and president of the board.

We started Cancer Perks after the death of my best friend.

Karen passed away in 2015, and we started this in 2016.

She always had her treatments on Tuesday.

And so one Tuesday I was sitting with her and she was hungry.

And so I ran to a local place in town that she loves and I ordered her food and they asked if it was for her and they said, "It's on us."

And so I took it back to the hospital and I gave it to her and I told her, and she said, "Oh, it's a cancer perk."

And I was like, what's a cancer perk?

And she was like, "Well, there's not a lot."

I mean, cancer sucks, and there's a lot of people think there's not a perk about it, but you start to see people's goodness and their kindness come through in those little things.

It was as little as a $5 dinner, a $5 lunch, but that was their one way of giving back.

And those were the things that she talked about and she named them.

And so whenever it came time to give this organization a name that just stuck in my mind.

(lively music) - My name is Kelsey Morris and I am the director.

I took over as director from Whitney in January of 2023.

I learned so much, not only from being the director of a nonprofit, but also just kind of a person.

I always will tell people I have a passion for people.

I love helping, I love just being a part of people's lives.

Whenever this opportunity came available, I felt that pull of that passion for people, that I wanted to be involved again.

- When we first started eight years ago, we focused on Bothwell only because that's where Karen was receiving treatment.

And within six months we expanded our service area to Marshall and Fitzgibbon Hospital.

When you are first diagnosed and you are at that initial appointment, you've been told you have cancer and you go to the oncologist at one of our two hospitals, you'll receive a Cancer Perks bag and that bag, I like to call that bag our handshake.

It's our introduction.

A lot of the times if they're not familiar with our organization, it's the first time they're hearing about us and that is filled with nine to 12 items that are hopefully making their time in cancer and treatment easier or more significant.

They're not gonna cure cancer.

There's nothing in there that's life changing, but it's just kind of our way of saying, hey, somebody in your local community cares about you and we're offering you this as just a way to say that we're here.

Everyone gets those no matter what.

When you are told you have cancer, whether you choose to stay in Sedalia or Marshall or not, you still get that bag.

And then from there we offer our Cancer Perks resources.

Cancer Perks resources has two parts.

The first part is our gas mileage reimbursement program.

We currently offer gas mileage reimbursement at 25 cents a mile up to $500 per patient per calendar year.

And then the other part is the Cancer Perks resources is anything that a patient deems a need.

If that need is help with their gas utilities, prescription medication, custom wigs.

We've even paid for a plane ticket back when we originally started so that a stage four patient could say goodbye to a loved one.

We always say, if it's important to them, it's important to us.

And there has been very few things that we have turned down as far as that.

- I have just yesterday met someone here at the office to give them a check because they were afraid they weren't gonna have it in time before one of their bills got shut off.

And she said, "So it's probably not often that you meet the people that you're helping."

And really, it happens more often than you think.

And I personally love that.

It's not always at the most convenient times, but that's cancer, never happens at a convenient time.

So I never mind having to go out and meet someone in a grocery store parking lot and hand them a check or a gas card or whatever it is in that moment that they need.

Everything that we have comes from the community, so it's important to have that community involvement.

The best way to get involved with our organization is to fill out the volunteer form on our website.

It goes to our email, and then we will send out a mass email if we ever need volunteers for things.

You have your big famous cancer foundations and they have a presence here, but when you ask the hospitals, what are those foundations actually doing for our local patients, the answer is nothing.

I don't think people realize when they give their money to some of these big organizations that that money is going somewhere, but it's not going to help your neighbor.

And I wanted this nonprofit to be different, and it is.

And so we're very proud of that.

For the last seven years, we've had a big fashion fundraiser in the fall, we call it Rock the Runway, and it's a little different than other fashion shows because every single one of the models is a local cancer patient.

They're someone who is either currently fighting cancer, they've already beat cancer, or they have lost a loved one, an immediate loved one to cancer in our area.

Once they walk the runway, they come back and they wear a cancer perk shirt and they hold up a sign and that sign is telling their why.

It'll say, I'm a current fighter, or I've been in remission for 63 years, whatever it may be, and they walk out to the fight song and it's an emotional and special event.

Even if we hadn't started the nonprofit, I would've thought about her every day, but now I think about her in other ways and I get to see her silhouette on our logo and see every single person that she has had some impact on.

She was my best friend of many years.

I met her when I was 16.

Ooh, to not have that it's changed my life.

I'm not the same person I was eight years ago, and I probably never will be, but it changed my life in some ways for the better and in some ways for not.

And so this organization is one thing that my heart's into a hundred percent.

It's my fourth child, it's my baby.

And so yeah, it means a lot to me, it just does.

- We are located in Sedalia, Missouri, and we serve Pettis and Saline counties.

To get in touch with us, You can reach out to info@cancerperks.com.

(lively music) (upbeat music)