(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - One.

Two.

Three.

Go.

(water splashing) One.

Two.

Three.

(drum thudding) (calm music) - So, we hope to achieve similar thing in here to fully utilize our river and make it the real River City.

(calm music continues) - Yeah, then coming up we have our two zebras and Ziggy our Zedonk.

(calm music) - Aikman Wildlife is Illinois first and only drive through Safari Park.

(calm music) - ShotHawk is very simply put a company that is looking to have a very positive impact on the world.

(calm music) - Come on out on a Sunday and I can almost guarantee your life will be changed.

- The world that, you know, sometimes isn't so happy nowadays, you come out here, you can't leave without a smile.

(calm music) (calm music continues) (calm music) (drums thudding) - [Narrator] Let go.

(calm music) (drums thudding) - Ready?

Go.

That's one.

And then raise your hands up, okay?

So, that's rule one.

Attention.

Go.

(calm music) (water splashing) One.

Two.

Three.

- Keep it up.

(calm music) (water splashing) - A dragon boat is a traditional boat.

They have the dragon head and tail as you see here.

And also that most interestingly is the drum.

As far as I know, no other race boat they have the drum as one of the features.

(calm music) (drum thudding) So, rather than just very quietly load the boat, we have the drum hit the rhythm so it make a lot of drama and also it's one of the way to excite the crew.

Dragon boats are very, very popular in China.

Almost everybody from the town, they line up around the river, so we hope to achieve similar thing in here to fully utilize our river and make it the real River City.

(calm music) - I think what this does for Peoria is just heightens again, just the various diverse cultural aspects that I think we have and what we own in Peoria.

- We have this river we call River City Peoria, but we don't have a lot of activity in the river so the dragon boat would be one of the thing to start a activity in the river.

(calm music) (calm music continues) The dragon boat starting many thousand years ago, when one of the Chinese local, he's very disappointed at how the government treat the normal people.

He commit suicide by jumping through the river, so the local people heard about it, they rushed to try to rescue him and then everybody peddle the boat, tried to rescue him, and that's the starting of the dragon boat.

- Well, it all started with a small group of people that we have some motivation to do something here since we have river, right?

We like the river.

So, it started in one launch, say, "Okay, we gotta just do something interesting."

We started with a little group here and then we get a boat and eventually we think, "Okay, this is like a club.

This is like a organization."

Bigger ones, we need a lot of help from different communities.

So, it's really more than just a purely Chinese course association and more than just ourself, it's pretty much the city.

- It's very important to celebrate diversity but then also be very inclusive of that diversity, inviting others from other walks of life to participate in your culture and that's what they've been doing.

- We're excited to have a partnership with the Peoria Chinese Association and kind of bringing to fruition a great way to highlight their culture here in the River City.

- Actually, in our member here, there are a lot of people are non-Chinese.

Actually, anybody in Peoria, the reason is, the first one is we want everybody in the Peoria community to enjoy this new introduction, new activity.

Secondly, we get a lot of support from the city, so we want the test dollar get back to the community.

(water splashing) (drums thudding) - I think it's very important to come out here and just open your horizon so, you know, you come down here and you'll see there's multiple boats and they've got different groups so when I attended a couple of weeks ago, there was one that was staffed by the fire department, which I think was very cool, as well as just other representation from other community groups.

- And we took a step back and assessed what this was.

It was a good way to compliment other events that are happening on both sides of the river and particularly on the Peoria side with the riverfront market or other large scale events that find their way downtown.

- We want to attract as many people from the community participation as possible.

Secondly, we want to increase the tourism and also the utilization of the riverfront because the dragon boat.

So, hopefully people come visit Peoria because we have the dragon boat, they watch our race, our performance in the riverfront.

- I'm hoping that we can have more people join in and make some events happening in the city in the future.

This can really be a lot of interesting people here in this city and I love this and hopefully everybody love the boat, love the sports.

- Learn that there's multiple walks of life that have come to the table for making this, you know, come to fruition.

The teachers, restaurant owners, engineers, professors, whatever their daily life is, you know, they also have this love for Peoria that comes by living and playing here.

