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This Homeless Shelter Offers Far More Than Just a Bed to Sleep In
BY Elisabeth Wallock
December 22, 2017
On any given night, there are approximately 1,400 homeless men, women and children in Milwaukee, according to the annual Point-in-Time survey conducted by the Milwaukee Continuum of Care. Of these 1,400, about 60 percent of them are male. Unfortunately, of the roughly 1,000 shelter beds available in Milwaukee each night, only about 336 of them are for men.
Housing instability is not the only hurdle these men face. Thirty-nine percent of homeless men suffer from mental illness, 26 percent suffer from alcohol addiction and 22 percent suffer from substance abuse issues. Oftentimes, providing consistent meals and a bed to sleep in isn’t enough for those whose situations necessitate continuous support.
Guest House of Milwaukee, the city’s largest publicly-funded homeless shelter, has taken tremendous strides in providing men with housing opportunities and the resources to achieve sobriety, gain personal independence and learn how to manage their mental health.
At the end of 2016, Guest House launched a Recovery Housing program, which is a subsidiary service of Comprehensive Community Services (CCS). CCS aims to aid people suffering from mental health and/or substance abuse issues by offering resources to establish life skills. Recovery Housing is a more structured program that creates a supportive living situation for men enrolled in CCS. Guest House is the only homeless services organization in the city to become a CCS provider.
In addition, Guest House is the only shelter in Milwaukee with an onsite clinic that offers alcohol and substance abuse and behavioral health counseling services. This gives Guest House a unique advantage in addressing and mitigating many of the perpetuating factors that contribute to chronic homelessness.
With 20 percent of homeless men in Milwaukee having served in the US military, Guest House recognizes that vets often need a transitional housing program. In 2010, Guest House implemented such a program in partnership with the Veteran’s Administration to provide outpatient treatment for Vets.
In 2011, Guest House used 45 raised garden beds on a vacant lot to launch its Cream City Gardens program. Through the program, guests receive job training in the agriculture and green industry while also benefitting from the addition of fresh produce to their meal program.
Perhaps the most unique and potentially life-changing opportunity that Guest House offers is its full-time employment specialist, who meets with guests to provide employment classes, job coaching and assistance in finding jobs and making contact with employers.
“Guest House provides food, shelter, treatment programs, job training and a pathway to permanent housing to help solve both the causes and symptoms of homelessness in Milwaukee,” says donor Paul Eberle. “They have a documented track record of success.”
While Guest House focuses on men, who make up the majority of the homeless population, it also serves women and families in its more than 450 apartments throughout Milwaukee County.
Guest House recently launched a unique fundraising drive on social media, using video testimonials from a variety of local notables who support the organization, including David Lubar and Patrick Dunphy. Elizabeth Brenner, the former president of the Journal Sentinel, served as a consultant on the campaign, which features the camerawork of award-winning Los Angeles-based cinematographer Greg Cooke, formerly of 60 Minutes and the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary.
If you’d like to get involved, you can make a donation or volunteer your time by handing out hygiene supplies, providing meals, teaching an employment class and more.

created: December 22, 2017

author: BY Elisabeth Wallock


text:
Meet 2019’s Miss Black Wisconsin, TeKema Balentine
BY Abby Vakulskas
April 19, 2019
Already a nursing student and high school track coach, TeKema Balentine can now add “royalty” to her resume. The 25-year-old Madison native was recently crowned Miss Black Wisconsin, earning a spot to compete in the national Miss Black USA pageant in August. The title also provides the publicity to raise awareness about a cause of her choosing, one of which is the education gap between white students and students of color in Wisconsin schools. Milwaukee Magazine spoke with TeKema about opportunity, history, and what it means to be a role model.
I grew up in Madison public schools, and I was low-income. I was a smart kid, in a lot of accelerated classes. But I found that once I got to those higher-level classes I didn’t know how to network with my peers. I often didn’t have the same supplies or materials. For example, shadowing your parents at work: my mother worked in retail or didn’t have a job, and it was really hard for me to navigate through the system without having a mentor or really anybody to look up to.
I’m really hoping to get into schools and talk to girls about career goals and where you can find resources. Because we have resources, but I didn’t know how to find them when I was younger. So my goal is to use this pageant to gain publicity and get my voice out there so girls and educators can see there’s someone who’s also pushing for that.
With what I’ve seen, with children who come up to Madison from Milwaukee for the PEOPLE program (UW-Madison’s Precollege Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence) and things like that, it’s a similar situation. They just don’t have these resources at home. And Milwaukee’s so much larger than Madison; I’m sure resources are even more difficult to access. In Milwaukee, you have to search a little bit harder because it’s larger.
Successful Black people and brown people need to make themselves more available and become mentors to these young kids. [One good example is] Sabrina Madison (founder of The Progress Center for Black Women). She’s very popular; she just makes herself accessible. She’s letting women know, ‘Hey, I’m here, do you need anything? Here’s my office, you can come.’ We need more successful brown people to say, ‘Here’s how I got here, and how I can help you to get here.’
I think the history curriculum should change, just a little bit. You can’t learn Black history in one month. You can’t learn Native American history in a week. It’s unfair, and to a brown student, that solidifies in their mind that their history isn’t as important. And for white students, I feel as though it solidifies that their history is what matters and what is important. And it’s all important, and they should all be touched on. But it’s drilled into your mind – what have our white ancestors done? What happened to our Black ancestors? And it shouldn’t be ‘what happened to them’; it should also be ‘what have they done to improve this country? What have they done to contribute to this country?’ It’s hard to want to soak up information that doesn’t feel like it relates to you. So therefore [students of color] lose interest, they fall behind, and they don’t have anybody outside of school that would help them make that connection.
The biggest thing young adults should start to think about is just being true to themselves. And if you have a question, ask. I feel like my biggest mistake growing up was being really timid. I didn’t feel like it was appropriate for me to ask, ‘Well, what about this part of Black history? And what about this part of Native American history?’ I just took what was given to me, and I didn’t have anybody at home to contradict that. Children are curious, and I think if they start to ask questions, challenge their own knowledge and dig a little deeper, they’ll find that it can be really interesting to learn. There are lots of things that they should know about themselves and where they come from.

source: news-milwaukeenns

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: BY Abby Vakulskas


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Here’s the Lineup for Milwaukee’s 3rd Annual Black Restaurant Week
BY Leah Harris
April 11, 2018
Milwaukee Black Restaurant Week is relatively new to the city but the event is making a huge impact. BlankSpaceMKE, an urban art cooperative, will host the event from April 15-21. A variety of restaurants are slated to open their doors and offer special deals to diners who will dig into their mouth-watering, original dishes.
Besides simply widening your taste in cuisine, Black Restaurant Week aims to show the benefits of supporting minority-owned businesses and offers support to entrepreneurs in Milwaukee communities.

