(bright upbeat music) >> Advertiser: We wanna thank Deep River Waterpark for having us out today, letting this just lounge in the Lazy River.

Enjoy some sunlight, do all the rides, hang out with the kiddos, you got the rides.

And the cool thing is that they support local charities too.

Man, that's pretty awesome.

>> Advertiser 1: How many kids can put their hands out, and pet a baby goat or baby lamb or baby deer, any of it.

You see the Patagonian Cave we had earlier.

Kids can't see that nowhere and they remember that.

(air whooshing) >> Advertiser 2: It's incredibly fulfilling to see the kids go through these programs 'cause we know that we really are making an impact.

Our mission here at the Crisis Center is to open a path of hope for lives in crisis.

And I truly believe that's what we're doing here at the Crisis Center.

>> Advertiser 4: I think the conversations are one of the most important parts of everything.

The reason that they do this the Awkward is because it is so hard and there is a wide variety of ages that this affects.

>> Advertiser 5: Centier Bank is proud to serve Hometown Community Banking across Indiana.

For over 128 years, Indiana's largest private family owned bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

(upbeat music) >> Advertiser 6: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short and the earlier we get started helping our community, the the better off our community will be.

(bright upbeat music) >> I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

(bright upbeat music) >> Advertiser 7: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, LaPorte and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit ivytech.edu.

>> Presenter 8] Family, home, work self of all the things you take care of.

Make sure you are near the top of the list.

North Shore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess and put yourself first from medical to dental, vision, chiropractic and mental health.

North Shore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running.

So make sure to take care of yourself.

North Shore Health Centers.

Building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

>> Advertiser 8: Did you know that you can find all of your favorite Lakeshore PBS shows online?

Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org.

You can stream a large selection of shows including I own the Arts and Studio and Friends and Neighbors.

Missed the last night's episode.

No problem.

Lakeshore PBS has got you covered.

Search for your show and find your episode ready to watch at any time.

Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org to stream your favorite local shows >> Advertiser 9: As you travel across Northwest Indiana and into Chicago.

Take Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM along for the ride.

With our newly expanded signal, we're with you from the Southern corner of Michigan and into Chicago and of course across Northwest Indiana.

From the Dunes at Lake Michigan to the windmills of Walcott Lake Shore Public Media 89.1 FM is along for the ride, wherever you call home.

(bright upbeat music) >> Advertiser 10: Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) >> Welcome again to Friends and Neighbors.

Today we were a little bit sad 'cause our boat sank, but then we realized we're here at Deep River Water Park.

Great.

You ready to go?

Have some fun?

>> Yeah.

>> Woohoo.

(bright upbeat music) >> Hi Nicole.

How are you?

>> Hi guys?

How are you doing?

I'm good.

Yourself?

>> Fantastic.

We are so excited to be here today.

Can you tell me a little bit about Deep River Waterpark?

>> Yeah.

Deep River opened in 1995.

We are on our 30th season this year.

We had a few years in 2005 we did a massive expansion the west side of the park.

We added a river, two bowl slides, a massive courthouse.

And here we are today, we're still going.

>> Can you tell me about some of the other rides and the fan favorites?

>> Yeah.

Absolutely.

So right behind me we have the Kraken.

It's a mat racer slide, six people can go at once you get to ride down on your belly.

So go through some winding tubes and then you get to take a nice drop down.

Another fan favorite is the storm.

It's three blacked out slides each one a different ride pattern.

And then we have our rip tide wave pool.

It's big large waves and everyone loves it.

>> So here on the Kraken, we had this discussion on the ride here.

Who would be faster?

The bigger guy like me or the smaller guys who are lighter?

Is there, is there a method to that?

>> There is.

So physics, actually gonna be the bigger, heavier guy.

He is gonna go a lot faster than the little guys.

>> So what do you think?

Do you think I'm gonna win in the Kraken or do you think you're gonna win?

>> Me?

>> You?

No way.

So, and one of our favorite things is the Lazy River.

You guys have two of them, right?

>> We do.

>> That's and they're on both sides of the park.

>> Yeah, there's one on each side of the park.

We have our BeYou River, which is on the original side of the park.

It's a little bit slower pace, nothing crazy.

And then on the west side of the park we have our Action river.

It's attached to our both sides.

Spray features.

It's a bigger river.

Yeah.

>> That's awesome.

So I know, so this little guy isn't always the biggest fans of water slides.

He just wants a waterpark to play in.

Do you guys have something for the littles too?

>> We do.

We have two areas.

So we have Mayor Byrdovich's courthouse.

So there is two slides.