- This culture developed in China over a thousand years.

It's good for bringing a lot of diversity and people can enjoy it.

(upbeat music) (calm music) (calm music continues) (calm music continues) (calm music continues) - Aikman Wildlife is Illinois' first and only drive through Safari Park.

(calm music) - And then coming up we have our two zebras and Ziggy, our Zedonk.

(calm music) - My background is business and finance.

I was a banker for about 10 years and I had a dream on the night of October 22nd, 2013, that my wife and I owned and operated a wildlife park.

Told her about the next day, she said, "You're crazy.

Our son's gonna be born in a few weeks, you need to get that out of your head."

I agreed with her completely.

That night I had the exact same dream and so I told her, "I don't know why, but I feel like this is something God's wanting us to do."

And she said, "Well, if God's behind it, He'll find a way to make it happen."

And from there my mind just started becoming flooded with thoughts, plans, ideas, layouts.

We bought this property about 22 months later and open it up to the public about six months after that.

In just about a week, it'll be our 10 year anniversary from purchasing the property.

Kind of just continued to add and expand what we offer here.

So, we have a museum prehistoric life now.

We have a Masters of All Toys Museum now, we do weddings and receptions out here, we also have an overnight component called Wildlife Manor so we have some Airbnbs open to the public.

(calm music) Fabio, our Bactrian camel, the Bactrian are the two-humped.

(calm music) We have a drive-through side and we have a walkthrough side.

All of our predators, our smaller mammals, our petting zoo, our parrots birds there on the walkthrough side of the park.

So, drive-through has a hoofstock, walkthrough has very different animals so you see it's two different experiences.

The walkthrough is kind of set up more like a traditional zoo.

Animals are in their own areas, you kind of see 'em through the fence.

On the drive through side though it is much different.

So, you're in your own vehicle and they could come right up to your car, they could walk right in front of it, but you aren't able to feed or pet the animals in your own car.

And then the next option is kind of our two different UTV rides.

So, the animals are kind of right there in your face.

It's definitely our most up close and personal way to experience the drive through.

- We also have our wagon ride so they can go out on a guided tour that way as well and feed those animals underneath our railing of our wagon.

So, during that drive through, they get to kind of see like zebras and things that they wouldn't see close up, it's definitely something that they would never experience I feel like outside of here.

(calm music) - We bought an existing tourist attraction but it was very run down, it had been closed for almost two years so we had to do quite a bit of demoing, quite a bit of renovations, all new pathways.

I think we planted over 200 trees we kind of completely changed the topography.

And then with the animals it was kind of putting our name out there, letting people know that we are here, we exist, we're willing to take animals that need homes and animals just kind of started coming in.

- Our animals that we have at our park, they were never born and raised in the wild, so they kind of grew up around people even though they're not out in the wild in their natural environment, we basically gave them a place to go when they needed one so we're basically helping them live a good life.

(calm music) - So our first animal we actually got before we had the property, so his name is Tobias.

Tobias is our Grant zebra.

He's got the stripes all the way down to his hooves.

(engine revving) He's is my favorite animal at the park.

Usually zebras, the stereotypes, they're kind of mean, he's the same age as my oldest son.

He was very chill from the beginning, let us feed him.

He'd come up and just rest his head on your shoulder.

(calm music) My wife and I, we kind of had the concept, and then my three brothers came on in the very beginning as well and so we built it and we run it as a family business.

- I love that this facility is family owned.

So, as a worker, I definitely feel as part of the family.

So, I like the fact that they actually do the tours, they come out, they greet the guests that come out, so they actually are building those relationships.

So, I really like the family atmosphere, not with just the staff, but when people come out I feel like they enjoy here and want to come back.

(calm music) - The impact on the community has been fantastic.

I think we are from Arthur, so we knew that we wanted this to be in the community to be a blessing to the community.

We knew it would bring people in, it would bring people through the communities and most likely if they're coming here then they're gonna go eat somewhere, they're gonna get gas, We have a ton of people that come down from Chicago land area, we have people coming from three or more hours away, but then it's also just something for the different local communities to come out and to enjoy themselves.