author: BY Leah Harris


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Milwaukee Neighborhood Guide: Avenues West
BY Dominic Inouye
July 21, 2017
Just west of downtown, Avenues West runs from 11th to 27th Streets, Highland Avenue to Clybourn Street — or, using the most obvious landmark, it is the northwest quadrant of the Marquette Interchange. This neighborhood has been a study in contrasts since its inception in the late 1800s.
Milwaukee’s elite gravitated west along Spring Street in the 1870s, so many that by 1876 the thoroughfare was renamed “Grand Avenue.” Mansions owned by Cudahy, Plankington, and Pabst contrasted with the Tory Hill homes of the primarily Irish workers of the Menomonee Valley. The city experienced a population boom, money started moving outside the city, and mansions became apartments or multi-family dwellings. The Gothic parish Church, Gesu, arrived in 1894; Marquette became a university in 1907; the Irish began moving to Merrill Park and other residents took their place: Eastern Europeans first, then Latinos and African Americans. When the city expanded farther west during the first part of the century and Grand Avenue became “Wisconsin Avenue,” new institutions like the Ambassador Hotel and the Eagles Club helped keep up appearances, unwittingly or not emphasizing the contrasts. The 1960s construction of the Marquette Interchange cemented Avenues West as a distinct neighborhood, where contrasts co-existed and still do so.
Today, Avenues West is the urban setting of its most well-known institution, Marquette University, which continues to expand its footprint well beyond its original 1881 building at 1004 W. State Street. The new, 750-bed Robert A. Wild, S.J. Commons (pictured) is slated to open this fall. It follows on the heels of an almost two-decade building boom: the School of Dentistry, the John P. Raynor, S.J. Library, the Al McGuire Center, Eckstein Hall’s Law School, Engineering Hall and the Dr. E.J. O’Brien Jesuit Residence. An inflatable dome recently transformed Marquette’s Valley Field into a year-round facility and a new athletic performance research center is planned just east of campus in Westown. Additional plans include a BioDiscovery District and Innovation Alley for the new business school and new recreation facility. Even with all the new additions for their over 11,000 students, Marquette University remains rooted — physically and philosophically — in its urban location, balancing its ability to build a new $96 million dollar residence hall in less than a year and foster in its students an understanding of the community and a dedication to service.
In the surrounding community, residents experiencing poverty or even homelessness are able to find assistance at various organizations. The Milwaukee Rescue Mission provides approximately 300,000 meals, 40,000 items of clothing and over 100,000 nights of shelter each year. Casa Maria Hospitality House currently provides short-term housing for women and children, as well as refugees and asylum seekers. City On a Hill (pictured) works to combat the cycle of poverty with programs targeting the physical, social and spiritual health of youth and families. Finally, Neighborhood House provides a safe space for youth and families, seniors and immigrants, reaching over 4,000 individuals a year with programs as varied as outdoor and environmental education, after-school support, safe sex and personal responsibility and citizenship training for refugees. Together with the Aurora Sinai Medical Center — the last of five major hospitals that congregated in the area during the early 1900s — these organizations are helping alleviate the very real struggles of people in Avenues West.
Where: 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Over a century after the Irish settled at nearby Tory Hill, the Irish community’s culture and arts are still alive in Avenues West. Located in the Grand Avenue Congregational Church building, built the same year as Marquette College and the host church for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first Milwaukee visit, the Irish Cultural Heritage Center of Wisconsin is a hub for Irish culture, arts and genealogical research. Meeting and entertainment spaces in its striking stained glass, wood-beamed interior are available for rent.
Where: 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.
The most well-known remnant of the grandeur of Grand Avenue, the Pabst Mansion became the home of beer baron Captain Frederick Pabst in 1890. Boasting three floors, a full attic and basement, ten bathrooms, fourteen fireplaces, plus a carriage house and greenhouse, the over 20,000-square-foot dwelling still sits atop a little hill, now squeezed between Marquette’s Mashuda residence hall and The Marq luxury student apartments. In 1908, the mansion changed its identity, becoming the archbishop’s residence and the center of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee for the next sixty years. Plans to raze it for a parking lot failed in 1975, and three years later it was opened to the public.
Where: 839 N. 11th St.
If you look closely, you can see it from I-43, tucked away between Wells Street and Kilbourn Avenue. The eclectic Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear highlights Milwaukee’s history during the first half of the 1900s in a way befitting its location: the home and law office of Avrum M. Chudnow, who collected memorabilia until his death in 2005. You won’t find any glass-cased exhibits in this two-story house that Chudnow bought in 1966.  Instead, each room is transformed into a unique environment: the immigrant-run Grafman Grocery Store, the Saxe Brothers Movie Palace (they owned forty-two movie theaters in their heyday), a speakeasy and Dr. Joseph Eisenberg’s clinic waiting room (he was a prior owner of the house). Eighteen exhibits allow visitors to experience Milwaukee’s past through over 250,000 items ranging from the political to fashion to toys and more.
Where: 530 N. 13th St.
While the Haggerty Museum, added to Marquette University’s campus in 1984, houses a rotating display of Italian Renaissance painters and Old Masters, it excels at featuring Wisconsin artists, modern American photography, and exhibits focused on contemporary social issues. Open to the public, the Haggerty’s mission aligns with the university’s: “to inform, strengthen and transform our communities.” To that end, exhibits like the current Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists 2016 continue to delight, perplex, and challenge visitors. The Fellowships support the creation of new work of both established artists and emerging ones. At the exhibit, which runs until September 17, visitors encounter an enlarged frame from emerging artist Rose Curley’s graphic memoir about her transracial adoption. “A Cabin of One’s Own” immerses visitors in Curley’s historical and personal research with two- and three-dimensional representations, artifacts, writing and video.
Where: 639 N. 25th St.
The International Learning Center, quietly operating out of the Central United Methodist Church (you may have noticed the pointy concrete modernism), has prepared, since 1981, over 5,000 adult refugees from Africa and Southeast Asian for their future in Wisconsin. A program of the nearby Neighborhood House of Milwaukee, the Center — run by a mix of Milwaukee Area Technical College and other volunteers — provides literacy and communication skills, citizenship and life skills. Like the other organizations listed earlier, the ILC is always looking for volunteers to work with their eager-to-learn, future Americans.
Where: 753 N. 27th St.
Finally, keep your eyes open for new pop-up galleries showcasing urban designers, community artists, and other creatives at 27th Street’s Mobile Design Box. A community outreach initiative of UWM’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP), this innovative center’s latest gallery (July 21 from 5 to 9 p.m. and July 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) couples the work of black visual artists (Fresh Perspective) with historical preservation (WasteCap). First popping up at the North End, then the Historic Pritzlaff Building, this is the Mobile Design Box’s third location, a conscious choice given Avenue West’s revitalization.
Avenues West is indeed a “Phoenix Rising,” preserving its past but revealing itself more and more as a vibrant community of arts, academics, and community service.
Avenues West has no shortage of good places to eat. First, try Marquette campus standbys like Sobelman’s, Real Chili, Mendy Restaurant–even if you’re not a student. Then head over to Miss Katie’s Diner, which has been dishing up 50s-inspired comfort food for 25 years, or splurge for surf and turf at the 5 O’Clock Steakhouse. However, two establishments that represent the luxurious past and the hopeful future of Avenues West are the Ambassador Hotel’s newly remodeled spaces — The Fitz and Gin Rickey — and the soon-to-be expanding Daddy’s Soul Food & Grille.
Where:  2308 W. Wisconsin Ave.
The Ambassador Hotel wants to transport you back to the 1920s of the hotel’s early days on Wisconsin Avenue. The former Envoy restaurant and lounge have been reimagined as The Fitz — an obvious nod to F. Scott Fitzgerald — and Gin Rickey. The blue, cream and gold color scheme has been transformed into a truly art deco space, with warmer golds, browns and greens; the fancy crystal chandeliers have been replaced with abstract, retro lighting fixtures. Chef Jason Gorman’s menus are inspired by the hotel’s past, serving up rich offerings like scallops cordon bleu and spatchcocked chicken. In the new lounge, patrons can enjoy “pre-Prohibition-inspired artisan cocktails” (including, of course, the Gin Rickey, made with Rehorst gin), small plates like red deer venison meatballs and vegetarian entrees like Gardener’s Pie.
Where: 754 N. 27th St.
Look for an expansion this fall of Daddy’s Soul Food & Grille, which grew from a family catering business almost three years ago into the beloved and therefore busy place that it is today. Even at mid-afternoon on Friday, happy, boisterous customers filled almost all the tables at Daddy’s, located in the SoHi Building (for “South of Highland”), which is helping to activate the revitalization of 27th Street. Black and white photos of the owner’s father, the restaurant’s namesake, mix with local artwork to create a homey feel. The most popular home-cooked order seems to be the $9.99 buffet, which gets you one meat (try the meatloaf or catfish) and three sides (try greens and sweet potatoes, for sure).