If he doesn't wanna go down the slides, he can run through the big courthouse.

We have lots of spray features or if he wants something a little bit slower pace, we have a nice little kitty area under 46 inches to get into it.

And it's meant just for little kids.

>> So this is really family friendly for everybody at Deep River Water Park.

>> Yeah, that's always our goal.

Yes.

>> Now I also understand you guys have some specials going on this summer, correct?

>> We do.

So every Wednesday we do pull it forward.

We have partnered with the Humane Society of Hobert.

If you bring in a animal donation, you get $5 off of your guys' admission.

And then on Thursdays we partner with the Food Bank of America.

Same thing if you bring two canned goods, $5 off your remission, that way everyone gets to come enjoy us while also benefiting the public as well.

>> Alright, so Nicole, where should we get started?

>> You should definitely get started on the Kraken right behind us.

The mats are ready.

We have an attendant ready to get you guys going.

>> You ready?

>> Yeah.

>> All right, let's go.

>> Awesome.

Enjoy guys.

(bright upbeat music) >> When you're at the waterpark, always remember sunscreen.

(bright upbeat music) How much fun are you having today?

>> 100 billion, zillion gill, whatever.

(bright upbeat music) >> We wanna thank Deep River Waterpark for having us out today, letting us just lounge in the Lazy River.

Enjoy some sunlight, do all the rides, hang out with the kiddos, you got the rides.

And the cool thing is that they support local charities too.

Man, that's pretty awesome.

But if you haven't done this before, you should really come out here.

This is right in our backyard and it's amazing.

I mean, this is so cool.

Like seriously, this is the best way to spend a summer, afternoon Deeper Waterpark.

Heck, it is simply splash faster.

(bright upbeat music) (bright music) >> We're located here in Lake Village, Indiana.

We're a wildlife park full drive through and petting zoo.

Once you enter the park here, you do a full drive through exhibit, bunch of different animals, native, some from not around here.

And you kind of see what's going on there.

More of a natural habitat.

Once you get done with that, you'll park and do a full walkthrough, get up and close a lot of different birds, smaller species of animals.

And then there's another couple areas where you can actually feed some of their younger animals or larger animals that are, people are able to get to.

We have from elk, deer, buffalo, ostrich.

Obviously you don't see ostrich in Northwest Indiana.

Even some of the elk.

We've always had a lot of birds is kind of how we got into it.

Dad knows a lot about birds and so forth.

We have pigeons, different kind of pheasants, a little different waterfall here and there.

A lot of work.

Dad and I could both tell you that, especially dad and myself, we have a lot of good help here now.

And from previous when we started, it's 24/7.

You know, we make sure animals are, you know, taking care of well that's what we're all about.

You know, make sure.

And that's kind of how we lay this property out too.

It's more of a natural habitat, little less concrete here, walking paths.

We got trees, different flowers and all that.

So it's kind of different landscape makes it more natural.

(bright upbeat music) >> I think it's really important for everybody to know how taking care of animals and how they live like this, respecting them, really respecting the animals is a big part here.

So I just wanna work here 'cause I've always loved animals.

I love working with the public and I love people, especially children.

I wanna go into pediatrics when I'm older, so I will work with kids.

It's just more fun to me.

And seeing the kids enjoy themselves is really what I'm here for.

>> Hi, my name is Ava.

I'm one of the employees here at Sandy Oak Ranch.

Today I'm here holding Mika.

It's one of our Patagonian Cavies.

She's about four days old.

I enjoy giving tours just because I like seeing people like happy about it, like giving tours with the kids.

I like seeing them like amazed at like, oh my goodness, there's a, there's a deer over there.

Like, I can get close, I can pet it.

And it just makes me happy seeing people happy.

I think it's really important for younger kids to kind of get a feel of this just because they're growing up, I was always an outdoors person, but I think it's like important for kids to get a feel of like outdoors animals instead of just like being on their phone or something.

>> I raised deer for 40 years, literally.

Well we got three different kinds here on the zoo right now.

They raised exotics my whole life.

The birds.

We got probably 15, 20 different kinds of birds here alone for kids to come through and experience what my kids have seen their whole life.

Simple as that, you know, I mean I see the outcome of it, the work ethics, everything.

I mean it's a whole different experience when they're dealing with live stuff or they can interact with the animals.

They can see the animals, they can get close to the animals, the bottle babies.

They can bottle feed, hand feed.

And a lot of kids don't get that no more.

Well even with the goats, you know, I mean how many kids can put their hands out and and pet a baby goat or a baby lamb or a baby deer, any of them.

You see the Patagonian Cavy we had earlier.