What we would love people to know about this place is, number one, it is family friendly and appeals to all ages.

We have 90-year-old couples that have come out and I've done behind the scenes for that have an amazing time.

It's not just for kids, it is for any age.

The goal would be it would become a family business that we're creating and building a legacy that will not only impact our family but impact the whole area for years to come.

(calm music) (calm music continues) (calm music continues) (calm music continues) (air whooshing) - ShotHawk is very simply put a company that is looking to have a very positive impact on the world.

- ShotHawk is a company that's based around helping people and keeping people safe and that's through building devices that can monitor and survey and actively respond to threats when they arise.

(calm music) - What we're currently in the process of creating is what we call a public safety defenders.

So, for active shooter in knife threat situations, our device will be able to step in after being told there's a threat.

We had a late night conversation after the Uvalde shooting happened and we really felt like something could and needed to be done.

From a technology perspective we're like, "There's gotta be something we could do to stop this."

And one thing led to the next and before we knew it we were creating what ultimately became our company.

We had to ensure that what we were doing was going to make a positive impact on the world.

You gotta make sure that the change you're bringing about is positive and is what the community needs.

- The device is essentially a wall mountable unit, can also be mounted outdoors on any kind of sides of buildings and essentially what its main capability is, is to identify and follow threats through their motion and deploy a non-lethal solution on a user or any kind of application of this technology would interact with a panic button or some kind of triggering mechanism.

And what that essentially allows us to do is to be sure that there is some kind of threat in the environment.

- After it's been told that there's an emergency, our unit will then be able to activate and autonomously track and identify the assailant and then engage them with a non-lethal.

We're starting with pepper gel and silly string because those are the easiest for us to work with while we're developing, but really it could be a wide range of things.

It could be as simple as a light blinder, or for more advanced scenarios, it could be rubber bullets or pepper balls.

(air whooshing) - People can't believe that it can be done right.

A lot of people are like, "Hey, you know, this seems a little bit too immature.

Or the technology might not be there yet."

Our response to that has mostly been, you know, through the hard trial of development, right?

Trial and failure, and then, you know, going back to the table fixing what we've already built.

- People thought we were crazy, they thought we were trying to live in a sci-fi movie and didn't think what we were doing was actually possible.

In terms of how they'll be dispersed around a school or other public environment, we're anticipating putting these several of them throughout a school where you have, you know, one at your major entryways, and then, you know, in your major hallways throughout a building.

And then after that you begin to layer them over time.

So, you get them in the points where you feel like you might have gaps in security.

- With the spot unit, we're essentially aiming to be the first first responder where it's an active response between the time that the threat's been identified and when the police arrive on scene.

And so our field, our scope of use kind of ends when the police arrive on scene, they can deactivate the unit just so that way it doesn't trigger on the police and their weapons and their response and so that way there's no, I guess confusion in the response of the threat.

Having an AI program that can accurately track and identify threats is something that's very important to the function of our product so we're pursuing a lot of testing to make sure that it is that and it is a complete robust AI program.

- I feel like it's gonna bring what the fire sprinkler did for fires.

I ultimately think that we are just adding another piece to the puzzle for security systems where they're gonna be able to actively respond.

So, the hope is that, you know, you would never need this just like how we hope we never need our fire sprinklers.

(air whooshing) To us it means that we can help people.

I mean, quite simply that is what we wanna do.

We wanna make a difference.

I mean, you know, we're working with cutting edge technology that we could be using for many other applications like, you know, we didn't have to choose to take this towards the public safety and security space, but at the same time we felt by doing so and taking the road less traveled here that we could really make an impact.

(calm music) (air whooshing) (calm music) (calm music continues) - [Narrator] It's time to play some Miracle League baseball.

Get ready, game two coming at you.

(spectators applauding) (calm music) Here they come.

Jazz coming around second.

Jason's moving around third.

Can we get 'em all?

Is it gonna be a big three rush?

The Miracle League is a namesake is an association throughout the country that we're a part of, but we execute that league here with our decisions, our board, our operations with the town of Normal at the front of that.

(calm music) - How this Miracle League got started, my sister was the inspiration for the field.