author: BY Dominic Inouye


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Milwaukee Neighborhood Guide: Sherman Park
BY Dominic Inouye
August 28, 2017
A nearly 80 percent population increase saw more and more residents — mainly German immigrants — moving north and west of the city and transforming farmland into vital communities.
The city acquired Perrigo Park from its owners and renamed it Sherman Park after the Civil War general William Sherman, completing a triangle of beautiful city parks that included Lake Park and Washington Park.
A new middle class of professionals, business leaders and industrial managers grows, many of whom settle west of their plants, like A.O. Smith, on the 30th Street corridor. According to historian John Gurda, Sherman Park — with its marquee park, new zoning laws that restricted businesses to major streets like North, Burleigh and Center, and the mobility that automobiles afforded — quickly expanded, becoming one of the places to live in Milwaukee.
An influx of Jewish residents from the Haymarket neighborhood just north of downtown began the diversification of Sherman Park.
Six of Milwaukee’s eleven synagogues were located in the area, and Washington High School graduated some of the city’s most well-known public figures, including Bud Selig and Herb Kohl.
African American residents began moving in, making up over 25 percent of the population by 1980. Residents banded together to serve and protect the community, joining the fair housing efforts and preventing the progress of the Park West freeway development. Gurda says that Sherman Park was a close-knit community with “home repair programs,” “soccer leagues” and a “sprawling network of block clubs.”
Deindustrialization, however, caused widespread unemployment throughout the city. This was particularly true for those working at factories like A.O. Smith, many of whom lived in Sherman Park.
The foreclosure crisis resulted in many vacant homes and boarded-up businesses.
(Source: John Gurda, Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods)
So where did that leave Sherman Park? While the urban experiment of Sherman Park suffered a heavy and lingering blow through these crises, organizations like the Sherman Park Community Association (SPCA) have worked for decades to offset these challenges — and still do, along with grassroots efforts like Program the Parks, community organizations like the Boys & Girls Club, social organizations like Common Ground and revitalization efforts from the City of Milwaukee.
With so many churches, synagogues and schools — as diverse as 53rd Street School, Yeshiva Elementary and the French Immersion School — a growing number of businesses and support from within and without, Sherman Park hopes to continue to be . . . a nice place to live.
Check out these Sherman Park businesses if you’re looking to design your home, your body, your company’s branding or your own homemade crafts.
Note: Because Sherman Park is ringed by smaller neighborhoods that are often considered, en masse, as “Sherman Park” — Grasslyn Manor, Sunset Heights, St. Joseph’s and Uptown Crossing to the west, Roosevelt Grove to the North and Metcalfe Park in the southeast — we’ll honor these neighborhood distinctions in the addresses below.
5600 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
Interiorscapes by The Plant Market has taken care of Milwaukee businesses’ plant needs for over 40 years, currently servicing over 600 locations throughout Wisconsin. They recently won the 2017 AmericanHort Design Award for their Spancrete Corporate Headquarters Atrium Redesign and the Pfister Hotel’s Holiday Display. If you’re not a business, don’t fret: on the first Saturday of each month, they sell plants that they’ve switched out from businesses for 50-90 percent off the original cost.
5700 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
For nearly 16 years, Atomic Tattoos & Piercing has offered professional artwork and piercing in its two Milwaukee locations (the other is on the east side), as well as multiple locations around Tampa Bay, Florida. Knowledgeable and supportive tattoo artists and body piercing technicians can accommodate your design needs, questions and concerns at this locally owned and operated organization.
5221 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
According to their website, Barre District “connect[s] with people in our community to make the barre workout the way we change our bodies [and] minds” and “live a healthier lifestyle through strength, flexibility and relationships with one another.” Barre (as in ballet barre) classes mix ballet, yoga and pilates. Their Barrebase classes sculpt the lower body, and the more intense Barrefight blends barre, cardio and tabata (a form of high-intensity interval training, or HIIT).
5330 W. Burleigh St. (Sunset Heights)
The team at Great Impressions Graphics & Printing has been promising and delivering high-quality imaging services for personal needs and company branding, weddings and funerals, birthdays and many other occasions for over 18 years.
5205 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
While Great Impressions can do the work for you, you can also head over to Cloud 9 Workshop a few doors down from Barre District and learn how to create your own “fun and functional crafts from re-purposed and recycled materials.” Fall workshops include classes for tots (ages 2.5-5), kids (ages 6-11), after school, Saturday morning and homeschool Art Club (ages 5-11) and private parties for kids and adults. They even host corporate team-building sessions.
“I know my neighbors,” says John Morgan, who lives with his wife in Sherman Park. “One man works in corrections, one woman is a Vietnam veteran, another retired from A.O. Smith, still others are retired school teachers.”
Morgan and his family moved from their east side apartment in 1975, upgrading to a Sherman Park bungalow. He takes pride not only in the work he did to maintain the character and integrity of his home but also in the fact that his children grew up with a diverse group of neighborhood friends, many of whom attended the Catholic schools nearby.
I spoke with Morgan at the popular Sherman Perk Coffee Shop on Roosevelt Drive, where he and a small group of older men meet weekly for what he calls a “Saturday Breakfast Club.” An army veteran who retired from the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Department, he enjoys the weekly camaraderie and periodic get-togethers at members’ houses or nearby establishments like Square One Art Glass on Vliet Street, where they learned how to blow glass. He still hangs out, too, with the surviving members of the Sherman Perk Raiders, a motorcycle group that would meet, lunch together and organize social rides. “This is what we call ‘community,’” he says.
Mix it up a bit and try a new place for coffee, a light meal and genuine community.
4924 W. Roosevelt Dr. (Grasslyn Manor)
Since 2001, Sherman Perk has occupied a 1939 gas station (in a vintage “Streamlined Moderne” style rarely seen anymore) in the heart of Sherman Park. Owned by a neighborhood resident of almost 40 years and named after the Manhattan coffee shop in the TV show Friends, Sherman Perk is a lovely second home to residents from this diverse neighborhood. Because so many Orthodox Jews live in the immediate area, the owner has made all beverages on the menu kosher, as well as the baked goods (from Le Parve Bakeries) and sandwich fixings (from the Kosher Meat Klub). Local politicians, the SPCA and other community organizations also host meetings at Sherman Perk, “where everybody knows your name” (sorry — mixing up TV shows).
5507 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
Part cafe, part retail store, Sharehouse Goods collects excess goods (they like to call it “stuff”) from the community, then liquidates it online and in the store. Donors — whether individuals or their dozens of partner organizations) receive part of the profit from the sale of old books, CDs, DVDs and other items. As they say, “There’s a lot of sharing going on.” That sharing includes, too, job creation at the store and in their warehouses. And while you’re sharing or purchasing, you can enjoy Stone Creek coffees and baked goods.
4424 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
Their simple and fresh menu changes daily. On one day, for instance, Tricklebee Cafe offered a vegan navy bean and collards soup with sweet potato; a gluten free quesadilla with onions, greens, peppers and pico; and a host of beverages. But the unique parts of this community cafe are that it is locally sourced, mostly green and pay-what-you-can, allowing those with less the dignity of paying with even a quarter and those with more to donate more than the typical $5-6 cost of each meal. Rooted in the Moravian faith tradition, Tricklebee is doing community right in Sherman Park.
Laura Richard, who has lived with her family in Sherman Park for ten years, has written pieces for Milwaukee Magazine about the vitality of the neighborhood.
“The people in this community have creative ideas for starting new businesses, improving homes and investing in kids . . . We aren’t pioneers of this neighborhood, but we have the opportunity to join in with the story like the many people who already have — homeowners and renters; black, white and Hmong; gay and straight. They’ve been here long before our family came. This generation . . . [is] a generation willing to engage people who are different, while looking for creative ways to keep the neighborhood economically and racially diverse. Everyone is invited to the party.”
These are your best bets if you’re a meat lover.
4919 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
A staple on North Avenue for 31 years, McBob’s offers Irish and Scottish fare by the half-pound. Their corned beef and Reubens are consistently rated one of the best in the city, but their Irish meatloaf, eggs Benedict and more American offerings like wraps, tacos and fish fries keep their diverse customer base coming back for more.
4731 W. Burleigh St. (St. Joseph’s)
Everything is kosher at the Kosher Meat Klub, established in 1977. Offering not only fresh meats, bakery, frozen goods and a full line of groceries, they also cater events big and small. Members of the Orthodox Jewish Congregation Beth Yehuda a few blocks west benefit, in particular, from this cultural institution, which operates adjacent to the Black-owned My Barber Shop, which has been in business for almost 17 years.
3525 W. Burleigh St. (Sherman Park)
You might have seen them at your local supermarket, but you can also enjoy these portable “meals in themselves” right in the shop. Since 1956, Reynold’s Pasty Shop has specialized in what used to be, according to their website, “a staple of the southwest England diet that came to Wisconsin when Cornish workers migrated here . . . in search of mining jobs in the 1830s. The pasties would stay warm in their lunch pails.” Their signature Northern Pasty is a mixture of beef, potatoes, onions and carrots pocketed in a homemade dough.
Camille Mays, the Community Organizer for the Sherman Park Community Association that was established in 1971, has lived in the neighborhood for five years. She credits the diversity of Sherman Park for her move.
“We know that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country. But it’s like a breath of fresh air living in a part of the city that isn’t that way. There are old and young, black and white — and it’s not even just black and white. There are so many ethnicities, so much culture and religion — like a melting pot.”
Sherman Park’s diversity is also a positive learning experience, Mays says.
“When you are around so many different people, it causes all of you to be more open. Then there are more people communicating, talking about our different backgrounds. We’re trying to work on coming together constantly.”
Follow the spice to Asia or Jamaica at these three hot spots.
5930 W. North Ave. (Uptown Crossing)
Mekong Cafe offers a dizzying array of Laotian, Thai and Vietnamese dishes, plus a juice bar with fresh fruit boba drinks (or bubble milk, a combination of milk, tea and tapioca pearls). Named after the long river that flows from China through Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, Mekong Cafe’s newly renovated interior immerses patrons in the art and culture of these three countries. Try the lunch buffet, dine in or order out, but be sure to try, for example, their curry egg roll, Laotian larb, Thai pud prik khing or Vietnamese pho — all rich and pungent and as spicy as you can handle.
4120 W. Capitol Dr. (Roosevelt Grove)
Pepperpot Catering offers take-out and catering inspired by the owner’s homeland of Jamaica. Popular items with customers include (surprise, surprise) the spicy jerk chicken (which also comes as an egg roll), curry chicken, oxtails and shrimp and salmon kabobs. They tend to be very busy, so calling ahead is recommended.
4925 W. Fond du Lac Ave. (Grasslyn Manor)
Contending for the best Jamaican fare in Sherman Park is Uppa Yard, which offers similar menu items to Pepperpot. Here, customers rave about the curry chicken, the spicy oxtail and the steamed cabbage side, and most are willing to wait a little longer, since the cooks make many food items upon ordering.
Pamela M. Anderson, a local artist who moved to Sherman Park from Wauwatosa a little over a year ago, was “excited to move into a neighborhood that was really diverse.” While she and her husband love decorating and maintaining their historic home, they are also eager to become more involved in the community at large.
“We’re still exploring,” she says. “We want to support local businesses.” They have found that sociability is practiced by their fellow neighbors. For example, neighbor Laura Richard sent out an email about setting up a lemonade stand one recent hot summer afternoon, and soon the whole neighborhood showed up.
“We chatted into the evening hours on our front lawns,” Anderson remembers. “We also went to our first community meeting with our Alderman and local police. The community is strong because we work together and look out for each other.”
Anderson hopes to eventually harness her art background and get involved in beautification efforts and the arts, perhaps involving youth in the community.
Whether you live in Sherman Park or not, you can help create the Sherman Park you want to see by serving with these change-agents. As Laura Richard (see above) said recently, “As Sherman Park grows, so does Milwaukee.”
3526 W. Fond du Lac Ave. (Sherman Park)
Established in 1971 and instrumental in the fair housing movement and stopping the progress of the Park West freeway, the Sherman Park Community Association continues to advocate for civic improvements, business development and resident communication through block clubs and councils, clean-ups and socials. Different committees conduct an annual housing survey and work to rehab homes and promote home ownership, publish Sherman Park Today!, fund-raise and work on education-related issues. New membership in the Association is encouraged.
Sherman Park
Healthy salads and smores on Sundays. Organized boxing and self-defense courses on Mondays. Chili Tuesdays, Karate Wednesdays, Tutor Thursdays, Friday Movie Night and Saturday Community Cookout. Repeat. Since June 2016, Program the Parks’ Vaun Mayes and Gab Taylor have been almost single-handedly creating a positive presence in Sherman Park and the surrounding neighborhood so area youth have a variety of productive, healthy and educational opportunities. Funded solely through local businesses and donations, Mayes and Taylor extend themselves even beyond the programming, providing rides to work, shoulders to cry on, someone to confide in and, most of all, advocacy.
3000 N. Sherman Blvd. (Sherman Park)
Also serving teens (about 50 this summer), the new 3,130-square-foot teen center at the Mary Ryan Boys & Girls Club (on the northwest corner of Sherman Park) boasts colorful, geometric paint patterns, a new computer lab and game area, plus spaces for theater performance and quiet study. Opened earlier this summer, the $250,000 renovation is almost twice the size of the original center. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee has many volunteer opportunities.
Sherman Park’s middle name is “change” (see history above) — and it’s nothing but resilient.
3536 W. Fond du Lac Ave. (Sherman Park)
The BMO Harris Bank building in Sherman Park will find a new home across the street this fall, while plans to renovate the existing structure are underway. The Sherman Phoenix, being developed by JoAnne Sabir and Juli Kaufmann, will be a spacious and vibrant entrepreneurial hub for more than twelve minority-owned businesses, including Funky Fresh Spring Rolls, Hello Beautiful, Embody Yoga, Buffalo Boss and a second location for The Juice Kitchen, which Sabir owns with her husband Maanaan.
Common Ground’s MKE Rising campaign seeks to rehab 100 foreclosed homes in Sherman Park over four years, making them available to new homeowners with low-interest loans. With over 40,000 members in Southeastern Wisconsin, Common Ground is a citizen action organization that directly addresses social issues such as housing, employment and health care.
4715 W. Center St. (Sherman Park)
The latest creation of muralist Tia Richardson, who calls herself an integrative community artist, was indeed a community undertaking. After two listening sessions where she inquired of residents not what their neighborhood looked like now but where they saw it going, she integrated their responses into the 17-by-56-foot-long mural on the side of a building on 47th and Center. She then invited residents to paint the mural alongside her: the purple vines (representing obstacles), white lilies (hope), Little Free Libraries being placed in the ground (education), homes being lifted up (housing equity) and a bright yellow and orange sun shining across the entire mural. The ribbon cutting for this transformative artwork is September 22, 2017, at 1:15 p.m.