Kids can't see that nowhere and they that, you know what I mean?

I got adults that cried last year because they got the hold of baby deer literally cried.

They held a farm.

The experience, you can't even explain.

>> Just me and some really great people coming through here.

Even when we started the area, the county's been great with us.

Everybody's very inviting.

The compliments alone is enough for us.

You know, just say, "Hey, you guys are doing a great job."

That's all we ask for.

And then everybody's enjoying it.

Everybody, you know, loves the animals.

Even my sisters, my in-laws, I mean, and I have five kids you can see in the pictures are, I mean mom, we got, you know, dad, we got a lot going.

So somehow we made it work.

We just, hey, let's get this done today.

And it just, it just happened.

(bright upbeat music) >> The Crisis Center is a nonprofit organization based out of Gary, Indiana.

We have several programs here that support community members.

We have internal in-person programs that support youth as well as external programs that support anybody in Indiana.

(bright upbeat music) We have the alternative house which houses a safely home.

That's our program for runaway youth.

We have the Safe Place program, which is where youth can go to a safe place to receive assistance for whatever they need.

And again, they get brought here to the alternative house.

The children can stay here until the age of 20.

So we support them with getting a job, opening a bank account, doing things that they need to then be a successful adult.

Then we have our crisis contact program.

Crisis Contact is the 988.

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, that is a national number.

988.

We answer calls for the State of Indiana.

There are four call centers in the State of Indiana and we are one of them.

(bright upbeat music) >> So I think the activities that we provide that are above and beyond the donors fund are extremely enriching.

They're just, it's a different type of experience that sometimes our kids might never have gotten to go to the zoo or go bike riding.

I mean, the fact that we have bikes that were provided all by our donors is a huge opportunity.

We're nestled in a nice quiet little neighborhood and our kids can actually ride their bikes like and be a normal child.

So it provides different opportunities and experiences for our kids.

The work that we do here has a tremendous impact.

I feel like if you work in the world of nonprofit, you're in it to make an impact.

And I truly see life's changed here.

We are opening a path of hope for life's in Crisis.

And every day I feel like I'm making an impact on our kids, on our mission.

And I know it's making an impact on my life as well too.

(bright upbeat music) >> All of our dorms are very large size.

They have radios.

We have the decor store where each child that comes here, they're able to get their own bedding in their own decor items so that they can make their bedroom their own home.

And that's one of the big parts that makes this feel like home.

'Cause some of them never had a room to decorate, let alone have the items to decorate it with.

Home is really important.

That's our safe place, that's the place that we go to recharge, get love, stability and security, safety.

So home is really, really important for everyone.

So we want to ensure that although they are displaced, they feel like they have a safe home and environment where they can get whatever they need until they are a place where they need to go.

They need consistency, they need that support, nurturing, protection, those things that make their environment safe for them to grow.

So the stability in the home, the safeness of the home is really important as those are key parts of the child's development.

And so here at the alternative house, we try to give them a sense of stability, protection, nurturing, and teach them skills so that when they leave here they are able to secure stable housing.

And we're always a support for them as well.

Paying attention to mental health and the mental health crisis that we are in is really important.

And getting more of our community support education to not only the youth but the adults around them so that we can continue to build responsible young people.

(bright upbeat music) >> So 988 is a free 24/7, 365 day crisis and suicide lifeline that anybody can call.

Crisis can be different for everybody.

My crisis will be different from your crisis.

So whatever you define as crisis is okay to call about.

We'll have a trained crisis specialist there to help kind of address your crisis, hopefully deescalate you through your crisis, keep you safe during your crisis and make a plan for you after your crisis.

We offer what's called a follow up program where somebody who may be in a bad spot during a call, we offer to follow up with them anywhere from zero to like 72 hours later depending on the situation.

And they're usually in a lot better state of mind or maybe a safer, more refreshed state of mind during that follow-up call.

And just hearing the, the thank yous and the feedback from people during those calls is, it's amazing.

(bright upbeat music) >> So with our 988 program that supplies hope to anybody anywhere.

So there is no criteria for somebody calling 988 and somebody could be having a crisis and they determine what their crisis is.

Dial 988.

And we provide them that hope, that listening ear something that they have that they don't have in their personal life.

The crisis center shows children that there's things to be hopeful for, maybe their personal lives isn't great and they can come here and get a warm meal, be taken to school and get new clothing.

And that shows them that there is hope.

It's incredibly fulfilling to see the kids go through these programs 'cause we know that we really are making an impact.

Our mission here at the Crisis Center is to open a path of hope for lives in crisis.

