Sawmill adventure park3/24/2023 ![]() "The main determining factor right now will be, how do the numbers look? How are the hospitalizations in the area and the state going?"Īnd, he said, they'll be monitoring how many people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. "At this point I believe we're just going to take it month by month," he said. "And he said it's very difficult for him to see people not trying to do their part more."Īlwin isn't sure when Sawmill will reopen. "He said, 'This is for real this is getting out of control,'" Alwin said. He's shared the experience of working in the facility, which like other hospitals around the state has strained to deal with the surge of patients. ![]() It was a reference to one of Alwin's brothers, a nurse who works in an intensive care unit in Wausau. In their statement, the owners wrote that "we have loved ones who work at local health care facilities, and it is continually hard to ignore the effect this is having on our frontline workers." Ultimately, though, he said the decision to close was less about their bottom line and more about public health. That funding will help them pay their business mortgage and utility costs as they wait to reopen. More recently, Alwin applied for and received a $5,000 grant through Wisconsin's "We're All In" program. It allowed Alwin to keep some staff members employed during part of the shutdown. "With the small amount of people that we had coming through the doors anyway, it was getting worse."Įarly in the pandemic, Sawmill received a business loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program. "But then in September and then October and November (business) was drastically declining," he said. For a period of time, they were roughly breaking even as a business - which, in 2020, Alwin said he would have considered a success. They closed during Wisconsin's stay-at-home order in March and reopened in June. Sawmill opened in 2019, and Alwin said its first full year in operation was a success, which provided them with a financial cushion in 2020. In October, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association said the state's bars and restaurants were hit especially hard, with many of them closing permanently due to the pandemic. But some small business owners have said the available state grants are not enough to keep them afloat, and hundreds of businesses across the state have already closed their doors. ![]() Tony Evers announced a new aid package worth $100 million which included some grants targeted to hard-hit sectors including performance venues. In the absence of new government relief, not all businesses have the ability to close, even temporarily. Prospects for new federal relief are uncertain at best and at the state level there appears to be little bipartisan agreement about new COVID-19 legislation in Madison. The pandemic in Wisconsin has worsened at the same time that many of the aid programs designed to help businesses have expired. The pressures faced by Sawmill's owners are a window into the experiences of small business owners across the state. Alwin, who owns the business with his wife and sister-in-law, hopes closing for weeks or months now will help ensure Sawmill can reopen in 2021. They'll be laid off, and some other business expenses will be frozen while the park is closed. The park has eight full-time employees and others who work part-time. The financial reality is that closing now allows them to control the losses they take in coming months, he said. "(First) and foremost is: What are we doing individually to try to get through what we're all trudging through?" Alwin said. Dylan Alwin said the decision to close their doors for weeks or months this winter reflects both the owners' sense of social responsibility - influenced by his brother, a nurse in a COVID-19 unit - and a business reality. It wasn't in reaction to an outbreak at the business the indoor trampoline park hasn't had employees or contact tracers connect them with one. The owner of a small business in central Wisconsin said the decision to temporarily close is part of the business's effort to help control community spread of the coronavirus.Īfter months of trying to operate safely in the pandemic, Rothschild's Sawmill Adventure Park announced in a statement on Facebook this week that it would close temporarily.
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