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This Milwaukee School is Churning Out Future Stars
BY Steven Potter
March 16, 2017
To say Amy Pietz is a proud alum of Milwaukee’s High School of the Arts would be an understatement.
“[Going there] was the best decision of my life,” says the longtime actress and graduate of the school’s 1987 class. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.” Although Pietz – who has acted in television shows like “Two and a Half Men” and “Law & Order” and is currently cast in the CW’s “No Tomorrow” – credits much of her on-screen success to the school, it’s not just for the acting skills she picked up there. Instead, she says, the school’s sense of unity made her feel accepted and taught her the importance of diversity and teamwork. It also kept her out of trouble.
“It kept me from looking for thrills in drugs and alcohol because I was stimulated creatively,” she says. “I learned about inequality and discrimination. It made me a better person in so many ways.”
Class of ’08
➞ Broadway actor
Kyle Taylor Parker
The school, which was converted from West Division High School in the early 1980s, has a simple format: Students – who must audition to get in – choose from majors like music, dance, theater, creative writing or visual art. Its more than 900 students spend at least two hours each day working on their arts curriculum, separate from their other coursework.
Milwaukee High School of the Arts is among a handful of similar public and private arts-focused high schools across the state, including The Renaissance School for the Arts in Appleton and Kettle Moraine School for Arts and Performance. For many, it provides direction.
“I was passionate about dance but it was looked at like an extracurricular activity,” says 2007 graduate and choreographer Jade Charon Robertson. “[When I came to the school], I was able to focus on it during the day and that really worked better for me.”
For Robertson, a dance teacher and mentor at a Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club as well as a graduate student at UCLA, it also provided the springboard for her current dance-film project about race and what the arts can add to the dialogue.
Class of ’03
➞ Dancer in Joffrey Ballet
Jacqueline Moscicke
Despite achievements in the arts, the school falls short on academics. In recent years, it has “met few expectations” or worse, “failed to meet expectations” in traditional learning areas, according to the state Department of Public Instruction’s annual assessments. To turn things around, teachers are now targeting English, math, literacy and writing for struggling students with “a lot of interventions and study sessions,” says principal Barry Applewhite. As added incentive, the school will begin offering the AP Capstone college credit program in fall. “We want our academic program to match our artistic one,” he says.
While most students won’t end up with arts careers, the school works “to create students who have an appreciation for the arts but also give them the tools so they can do whatever they would like after high school,” Applewhite says. Many use the school to propel them into other fields. “One of our recent graduates is an excellent trombonist – he used that skill to get into UW-Madison where he’s an engineering major,” he says.
In between high school and fame, over 60 percent of the students take at least some college classes and, he says, “A lot of our visual arts students go to MIAD. A large number of them go to Columbia College down in Chicago or UW-Madison.” Some students, he says, are “aggressively recruited” by historically black colleges. And some alumni, like Nanya El Madyun Wilson, return to the school to pay it forward. He choreographed a performance piece with the school’s students recently before moving to France for a full scholarship at the dance school La Manufacture.
Class of ’06
➞ Designer
Kasia Wisniewski
➞ “It helps you think differently, communicate differently and it introduces you to people from all walks of life,” says jazz singer Lili Kryzanek, a 2009 graduate.
➞ “It helped me cope and handle the stress of everyday life,” says Ryan Butts, a 2009 grad who designs Stacy Adams footwear.
➞ “Before that school, I was just a drummer in my grandfather’s church,” says Shonn Hinton, who attended in the mid-90s and has played guitar for John Legend, Patti Labelle, Mary J. Blige and Lil Wayne. ◆
[Editor’s note: A number of readers have commented that the phrase ‘light on academics’ used to describe Milwaukee High School of the Arts was unfair or untrue.
While we appreciate the dialogue and meant no disrespect, the fact is that the school has repeatedly performed below average and “has ‘met few expectations’ or worse, ‘failed to meet expectations’ in traditional learning areas, according to the state Department of Public Instruction’s annual assessments,” as the article states. Further, principal Barry Applewhite acknowledged the school’s low achievement in the article and noted steps they’re taking to improve, which we included. The article also mentioned that the school will soon offer the AP Capstone college credit program as an additional step toward academic improvement and opportunity.
Readers also found fault with the DPI’s assessment tool, which has long been argued as insufficient in measuring student achievement. Whether or not that is the case isn’t our argument to decide. That assessment is, however, the only measurement used uniformly across the state to track student achievement.]