Amy was a special needs child, my dad at, gosh, he was in his 70s thought, "You know what?

I'm gonna try to build a baseball field for kids with special needs."

And that was in probably 2008, 2009 is when they started.

Her and dad were really tight, and Amy loved baseball, they loved the Yankees and the Cubs.

He went out into the community, found some donors, got a plan together, several folks were with him on the board that continue on the board today, so he had a great group of loyal volunteers for sure.

And it is now morphed into, 2015 we got the field built and we serve about about a hundred kids every year.

(bat thudding) (calm music) - [Narrator] There's a high fly opposite field as it got the last over the fence here, it's a grab roof, double great hit there from- - [Narrator] Our games are two innings, they last about one hour.

Everybody gets a chance to play.

Everybody gets a chance to hit, to go to home plate every inning.

There are buddies associated with every player.

(spectators clapping) - The buddies are for instance, they may have Illinois Wesleyan's volleyball team come and they would pair up with the players because some of the players need help knowing which base to run to and when to stop and when to go.

Or somebody might need to help with their wheelchair, or if, you know, they're blind they might need to be guided.

So, that's the job of the buddies is just to kind of help keep 'em on task, keep the ball in play, keep the game moving.

- Buddy is so much fun to hang out with.

And if other people who does come out play baseball, we have a buddy to just help with other people too.

(spectators applauding) (calm music) - It's very simple but very exciting.

We have an MC, so there's enthusiasm, there's music.

The names are being used for the players and we make them feel just as special as we can possibly make them feel.

- [Narrator] Hit ball all the way to the Centerfield.

My goodness.

- I like the Miracle League because I like to play and I like to bag some home runs.

I like that, and like be out fit with my buddy and enjoy my time with all of us.

- Like doing here with the team here and because we are all the hawks in the way, we making new friends here that are... We have to spray time with with the buddy small.

(calm music) - I think the camaraderie as much as the game itself is what's exciting and what's really cool to see.

- [Narrator] It's hit the plane.

Nobody's there.

He's in there.

- I would like our community to first of all know about our gratitude and how much they have supported not only the vision for this facility, which is a beautiful facility for our players, but the support and the enthusiasm they gave us for this project and they continue to support us through volunteering.

We are doing very well financially.

The town of Normal now is running this program.

So, we have everything that we need because of the support from the community, because of the encouragement from the community, and we will always be grateful for that because it's made such a big difference for a generation of kids.

- [Narrator] I'm overwhelmed really each week about the number of volunteers.

It just really blows my mind.

Even the people who are here every week and running it, everybody's volunteering and it just blows my mind.

(calm music) - [Narrator] Such a positive encouraging environment here with laughter and love.

It's uplifting.

- I'm out just, I'm going to get hype and get pumped.

Do enjoy that so much.

- [Narrator] Out here they can just come have fun.

They're both very, very social.

We generally sit way out in the outfield and just watch from a distance and let 'em have their day and that's great for them too that they can be independent of us and still enjoy the experience.

- Anybody can play, all ages.

Karen started when she was four years old.

She started the second year so she's been playing for a long time, but we have players out here who are in their 30s and 40s as well.

So, anybody can play, nobody's out here judging your child.

Nobody cares out here.

There's no judging.

- Everybody's good now.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So, come on out, we're behind The Corn Crib, a lot of people don't know where we are, but come on out on a Sunday and I can almost guarantee your life will be changed.

- In a world that, you know, sometimes isn't so happy nowadays, you come out here, you can't leave without a smile on your face.

If you do, there's something wrong with you because it's happy.

(calm music) - Nobody wins or loses, it ends in a tie- - It's always a tie - every week.

- Every game ends in a tie so nobody wins or loses.

No player can be doing anything wrong out there.

(calm music) (calm music continues) - [All] One, two, three, strikes you're out at the old ball game.

- Oh, you've been practicing?

Great job guys.

Great job.

- [Narrator] Thank you for joining us on this journey.

If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore even more local content.

You can connect with us on our social media channels, visit our website, or download the free app.

We can't wait to see you next time on, "You Gotta See This!".

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