And I truly believe that's what we're doing here at the Crisis Center.

(bright upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Chauffeur Hope is an annual event where we raise money for the AFSP, which is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

In order to raise money, we do ticket sales.

The ticket sales include open bar, food, live music, there's raffle prizes all donated by local businesses.

And so we do raffle prizes, 50 50s, all the money going to the AFSP.

And then we also, which is like my favorite part is we do a runway show.

So we kind of do like a New York style runway show where we have 10 to 11 models and each year we have anywhere from four to five designers boutique that showcase their all of their designs, shoes, you know, all of that on the models.

There's so much talent here, models, talented hairdressers, designers, there's boutiques, there's makeup artists that it's kind of, you know, normally it's known for the coast.

Either you're in New York or you're in California dealing with fashion and all of that.

But there's so much going on right here in the center in the Midwest.

So I kind of just wanted to, I'm always one that's like kind of like trying to push what we can do.

Like I don't think like, well this is, you know, shareable, so we can't do what they do in New York City.

It's like, yes we can, we have all the talent here, we have all the resources.

So it's like we can actually do exactly what they're doing here and kind of level up our expectations.

I participated in fashion shows before where it's more so just kinda like, you know, make this lady look pretty kind of in her own element and kind of, you know, do that and make her comfortable.

And in New York you kind of get pushed outta your comfort zone.

It's like, let's do hair you don't normally see, let's do makeup and kinda like, let's make these models all look like mannequins and really show off the clothing.

(bright upbeat music) The community involvement is really important to me too.

So I try to stay with more local designers, local models, you know, local boutiques.

So that's what we've done so far and it's been extremely successful.

Even the models have said like, this is something that they haven't, you know, a level of show that they haven't participated in before.

So I love that.

So it just causes me to wanna like push it and go even more.

And then I think that's what's happening too, is that our guests that are coming to support the event kind of get a little bit blown away by the show, you know, then they're like tell more people and more people.

So that's how we've grown and been able to raise more money each year.

So I kinda like that wow factor.

But it does cause us to keep kind of pushing and pushing.

(bright upbeat music) >> It's very light in the beginning, so it's very welcoming.

We do have live music and the environment is very fun, friendly.

Everybody's just enjoying themselves.

There's raffles, everything like that.

By the time the show starts, we do end up having a few clips or a few videos playing that are called Seize the Awkward.

It's from organization that we do donate to.

They have these clips that celebrities or different social media influencers, some people like that.

They do these segments where they talk about suicide prevention and mental health.

And so during those moments it can get a little heavy.

And then at the end, like I said, it does get pretty emotional.

So it is a rollercoaster of emotions and the atmosphere changes quite a bit, but it's always a very comforting zone and everybody there feels like they could probably hug whoever's in the room if they needed a hug.

So that's the best part too.

I have a lot of friends who have been affected by mental health and along with mental health that comes suicide and those thoughts and things that people have to deal with.

I've lost friends actually before the last show last year, we lost somebody really important to us and made it really hard at the end of the show.

But knowing that we were doing something for the cause helped get through it.

Like before walking, you're like thinking the tears, obviously, sorry, but you kind of get in those emotions but you're like, I'm doing this because all the people there, they're coming to see a show and they're coming to donate and they're coming for a cause and you're there to be the cause, you're helping raise money for something that is so hard for everybody.

And so as long as I keep going and keep doing the show and hopefully keep raising more money and supporting the people around me, that's all you can do.

(bright music) >> Right now mental health is so important and so many people are dealing with all different facets of it.

It doesn't even need to be said.

It's just like a safe space for knowing that everybody there kind of supports this cause.

So I feel like I always get this energy in the room that people are kind of excited that, you know, we're having this and that they can feel like they're in this space of people that understand either what they're going through or what they've been through without having to even say a word.

(bright music) >> Advertiser: Centier Bank is proud to serve Hometown Community Banking across Indiana.

For over 128 years, Indiana's largest private family owned bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

(bright music) >> Advertiser 1: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Almost every single professor I've had, I'm on a first name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea in a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

(bright upbeat music) >> Advertiser 2: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, LaPorte and Valparaiso, new classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit ivytech.edu.

The Crossroads Chamber is transforming northwest Indiana's business landscape, one connection at a time.

Experience the power of networking within our diverse community and forge lasting relationships that can drive your business forward.

>> Advertiser 3: Family, home, work, self, of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

North Shore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess and put yourself first from medical to dental.

Vision, chiropractic and mental health.

North Shore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running.

So make sure to take care of yourself.

North Shore Health Centers, building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

>> Advertiser 4: Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music)