author: BY Steven Potter


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Milwaukee Students Find Their Footing Through Danceworks’ Popular Mad Hot Program
BY Adam Rogan
January 15, 2019
About 1,400 pupils from 39 Milwaukee-area schools participate in Mad Hot each semester. Classes of up to 36 students meet with a paid teaching artist twice a week for 60-minute sessions, built into their daily curricula.
After 11 weeks, Richter’s classes will have memorized three dance numbers – two tap and one hip-hop – which will be performed at the Danceworks Mad Hot Competition on Jan. 24 in the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. Admission is free.
Despite her love of dance, Richter – who has been a Mad Hot teaching artist for 10 years – believes that the lessons in footwork and technique come secondary to the true purpose of the program.
“These kids come from different racial, social, economic backgrounds. None of that matters when they are dancing,” Richter says.
To make it more democratic, the classroom teachers are required to learn the dances alongside their students. For the kids, watching their teachers fumble through the same moves can be a confidence boost. “It teaches them that it’s OK to take risks,” says Carly Hertel, the principal at St. Martini Lutheran School, which is now in its second year as a partner in the Mad Hot program. “None of them have experience in tap or hip-hop. … They’re all learning something new.”
“At first I was terrified,” admits Amanda Stewart, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Martini. “I was starting from square one with them.”
During practices, Richter provides nonstop encouragement to her students, intertwined with lessons on respect that are so often overlooked in classrooms and at home.
MFIS teacher Cyrille Durand Husting says her fourth-graders “are still in the age of ‘girls can’t touch boys.’” Dancing teaches them to open up to, and interact with, students they might otherwise avoid.
“Boys and girls don’t get along. At the carpet in our classroom, girls don’t want to sit by the boys,” says Jade Marker, a curly-haired fourth-grader. “Now we all dance together.”
Before even making physical contact during the partner dances, the boys must first offer their hands, which the girls must accept. Learning “respectful touching” is a key part of Richter’s strategy.
“It’s teamwork,” she says. “It’s not just learning steps. You can go to a studio for that.”
Sure, their sense of rhythm could use some work, but that clearly isn’t the point here.
“We don’t ask for perfection,” Richter tells her students outright. “We just ask for high energy levels.”

created: January 15, 2019

author: BY Adam Rogan


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The MPS Year of the Arts Comes to a Close
BY LaBreea Walsh
April 20, 2018
Milwaukee Public Schools, in partnership with the Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. and the Summerfest Foundation, Inc., present the MPS All-City Arts Festival May 9-11. This will be the culminating event to MPS Year of the Arts.
Throughout the 2017-2018 school year, MPS Year of the Arts led efforts to unlock the world of art to over 77,000 children in Milwaukee through engaging experiences in classrooms, schools and communities across the city. Students were exposed to a wide range of arts, sampling visual, performing, culinary and literary arts in the form of painting, photography, music, theater, menu creation, flavor profiles, poetry and creative writing, to name a few.
This was all made possible by the host of community partners who provide access to the local art scene and artists from all over the world, built upon MPS’ existing infrastructure and celebrate the artistic talent of Milwaukee’s young men and women.
The festival will celebrate students like Romeo, Elliot, Jocelyn and Lamont who are just a few of the multitude of artists who will showcase the skills they’ve learned over the past year. Other elementary, middle and high school students will perform art in all forms including visual, music, dance, theater and spoken word.
The MPS All-City Arts Festival takes place at Henry Maier Festival Park on Wednesday, May 9, to Thursday, May 10, 10 a.m.-2 p.m; and Friday, May 11, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

author: BY LaBreea Walsh


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How Ossie Kendrix is Going the Extra Mile to Support Milwaukee’s Black-owned Companies
BY Rich Rovito
February 15, 2019
And he’s not done moving. Since becoming president and CEO in April 2017, Kendrix has been devising plans to relocate the chamber from its current home on the sixth floor of a West Wisconsin Avenue office tower. The new location on North Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Bronzeville is expected to open in July and have more working area than chamber’s current 1,300-square-foot office. That’ll make it better able to serve its roughly 225 members.
“I want to move this organization to the neighborhood, where it can be at ground level,” Kendrix says. “My vision is that it will be a hub for entrepreneurs. I’m optimistic that our increased space will allow us to have all of our workshops in-house. Right now, they are all spread out because we just don’t have the space here.”
Kendrix was part of Gov. Tony Evers’ transition team – on the Personnel Advisory Council – and also has worked at Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee’s Office of Small Business Development. At the chamber, he took over for Eve Hall, who now leads the Milwaukee Urban League.
“Milwaukee needs a vibrant African-American business community, and Ossie Kendrix has an important role to play,” says Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. “He brings a sense of community to his role. I am impressed with his ground-up approach to building the organization.”
A Milwaukee native who resides in Halyard Park, Kendrix, 43, knows he has his work cut out for him.
He wants to boost the chamber’s focus on advocacy and support through industry-specific networking events and workshops and by growing a revolving loan fund and expanding a critical entrepreneurial leadership training program called RISE.
He talks of “an investment fund for entrepreneurs”; another priority is convincing business owners to pursue opportunities in e-commerce. “You have to diversify your revenue streams,” Kendrix says. “Not everyone is going to walk through your doors.”
One of the most significant challenges for small businesses owned by African-Americans is access to capital, Kendrix says. “There are often barriers,” he explains. “It could be credit challenges or tax challenges or not having a financial model. We have the technical assistance that can support them and eliminate those barriers.”
When asked about the racial disparity that plagues Milwaukee and its impact on the African-American business community, Kendrix says he “tries not to read into that as much.” Instead, he shifts the conversation to ways the chamber is working to create opportunities for minority business owners. He points to a partnership between the chamber, the Urban League and Local Initiatives Support Corp. that led to the launch of RISE, which serves as a business accelerator for entrepreneurs in underserved neighborhoods and whose aim includes helping to revitalize vacant city-owned storefronts.
Kendrix insists he’s committed to the chamber but readily admits that he doesn’t expect his time there to last more than three to five years. “When you make an impact and have a healthy exit and engage the transition to the next leader, to me that speaks to providing opportunity and being open to the fact that you can get complacent. I don’t ever want to get complacent for an organization that needs the services that we provide.”
Wanda Montgomery, director of community partnerships at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and chair of the chamber’s board, calls Kendrix a “rising executive in our community.”
“I don’t know how long he’ll be at the chamber, but I think we’ll get the best out of him while he’s here,” Montgomery says.
Members including small businesses and corporate members (60 percent), individuals (30 percent), and nonprofits (10 percent)
Employees, with a fifth expected to be hired this year
Annual budget
Share of annual budget from membership dues. Major funders include Bader Philanthropies and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.
Approximate amount raised by the chamber’s signature fundraiser, the Breakfast of Champions

