Thinking Outside the Gift Box

If you’re looking for something unique to give to those impossible to buy for people at Christmas, consider dropping a few dollars to get gifts you can’t get anywhere else but Ventures in Shell Lake, or their subsidiary, Ventures Thrift Shoppe, south of downtown Spooner at 1200 S. River Street.

Where else can you find everything someone who feeds the birds needs? They have birdhouses, feeders, all kinds of seeds, and this is the time of year they add their handmade suet balls and cakes. Employees make hundreds of these bird seed balls for the cold weather and they ship them out by the case load through Tri-Star and to locations in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Each September through April, hundreds of forty pound boxes of kidney fat and beef fat are delivered to the facility and the workers then begin their Monday through Thursday job of cutting the fat into small pieces which are then fed through a grinder, formed, rolled in bird seed, then packaged and labeled.

This isn’t the only thing they do. According to Program Director for the past nineteen years, Melissa Denotter, they work with the Parker Hannifin Company in Chetek, a global leader in motion and control technologies including aerospace, climate control, electromechanical and filtration systems, putting together parts for their various divisions.

An entire shop section is set up for employees who enjoy the challenge of putting parts together while earning a paycheck.

Ventures Unlimited, Inc. started in 1968 in the basement of a local church and after five different locations, they finally found a home in their own building in Shell Lake’s Industrial Park. Hayward and Cameron now have their own facilities to train and employ those who sometimes find it difficult to find regular employment and are called disabled.

There are 52 employees at the Shell Lake location and this 501c 3 company is constantly remaking themselves into a business that gives their people more and more opportunities to excel by giving them jobs in their fields while helping them fit into society.

One of their exciting new ventures is a natural products line, thanks to staff that honors the back to natural movement with handcrafted laundry soaps in powder or liquid form, soy candles, fire starters, anti-itch roll-ons, inhalers and hand sanitizers.

The Spooner store, Ventures Thrift Shop and For the Birds, is where you can find all these products and even more items like Adirondack chairs and hand made dog biscuits. Being a thrift store, there is always a treasure or two for everyone and now there’s a full assortment of natural products for giving to others this holiday season or to buy for yourself; after all, cold and flu season is coming up, so an inhaler or two couldn’t hurt. Or some natural soap, a soy candle for those long winter nights and. . .

Questions? Call them at 715-468-2939