Woodstock’s Warp Corps in the spotlight, focus of film showing Sept. 1 at opera house

Rob Mutert, owner of Warp Corps in Woodstock, has been fighting the opioid crisis since 2017 through his approach of prevention through engagement.

Recently, his work was noticed by a filmmaker and the result is a short documentary appropriately titled “Prevention Through Engagement,” which is receiving some attention at film festivals nationally and internationally.

“This is a powerful story and I have the means to tell it.”

—  Michael Hyzy who produced "Prevention Through Engagement" a short documentary about the work of Warp Corps

Clay Mutert, Rob’s son and general manager of Warp Corps, said the production began with a random email from Social Enterprise Chicago, an organization that empowers social enterprises to become sustainable and expand their impact.

“It sounded like a really cool organization that had the similar values and makeup as we do,” Clay Mutert said.

His dad agreed.

“The guy came out and met us and it was just go,” Rob Mutert said Michael Hyzy, an SEC board member, filmmaker, author and social entrepreneur from Lake Forest.

The 13-minute short documentary focuses on the work Mutert and his team do through Warp Corps in the battle against heroin and fentanyl overdoses, homelessness and the mental health crisis.

The film has been submitted into 47 festivals and so far earned awards from two festivals in Los Angeles for best documentary short, Hyzy said.

The film can be viewed locally at a private screening at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1, at the Woodstock Opera House. Tickets cost $25 for general admission and $60 for VIP which includes pre- and post-show cocktail hour and priority seating. Tickets are available by visiting Woodstockoperahouse.com.

“The crux of the film is the reality of the opioid epidemic and the mental health crisis in our community and in our country, and our prevention-based approach in combatting it,” Mutert said. “As the social enterprise that we are, we have a mission of social before financial.”

Warp Corps is unique in that it creates its own revenue streams by selling skate gear, custom apparel and coffee “to help fund our mission so we are not dependent on grants to run the nonprofit,” Mutert said.

Though Warp Corps generates income to help its causes, Mutert said donations and grants are still needed.

Mutert said he has hopes to raise enough money some day soon to build a community center to better serve people struggling. He hopes to use the film as a fundraising tool toward that goal.

“We are here to serve society and humanity first,” Mutert said. “But we have an enterprise system that helps us do that.”

Hyzy said he has had his own experiences of losing loved ones to suicide and drug overdoses. He is using this film as a way of illustrating the impact of fentanyl through the lens of Warp Corps. He appreciates Mutert’s innovative, community-focused organization and social enterprise blending business with social impact.

Hyzy was drawn to Mutert’s pro-active approach in using the print business and skate shop – which also is a safe place for teens and young adults to spend time and learn to play musical instruments and create art – to make a living while also supporting those struggling, he said.

When Hyzy first drove out to the shop, it was his first time in Woodstock and it just happened to be Feb. 2, Groundhog Day, and the 30-year celebration of the movie “Groundhog Day,” partly filmed in downtown Woodstock.

When he pulled up, he saw the Historic Square filled with people, some in costumes, gathered for the celebrations, he recalled.

Hyzy said what he expected to be a quick interview in the skate shop for a five-minute piece, lasted a couple of hours, included a visit to a homeless camp where Mutert and his team often check on those sheltered there and repeat visits to shoot B-roll.

The unexpected result was Hyzy’s first, self-directed and produced short documentary.

“This is a powerful story and I have the means to tell it,” Hyzy said he thought, as he decided to produce a longer piece about the work Warp Corps is doing in the community.

Hyzy said he cried many times during interviews talking about fentanyl and how many people it is killing.

Rob Mutert is an “example” for others who have the desire to do what he is doing, he said.

He recalled watching Rob Mutert interact with a homeless addict who came into his shop and treating them the same way he did the next person who walked in.

He watched as a woman came in to buy her son his first skateboard and thought that money probably would go to someone to buy Narcan.

“It is so powerful and Rob and Clay are right in the middle of all of that,” Hyzy said. “Rob is the visionary and Clay is the executioner.”

He said he had no idea how bad the fentanyl epidemic was until meeting Rob Mutert and learning about Warp Corps.

The film also inspired Hyzy to begin his own production company he named Art and Science Productions. He wants to produce and distribute more documentary shorts that “bring awareness to the most pressing issues of our time and the innovators that are thinking outside the box to provide solutions.”

He said he hopes the stories he tells “inspire people to support them or start their own initiatives to bring change.”

Hyzy said he hopes the Warp Corps documentary humanizes “the pressing issue of the fentanyl crisis, an often overlooked problem that is devastating communities through addiction, overdoses, and suicides.”

Mutert began Warp Corps’ mission in the basement of his Woodstock home in 2017 after a young man he knew took his own life. That loss coupled with the increasing deaths from heroin and fentanyl “just motivated me more than almost anything in my life,” Mutert said.

“To say, we could make a difference, we could handle this, we will never be able to stop overdose deaths or suicides but we can create a community ... (where) I feel can reduce these numbers through non-judgement, no stigma and love, and accept them as they are,” Mutert said. “We’ve got to just accept people for who they are and if it is someone struggling, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I don’t judge any of it. If you are part of the LGBTQ community, if you are a homeless person that has a 15-year drug addiction, I love you, we will help you any way we can. We will never stop.”

Andrew Turner, outreach coordinator for Warp Corps, said the organization has helped 96 individuals in the past year “in one way or another.”

A large number of those people were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and with Warp Corps’ help, 41 of the 96 “achieved some sort of stable housing,” Turner said.

Sixty-one, out of the 96, have improved life functions and “are doing significantly better,” meaning they have a better grasp on everyday functioning as an adult, such as acquiring a bank account, reducing or eliminating substance abuse, Turner said.

Mutert said in the past six months they have issued at least 200 doses of Narcan and countless numbers of fentanyl strips. Their work has helped stop a fatal overdose in at least 20 people.

Weekly, Turner said he provides transportation to at least ten homeless individuals.

The film spotlighting the work Warp Corps is doing in the community is “amazing,” Turner said.

“People are struggling in Woodstock, McHenry County, the whole world is struggling right now,” Turner said. “... Anything we can do to ease those (issues) and get more individual support for people facing these issues ... it was a good experience.”