created: February 15, 2019

author: BY Rich Rovito


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MIAD President Jeffrey Morin Wants to Make Art School More Accessible for Future Generations
BY Lindsey Anderson Rios
December 11, 2018
Morin’s parents ran a small gas station near the Canadian border. Morin knew from a young age that he wanted to teach art, and he understood that he’d need to leave his home and enroll in a university to realize that dream.
Today, Morin holds a bachelor’s degree from Temple University and two advanced degrees from UW-Madison. He also maintains an art practice of his own – working on paintings, drawings and art books in addition to overseeing MIAD’s administrative operations. Under his watch, the university has been recognized as a top design school.
We recently sat down with Morin to chat about Milwaukee’s art scene and the value of higher education.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do in kindergarten – I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be a teacher, and I always saw those things as going hand in hand.
My earliest memory in school relates to a drawing. I was working on what was in my mind a very large, very ambitious drawing of a barn. I remember a nun coming by to correct its perspective, and I became so indignant.
For the longest time I’ve known what I wanted to do, and my career has felt like a straight line with very few deviations from it.
Short answer? No. Long answer? I grew up in Madawaska, Maine, in the state’s northernmost county, Aroostook. When people think about Maine, they never think about poverty, because they see the tourism and wealth on the coast, and they don’t think about remoteness. But Aroostook is the largest county east of the Mississippi, with a sparse population and deep pockets of poverty.
My brother and I were the first members of my immediate family to graduate from high school. And I was the first in my family to go off to college. For a lot of reasons my parents were not initially supportive of my studies. I think they were afraid that I would become such a different person that I would no longer fit in the family, and they were suspicious of the application process. I received a full, four-year scholarship, and they could not understand why an institution would give someone four years of free tuition – the idea of getting a scholarship was just so foreign to them. I think they also worried that if I was going to go off to college I should have been studying something more practical than art.
Yes, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And being forced to pay my own way gave me confidence, because I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t owe anyone else as a result of it. I had a full-tuition scholarship, but I still had to figure out how to pay for my own room and board and how to live in a big city like Philadelphia, and I was OK with that.
I was very fortunate. I had a wonderful high school art teacher, Martha Keezer. She was actually the only art teacher in our school system. When she started, I was in the seventh or eighth grade, and I remember walking up to her and essentially saying “You’d better be good at your job, because art is what I want to do with my life.” I don’t know where I got that much cheek, but I remember that encounter clearly.
Martha was a single person in a very remote town and an outsider in an area where people were very conscious of outsiders. I’m sure the experience was isolating for her, but she would absolutely dedicate herself to getting her students into college or putting them on a path toward a career in art. I know that she came in on the weekends, and we worked on my college application portfolio for a year and a half.
I was pursuing a teacher’s certification as an undergraduate, but I had to choose between spending a year studying art history in Italy or completing my teaching practicum. I decided to go to Italy and let the chips fall where they may.
I did my graduate work at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I originally came to the Midwest because I had a great undergraduate advisor who told me to spend my graduate years somewhere I’d never been before, and I’d never really spent time in the Midwest, so I applied to several schools in the area. When I arrived in Madison, I didn’t think I’d be here 30 years later – I assumed I’d move back to the East Coast – but here we are.
Wisconsin definitely feels like my second home now. I love Milwaukee, and I think there’s so much good happening here. People are trying to move the needle, they’re trying to move the city forward, and that’s exciting to see.
Its size and visibility. But, in making that change, we might change some of what’s so great about it – because Milwaukee is an affordable city, and artists are typically looking for inexpensive studio spaces. Look at the Third Ward in the 1980s, for instance. Artists moved in. MIAD moved in. And now there are so many more established art and design spaces in the neighborhood. Art and artists have driven much of the change in the neighborhood.
The process of making things is being automated. The process of designing things is going to be difficult to automate. So I feel confident that the people we educate here are working in a sector that’s secure.
When I introduce people to MIAD, I assume that that’s their preconceived notion: it’s private, it’s non-profit, it’s independent, it has a high published tuition. What people don’t realize is that 44 percent of our students are Pell-eligible, which means they come from lower-income backgrounds. So we have a fairly high level of need, and we work very hard to meet that need. About 25 percent of our students are first generation. And this year, 38 percent of the incoming students identify as people of color.
A college education moves one up and out. To me that’s central to the mission of this school. And when I look at the demographics of the students that we attract, that’s what I think of. We’re one of the top three art schools in the country when it comes to moving graduates from low-income backgrounds to upper-middle-class jobs.
I’ve worked since I was 12. Initially I worked in my parents’ gas station pumping gas. When I turned 16 and could legally work elsewhere I spent a short stint working at a drugstore in town, then I got a job at our local newspaper as a darkroom technician, and eventually as a photographer. From that moment on, I’ve never worked outside of the arts, and I’ve never been unemployed. So personally I’ve also felt that, if one really wants to pursue a career in the arts, it’s always possible to pave a pathway.And when I look at our students and our local creative economy, I see MIAD graduates everywhere. Of the top eight advertising firms in Milwaukee, I believe that 100% of them have MIAD alums. And we’re well represented in the fine arts scene in this city too – Var Gallery was founded by MIAD grads, for instance. We’re a vital part of the creative economy and the creative life of the city.
I definitely try to remain active in the studio. I have three studios at home. One is a letterpress print shop where I make artist’s books. Another is a paper-making studio; once a year I invite a group of people from around the country to join me in the studio, and we spend about a week working intensely on making paper – we produce enough to last each of us the rest of the year. And I have a third studio devoted to drawing and painting.
When I was a faculty member I could produce an artist’s book once a year or so. Now I’m producing one about every four years. But I never want to give the work up entirely.
I completely disagree with that sentiment. If art can’t be taught then what we do is a lie, because we’ve built an entire curriculum around teaching people how to approach the fundamentals of art- and design-making, and I just don’t think that’s true. I would say that about 98% of art and design is teachable. There is a tiny sliver, 2% or so, that’s something else: a drive to create or a unique, idiosyncratic way of thinking. But I know from the years I’ve spent teaching that students, almost across the board, improve dramatically from the first day of any given semester to the last day.
I believe, as an artist, that I’m having a conversation with history. If I decide to do a Saint Sebastian painting, I know that artists have been depicting that subject for centuries, and I can look at their work and ask myself whether, and how, I can bring something new to that conversation. Art can only exist as part of a conversation. In my mind, if I were to hide all of my work away from the world, it wouldn’t be art.
We’re open to the public. We have two galleries that mount beautiful, thoughtful exhibitions that add to the community conversation. And the exhibitions are free.
Also, we’re in the early stages of developing an innovation center that’s going to be very outward-facing. It’s designed to fill three needs. It’ll help our students understand and harness the value of intellectual property. It’ll also be a place to partner with organizations around the community to help them satisfy their design needs. And for the broader public, we’re going to present a lot of information on how to succeed in art and design.

created: December 11, 2018

author: BY Lindsey Anderson Rios


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We Chatted with Will Allen After his Ugly Public Divorce from Growing Power
BY Daniel Simmons
October 9, 2018
When news dropped last November that, after nearly a quarter-century, Growing Power had dissolved in a cloud of unpaid bills and lingering legal action, it stunned many admirers of Allen and his farm. It also raised questions about what’s next.
In the inaugural MilMag Interview, Allen reveals that he’s still doing what he’s always done, where he’s always done it. He also talks goats, the downside of nonprofits, the indignities of aging and how comfort comes from casting about in the man-made pond at his home.
Will Allen: So I’ve been here [at the farm that’s still owned by Growing Power on Silver Spring Drive] every day since January. Seven days a week. We have a farm in Oak Creek and I’m operating that, too. I start my day out there and then I come out here after that. It’s kind of like going back to when I first started. For the first two years, it started out as Will’s Roadside Farm, back in 1993. That was before we became Growing Power, a nonprofit.
Yeah, we have many of our original customers and we have gotten a lot of people to come and volunteer their services. That’s how we’re getting stuff done. Because we have so many volunteers. So many people are so loyal to the mission. Once they found out that I was back, they came to me and said, “How can I help?” So that’s been very refreshing and very helpful.
Ah, I don’t want to. Most farmers lease their property. I owned this for many, many years [before selling it to Growing Power in 2014]. I don’t know that I want to own it again. But I do want to farm here, because this is a historic place. We’re working right now with MSOE [where he is a guest lecturer] to have this declared a cultural, historical place.
Yes, it does. You have to travel miles east and west to get to a grocery store. There’s nothing in this community [for fresh produce] other than here. Where I live in Oak Creek, we’ve got five grocery stores within a mile of my house. That’s always been part of my mission and my family’s mission, to bring healthy food into these people’s lives.
I came from a rural farming background [in Maryland]; most farmers farm until they die. You have to have passion to do this work.
Well, in my mind I can, but of course not. It takes a lot longer to do things I used to do very quickly. In the fall I had some medical issues. I had to get my parathyroid removed. No calcium was going into my bones, so I was having some pretty severe problems. I got operated on in December. And then I had another issue related to that, I had a large stone in my bladder that was the size of an ostrich egg, and I had to get that taken care of. About that time we were going through all of this with the [Growing Power] board kind of disappearing and leaving things in flux.
First of all, they sold all of our goats. We had some heirloom goats that I had started years ago from one goat. His name was Oakley. He was the father, grandfather and great-grandfather of all the goats over the years. And we had up to 60 goats at one point. When the board dissolved, they said, “We’re going to get rid of everything and close down,” they just made a phone call, one of the board members to a sale barn. And somebody came and picked up all of the goats.
Yeah. At that time I was pretty sick. When I came back, they told me that they got rid of the goats. So that was pretty sad, because a lot of people were connected to the goats. It was pretty devastating.
No.
Well, I would’ve told them not to shut the place down because they didn’t even have the skill set to shut the place down properly. They didn’t do their due diligence.
Possibly. I really don’t want to talk about it at this point.
[Editor’s note: Milwaukee Magazine sought comment from several former Growing Power board members. The only member to respond in time, Kate Meyer, declined to comment.]
It was a mostly positive thing. It brought a lot of attention to the movement. I hear from people all the time, either through the trainings or the YouTube stuff, that they got involved in growing food. And it’s in all communities – rural communities, urban communities. That’s been very satisfying, personally.
My whole thing was to inspire entrepreneurs to do this. It’s got to be done by entrepreneurs, because they have to put some skin in the game. And you know how nonprofits are, they change directors, they change directions all the time. I don’t think it works. Are nonprofits necessary? Yes. But I never thought we could sustain it, because we were working with so many different people and funding sources. The grants side of things is the toughest. You have to go out and beg for money all the time, and write proposals. I had to do that and my farming. And that’s not sustainable. Eventually it will catch up to you physically and mentally.
You hear people say, “I started a garden in my backyard and I grew 10 tomato plants. Now I’m a farmer.” No, you’re not a farmer. It’s like somebody saying, “I went to the junior college and now I’m a doctor.” As a farmer you have to go through many years of wondering how to do this correctly. Farming will humble you. It’s an art form. When you’re growing sustainably, and not using chemicals, you have your ups and downs. You have to focus on the things that are growing best and learn how to work around that.
One of the things I’m going to try to work on is to have a master farmer’s degree. I want to get that set up here in Milwaukee, because we really have to develop some true farmers.
I like to fish. I grew up fishing and farming. My father was an outdoorsman. That’s how we spent our time. I didn’t have time to fish [while building Growing Power] so I dug myself a pond and stocked it with lake perch.
I guess a regret is that we didn’t hire better financial people and board, because if you’re a nonprofit you only go as far as your board. We did this for 23 years. That’s a long time in this business at the level we were at. I think, for me, there probably weren’t enough hours in the day.
Archer Parquette contributed reporting to this article.

