2025 Draft Corn Maze: People Make the Experience

As another fall season wraps up here at our dairy store, it provides a great opportunity for us to reflect on what we were able to offer to visitors in Central Wisconsin, including a 2025 Draft corn maze. At the center of everything we do, one word is always key: "people." It takes relationships with smart people to get things planned. It takes many people to help things run smoothly each weekend. Most importantly, it takes people stopping by each day and supporting our business to make everything we do a reality.

In late 2023 we were lucky enough to have a few people from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation stop out to our farm. As things were wrapping up that day, we got to talking about a contact they had in the Green Bay Packers organization and mentioned they were looking for farms with fall attractions to help showcase the 2025 Draft coming to Green Bay this upcoming spring. We were thrilled at the opportunity and started to prepare right away.

The most important people in this whole equation were the members of our community that came out and enjoyed our corn maze, pumpkin patch and fun farm.

Setting up the 2025 Draft Corn Maze

The people from the Green Bay Packers, MazePlay, Biadasz Farms and Swiderski Equipment all played a large role in making our corn maze possible. This was the first year we worked with MazePlay and they made the process of combining four separate mazes into one cohesive design easy.

The Packers organization was there every step of the way whenever there was something to work through. Once the design was finalized, Swiderski Equipment and Biadasz farms got the files into their planter and got our maze planted. Although we are not that smart, we sure know a lot of smart people!

Over 100 people were relied upon to make all our fall offerings a success this season. From picking pumpkins, to scooping ice cream, to scaring people in our haunted corn maze, to making fresh cheese curds, to driving wagons of people out to the pumpkin patch and everything in between. We were lucky to be surrounded by hardworking individuals.

You hear a lot nowadays about how young people don't like to work, but I've seen with my own eyes that is not the case. We had high school students wanting to work on days off from school, after school, before sporting events on weekends and nearly any free time they had. We had college students working for a few hours between classes, working between other jobs and working on weekends when they could have just as easily been enjoying off time. We had so-called "retired" people making cheese, preparing food in the kitchen and driving wagons on the weekends. It was a blessing to be surrounded by so many enthusiastic people.

The most important people in this whole equation were the members of our community that came out and enjoyed our corn maze, pumpkin patch and fun farm. Without them we would have nothing. This year was especially fun getting to see reactions when they saw our maze design or heard that we got to work with the Packers.

2025 Draft Corn Maze Showcases Wisconsin Ag

We hope we were able to provide a fun experience this year and can showcase Wisconsin agriculture to the rest of the country when they visit this spring for the 2025 Draft. It is not every day you have the opportunity to share what you do in the national spotlight, and we are thankful for the opportunity to share our farm as a part of the 2025 Draft celebration!

Jake Feltz is a farmer and Farm Bureau member in Wisconsin. He and his family own and operate Feltz's Dairy Store. This column was originally shared as a blog post by Wisconsin Farm Bureau and is republished with permission.