created: October 9, 2018

author: BY Daniel Simmons


text:
How opioids, meth have forced Minnesota counties to rethink foster care - MinnPost

09/09/2019
Greater Minnesota Newsletter | Everything you need to know about what's happening across Greater Minnesota. Delivered to your inbox Tuesday afternoons.
In 2015, the Minnesota Legislature passed laws to strengthen the state’s foster care system, emphasizing intervention and prevention efforts that might allow children from troubled homes to keep living with their parents.
Similarly, early last year, President Donald Trump signed a federal law that also emphasizes the prevention of family separation through mental health care, parenting programs and substance abuse treatment for parents.
Public officials who work in foster care say it’s the right path to take – though one that many are still trying to navigate.
“We have gotten the message that the answer (to fewer foster care cases) is prevention,” said Nikki Farago, the assistant commissioner of Children and Family Services at the Minnesota Department of Human Services. “But once a child is placed into foster care, that is a deep-end system. When there is lots of trauma, reunification (of child and parents) is not a simple endeavor.”
The movement to reduce out-of-home placements, or limit the time children live in foster homes, has been complicated in many parts of Minnesota by another issue that is sending more children into the system: an epidemic of opioid and methamphetamine abuse.
Last year, according to the Department of Human Services, about 6,700 children and young adults in Minnesota were placed into foster care, bringing the total to about 16,500. The most common reason: Abuse of opioids and methamphetamine, which was behind 32 percent of those 2018 placements. (Allegations of neglect and abuse were the two other leading causes). In 2013, drug abuse accounted for just 17 percent of foster care placements, the agency reported.
Moreover, those children who end up in foster care because of parental drug abuse end up staying in the system longer than other children, taxing social workers and county budgets alike. “We have kids that are continuing in care longer because their parents are working on their sobriety and recovery,” Farago said. “Just given the nature of drug addiction and recovery, it’s a longer process.”
In Minnesota, counties administer foster care with guidance from the Department of Human Services. Counties cover about one-third of the costs related to foster care – largely through support payments to foster families – with the state and federal governments picking up the rest of the tab. In 2015, the Legislature increased foster care funding by $50 million, much of it for counties to provide more and earlier services. The new federal law, meanwhile, could also include financial aid for counties that invest in prevention efforts.
MinnPost took a look at the experiences of three Minnesota counties that are navigating these new foster care realities: tiny Cook County, in the far northeastern corner of the state; northern Minnesota’s Beltrami County, which includes the Red Lake Nation; and Olmsted County, in the more densely populated southeast:
Cook County’s courthouse rises a few blocks from one of the more majestic scenes in northeastern Minnesota: the iconic Grand Marais harbor on the shores of Lake Superior. Inside the sandstone building, Alison McIntyre oversees the county’s Public Health and Human Services Department that, among other things, handles foster care cases.
The county’s location provides some challenges in caring for children who need foster care. For instance, children who need mental health care must be taken to Duluth – 120 miles down the shore – for diagnoses and, sometimes, residential care. Moreover, the county also helps Native American children from the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa Indians, careful to follow federally mandated cultural guidelines.
In recent years, Cook County, with a population of 5,400 people, has been responding to about 100 reports of children in troubling situations who might need to be placed in foster care. In 2018, for example, the county received 101 reports of alleged maltreatment and ended up placing 26 children in foster homes. (Reports come from police officers and social workers, or sometimes from teachers or others who work with children).
Beginning in 2015, in response to the state legislation, Cook County began to beef up its staff to address foster care needs. The county now has a supervisor, two child protection social workers, a mental health case manager and an intake social worker who helps to manage some cases. State funds help to cover the positions.
The number of annual reports the county investigates has risen – from 33 a decade ago to 68 in 2013 to the 101 from last year. About 1,500 staff hours went toward children’s services in 2013; today, that figure has increased to 3,900 hours, according to the agency. Some of the prevention measures include support programs for parents and efforts by the county to work with struggling families voluntarily.
In McIntyre’s view, the changes have brought “stability and depth” to the staff as it works with families. It’s also likely helped to cut expenses; placement costs dropped from roughly $324,000 in 2013 to $221,000 last year.
Some counties have a far different story to tell. Beltrami County in northern Minnesota, which includes the Red Lake Nation, has struggled financially to cover the costs of foster care for the past several years.
County Administrator Kay Mack said she saw a “fiscal cliff” looming on the horizon not long after she was hired seven years ago. She has testified at the Legislature the last two years in support of two measures to ease the county’s financial burden: more money for foster care and changes in the way the tribal government is reimbursed for foster care services.
For the past five years or so, the county has spent about $3 million annually on out-of-home placements, which is about 14 percent of the county’s tax levy, Mack said. The county has had to dip into its reserve account to cover foster care costs, she said.
In 2017, 1,284 children were in the foster care system in Beltrami County, which has a population of about 46,000 people. (The number of foster care cases was split about evenly between the county and the Red Lake Nation).
“The trend line was getting steep and had gotten steeper and steeper and placements were going up each year,” Mack told MinnPost. The police officers and social workers she has talked with estimate that drug abuse is behind 85 percent of the out-of-home placements in the county. “Drug dealers follow poverty,” she said.
The Legislature responded to Beltrami County’s lobbying efforts, approving a $3 million, one-time allotment to help the county with foster care costs and passing a measure to have the state fully fund foster care placements in the Red Lake Nation, relieving the county of those costs.
“We are talking about a sad number of children who are being placed outside of their parents’ homes,” Mack said. “It’s a terrible social cost for these poor children, of course, and then there’s the financial reality on top of that.”
She isn’t sure of the answer. “We can’t levy our way out of this,” she said.
Tiffany Kacir, Olmsted County’s program manager for foster care cases, said substance abuse was behind a third of the county’s out-of-home placements in 2018, complicating how cases are managed. “It presents some challenges for (family) reunification,” she said. “We want to put our full efforts into that, but we know that court timelines, for example, don’t always line up very well with recovery timelines.”
“It can be a pretty short timeframe for someone who has a significant addiction to make progress and reunify,” she added.
Kacir said the county is always prepared to “flex the budget” when substance abuse is involved in foster care cases. “Those kids are in foster care longer to ensure their safety,” she said. “We recognize addiction as a huge challenge to overcome.”
Nearly lost in the discussion of funding and drug abuse is another emerging problem: a shortage of foster care families. As a backup option, Olmsted County must sometimes make use of shelters, for children who are 12 and older, or families that are willing to house children on an emergency basis, generally for one week or so.
In five years’ time, from 2013 through 2018, the number of children in foster care across Minnesota jumped from 11,500 to 16,500, according to the Department of Human Services. The agency promoted the need for foster care families during the month of May, reaching out to potential families through counties and nonprofit organizations and through high-profile events like Twins games. Farago hopes people will answer the call.
“We have 10,000 kids (in the foster care system) on any given day – the highest number that we have ever had,” said Farago, the assistant commissioner. “We are looking for a deep pool of foster parents.”
This report was made possible by a grant from the Otto Bremer Trust. MinnPost’s donors, foundation funders, and corporate sponsors support our work in the belief that promoting greater civic engagement and informed discourse is the surest path to a better Minnesota. They play no role in guiding the journalism produced by MinnPost.
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Hired to help: St. Paul Public Library social worker assists patrons in need - MinnPost

01/14/2019
Sunday Review | Catch up on our biggest stories from the past week. Delivered to your inbox Sunday mornings.
Even though she has more work than any one person can realistically handle, Ruby Rivera would be the first to say that she loves her job.
As the St. Paul Public Library’s (SPPL) first social worker hired to assist families struggling with a range of concerns, Rivera gets to combine her passion for libraries with her desire to roll up her sleeves and help people navigate life’s toughest moments.
A little over a year ago, SPPL announced plans to hire a social worker to support patrons at four of the system’s highest-need branches (Rondo, Sun Ray, Arlington Hills and Rice Street). When she saw the job posting, Rivera was beyond thrilled.
“My first job was working as a page for the New York Public Library,” she said. “I love public libraries. When I heard about this position I thought, ‘This sounds amazing, almost too good to be true.’ It was something I knew I really wanted to do.”
That level of excitement and commitment is just what’s needed for the job, said Catherine Penkert, SPPL director.
“One thing we say a lot here is, ‘The needs of the community show up in the library,” she said. “The library is public space. Whatever is happening in the world shows up here.”
And because today’s world is so troubled, Penkert said, that is reflected in the complex needs of many library patrons. The system’s first social worker needed to be someone who was enthusiastic about stepping forward and offering help, and skilled at making the connections needed for concrete action.
It’s a big job. In recent years, library staff members have reported that patrons have begun to ask for help with problems that they were not been trained to address in library school.
Social concerns like poverty, homelessness, addiction and mental illness are on the rise, and they impact everyday life in the library, from interactions with other patrons to library safety to overcrowding in branch buildings, said Katrina Hartz Taylor, SPPL public services manager.
The idea was that a library-based social worker could provide yet another resource for patrons, a connection to mental health support and a guide for gaining access to appropriate social services. Organizers knew that one person couldn’t fix every problem, but it would be a start.
Rivera, with her commitment to helping others, was the perfect match for the position, Taylor said: “She’s really good at connecting with people. They recognize that she understands where they’re coming from.”
Rivera’s position is full time, Monday to Friday. She has regular office hours in each of the four libraries one day a week. The position is supported by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation; on Fridays, Rivera usually works out of Wilder’s University Avenue office, meeting with her supervisor, completing paperwork and attending trainings.
Each of the four targeted libraries actually has enough work to keep one full-time social worker busy, Taylor said, but Rivera works hard to address as many individual patron needs as possible.
She also consults with library employees so that they can offer help to patrons when she’s not available, and she tries to be flexible with her schedule so that she can respond quickly when a crisis arises at an individual branch.
“Ruby works five days a week,” Taylor said, “but the library is open seven days a week. That means that there are a lot of times when she’s not around.” The staff consultations help library workers feel like they can better address patron concerns when Rivera’s not there, she added: “We need to be able to support her work and support families and make the libraries a safe and welcoming environment.”
Rivera posts fliers listing her open hours at each library, but she often needs to respond to requests for assistance during her off hours.
“I try my best not to answer my phone during my home hours,” she said, “but I do feel like I need to make myself available.” When she sees that a call is coming from one of her libraries on Fridays or during the weekend, Rivera said she picks it up.
“They might say something like, ‘This is happening. We need your help to figure out what to do,’” Rivera said. “When that happens, I’ll do whatever I can to help out. It’s part of the job, and that’s who I am.”
There are people who define themselves as helpers. Rivera is one of them.
“This job is all about helping people right in the community and addressing their needs right where they are,” she said. “It’s a very unique position. It’s a good match for my skills and interests. It’s the kind of work that makes me feel energized.”
Rivera grew up in New York City but left in 2004 to study social work in at the University of North Dakota – Grand Forks. After earning her master’s degree, she eventually moved to Minnesota with her son, working in a variety of social service jobs, including as an Early Head Start home visitor and as a Ramsey County social worker.
She said she finds particular satisfaction in her library job because she gets to provide hands-on help to patrons who just walk in looking for resources.
“I really love jumping in and helping people where they are at,” she said. A public library is a central gathering space that attracts people from all backgrounds. “There are a lot of people who come into a library and need help. I find it incredibly satisfying to be able to help make things better right then and there.”
When she’s helping, Rivera likes to build a personal connection.
“I don’t just want to give someone a phone number and say, ‘This is who you need to call,’” she said. “I want to say, ‘Come in. Sit down. Why don’t you and I call right now?’ Some people are like, ‘You could do that for me? Great.’ It’s that extra helping hand that people need and appreciate.”
Take the woman who came into the Arlington Hills branch looking for help fleeing her abusive partner.
“She told me,” Rivera recalled, “‘I need to get out of this situation. I don’t know what to do. I’m from out of state and I don’t have any family here.’” Rivera jumped into social-worker mode: “We helped her find a place in a shelter and get out of the situation that she was in,” she said. “The shelter people even sent a cab over to pick her up. I stood with her. The staff and I got her some snacks. Then the staff collaborated to get her a bus card.”
If the branch hadn’t had a social worker on duty, librarians might not have known how to help the woman beyond providing shelter phone numbers. Because Rivera understands the system, she was able to get the woman the help she needed right away.
“I like being able to help a person navigate the system and put services in place for them,” she said.
Library staff appreciate Rivera’s commitment to patrons. “When we have an issue where we just don’t know what to do, we call her and she helps,” Taylor said. “Maybe something happens in one of the libraries and we don’t know how to follow up. Ruby helps us work through different strategies, tools and resources.”
Though she works independently much of the time, Rivera said she appreciates her ties to Wilder. “It helps to have colleagues and a supervisor that I can turn to with questions,” she said.
Many of the library patrons Rivera serves struggle with mental illness. She often helps connect to Wilder, explaining the program and the services it offers.
“I can be that middle person and help people understand what it means to have therapy, to walk through the process, help them fill out the referral form and let them know that someone will call them in a day or two,” she said. “I help bridge that gap to services.”
Rivera doesn’t always refer library visitors to Wilder. Sometimes she ends up being the one who provides mental health support and services to patrons.
“A lot of people like to just come and talk to me,” she said. “They don’t have to give me a whole lot of personal information. I don’t even need to know their name, really. They can just come in and say, ‘I’m having difficult time with whatever and one of the staff suggested that you might be able to help.’ I’m happy to do that.”
Rivera has discovered that many of the people she sees prefer this nontraditional approach to mental health care.
“I think this it helps people feel comfortable, because a lot of cultures have a stigma around mental health services, I can help with some of that because I am a person of color. I can say, ‘I know what that’s like. I grew up with the same sort of family where we didn’t seek mental health services.’ People appreciate that level of understanding.”
A good example is a man who visits Rivera nearly every week. The two talk about his life and work to find solutions to his problems. “This gentleman calls it ‘visiting,’” Rivera said.
Rivera is trained to do short-term counseling, so she refers any patron in need of more complex services to Wilder. “I don’t do any diagnosing or assessing,” she explained. “If an individual needs something further than conversation, I would refer them to Wilder for those services. But if someone meets with me once and then asks, ‘Is it OK if I come back?’ I’ll say ‘yes.’ I’m focused on providing the support.”
At the Arlington Hills library, Rivera doesn’t have an office. So when she’s not out in the reading room talking to visitors or out in her car bringing people to appointments, she sets up her laptop at a table in a sunny conference room near the front door.
“People find this space less intimidating,” she explained, smiling warmly. “It makes them feel more comfortable about talking to me when the setup feels a little more casual.”
Rivera’s welcoming approach is intentional, Taylor said; her role extends the library’s larger goal of becoming a trauma-sensitive organization. Many of the people the library serves, especially in the four branches Rivera frequents, have lived stressful, traumatic lives, she explained. When the social worker position was created, the intention was for it to support that work and help turn libraries into places where patrons feel safe and supported.
“We know there are people in our communities who have experienced high poverty and lots of immigration issues,” Taylor said. “They have gone through a lot of traumatic experiences. Our goal as a library is to learn how to be more sensitive to that and to learn how to work with people a little bit better.” Beyond supporting patrons, the social worker’s role is to help library workers learn about trauma-sensitive practices.
Penkert said that SPPL’s approach is part of a larger shift that St. Paul has taken under the administration of Mayor Melvin Carter. “It goes back to something that Mayor Carter once said,” she explained. “He asked, ‘What does it mean to be a city that works for everyone?’ At the library, working for everyone means that whatever the trauma a person has experienced in their lives, when they walk through our doors, library staff will work to be sensitive to their experiences and how it impacts other people around them. That changes how we interact with everyone.”
So far, Penkert said that the social worker project has been “a huge success,” but both she and Taylor believe that there is still much more that can be done.
“This is just a start,” Taylor said. “Ruby’s only been working here for six months. There are a lot more needs out there in the community. We won’t be able to meet all of them with just one person, but we knew we needed to start somewhere.”
Some days Rivera measures her success one patron at a time.
Not so long ago, she helped a homeless teen register for high school. She’d met him in the Arlington Hills library, learned his story when he used a phone in her conference room office, and helped him fill out his enrollment paperwork.
In order to complete his registration, the teen needed someone to advocate for him at the school. “I said I was willing to do that,” Rivera said. She met him at the school and got him signed up for classes. It was a happy story, but Rivera couldn’t get that young man out of her head. She wondered how he was doing, whether he was still going to school, if he’d reunited with his family.
Not knowing if her efforts have paid off is one of the most frustrating things about her work.
“Once a person gets help they don’t call you anymore,” she said. “You wonder what happened to them.”
But then Rivera was on duty at the Rice Street branch library, and the teen walked in.
“I was so happy,” she said. “I’d been hoping that he was OK. He told me he reunited with Mom and was living with her over there now. He was still going to school and doing good.” The young man was visiting the library with a friend.
“He turned to her and said, ‘That’s the lady that got me into the school,’” Rivera recalled. “It felt great. I made a difference in his life. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”
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