text:
Teen farmers sell shares of produce at Local Farmer Open House | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Jennifer Reinke
March 13, 2013
Prospective customer Katherine Rakowski discusses community supported agriculture with Kennedy Paskel, 16, and Shawnice Marlow, 16. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
For the first time, Young Farmers of Milwaukee sold community supported agriculture (CSA) shares to the public alongside 16 other established CSA businesses at the Urban Ecology Center’s annual Local Farmer Open House.
The group had a successful season last year, required for participation in the annual event, said Nick DeMarsh, Young Farmers co-founder and Groundwork Milwaukee operations manager.
A CSA is a partnership between a farmer and a group of supporters who invest in shares of the farm’s production in exchange for regular deliveries of fresh food throughout the growing season, according to Anne Steinberg, an Urban Ecology Center volunteer involved in organizing the event. In addition to proving business success, the CSAs at the Open House are required to use “organic or sustainable growing practices,” she said.
As a program of Groundwork Milwaukee, Young Farmers supports the organization’s “triple bottom line mission to promote environmental, economic and social well-being,” said Groundwork Executive Director Mary Beth Driscoll. Young Farmers involves a handful of Milwaukee teens managing their own small businesses and overseeing 4- by 8-foot raised-bed garden plots in Kilbourn Reservoir Park, located in the Riverwest neighborhood at North Avenue and Humboldt Boulevard.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“It’s not just local, it’s city-sourced. It’s the true meaning of CSA – the immediate community is supporting its own food system,” DeMarsh reflected. “We’re changing the perspective of what local really is.”
The youth deliver shares to a drop-off site by bicycle, thereby “limiting the carbon footprint,” DeMarsh said. Kennedy Paskel, 16, a returning farmer and sophomore at Vincent High School, 7501 N. Granville Rd., agreed that this was a selling point of his business, as well as “good exercise.”
Each young farmer oversees one or two plots, depending upon experience, and has one customer per plot. Each plot produces the equivalent of a traditional CSA’s half-share and costs $350. A new agreement with Milwaukee Area Time Exchange makes it possible for customers to pay for a portion of their share using time credits earned through hours of service.
Steinberg emphasized the role of CSAs in building relationships between farmers and customers, noting, “It’s really personal with the Young Farmers because they only have one (or two) customer(s) and the customer has a say in what they’re growing.”
Mary Beth Driscoll and Nick DeMarsh prepare a display board for the Local Farmer Open House. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Customers choose from a menu of options based on companion planting – the notion that certain plants grow well with others and share space well, said DeMarsh. There is some flexibility within that scheme.
Young Farmers also is reaching out to restaurants. Last season, Centro Café, 808 E. Center St., bought a share, which consisted of basil and nasturtium, a spicy edible flower. At the end of the season the young farmers were invited to eat dinner there and “taste the fruits of their labor,” said Centro Café Head Chef A.J. Dixon. She said she was motivated to purchase a share because it was good for the youth of the neighborhoods. “It teaches them urban farming and gives them something to do during the summer. It teaches them leadership, responsibility — and growing food is a skill set (people) should know how to do.”
Dixon reported that she was “absolutely a satisfied customer.” Young Farmers accommodated the restaurant’s need for produce to be dropped off twice a week and, she said, “I could tell they were taking very good care and being very attentive to the job they were doing – probably better than most CSAs. The stuff came really clean and it was really beautiful basil.”
“Young Farmers puts ownership of the business in the hands of the youth…the business’ successes and failures are dependent upon their effort,” DeMarsh said. Proceeds from the sale of CSA shares go to the participants.
After high school, Paskel plans to serve in the Navy and then open his own barbershop or restaurant. “I like something being under my control, something I’m in charge of,” he said. He credits Young Farmers with teaching him how to store fresh foods, what they taste like, and where they come from. Even though professional farming isn’t in his plans, he said, “I think it’s something I’ll stick to. I’ll have my own personal garden.”
Although the Young Farmers CSA is only in its second season, Paskel and other participants are building on years of farming experience. Some of the teens had participated in Silver Spring Neighborhood Center’s garden education programs for as many as three years before joining the CSA. DeMarsh had worked with them as a Growing Power outreach employee.
Shawnice Marlow, 16, a returning participant and junior at Morse-Marshall High School, 4141 N. 64th St., said that over the years she and Paskel have learned how to compost with worms, fertilize with worm castings, maintain garden beds, plant, water and harvest. Marlow and Paskel said they’re looking forward to taking on a leadership role and mentoring new recruits this season.
Like other CSA farmers the Young Farmers participants eat the food they grow. Their produce tastes “way fresher” than store-bought food, said Marlow, who plans to become a pediatrician. Learning where “real food comes from” and its impact on health will influence her work, she said. “If my pediatrician job doesn’t turn out like I’m expecting, I’ll fall back on farming,” added Marlow.
After a serving as its fiscal agent last season, Groundwork has taken on Young Farmers as one of its programs. This will “give it the support and structure it needs to do project planning,” said Driscoll. “It dovetailed with our mission so perfectly,” she said. “It [reaches] young people from neighborhoods in need. …Plus we had been wanting to have a project with an entrepreneurial mission.”
Steinberg said one reason the Young Farmers were invited was that “so many people don’t know the good things going on (in the central city) and have negative perceptions. (They’re) sharing their story with people who (may not) know.”
But, she added, “We mostly invited them to succeed and find customers like all the other CSAs.”


text:
8548540619_f362cf4dca_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 12, 2013

source: news-milwaukeenns

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

author: Adam Carr


text:
8548549217_9ef1c6cc6d_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 12, 2013


text:
Thousands risk losing food stamps under Walker proposal | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Brendan O’Brien
March 15, 2013
Clients utilize the Marcia Coggs Center on 12th and Vliet. (Photo by Sue Vliet)
Thousands of Milwaukee residents living in poverty may be required to participate in a job-training program to receive food stamps if a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker is approved as part of the upcoming state budget.
In his 2013-15 biennial budget proposal, the Republican governor calls for FoodShare recipients who are able-bodied, not pregnant and not a parent of a child under 18 to participate in the FoodShare employment and training program.
Under Walker’s proposal, the state would use the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program eligibility guidelines. SNAP, which funds FoodShare, limits recipients who fail to participate in the job training program to three months of benefits every three years.
Sherrie Tussler, the executive director of the Hunger Task Force, is concerned that Walker’s proposal will ultimately create more hunger in the Milwaukee area.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“If people failed to participate and their cases were closed, that would mean they would become completely dependent on charity,” said Tussler, whose organization supplies all of the soup kitchens, homeless shelters and food pantries in Milwaukee County.
According to the governor’s office, 75,878 FoodShare recipients are able-bodied individuals without dependents.
Tussler estimated about 27,000 FoodShare recipients in the Milwaukee area will be impacted. However, she noted that it is challenging to figure out exactly how many people would really be affected.
“The state of Wisconsin has refused to provide us with any other information other than to say that the program will be robust,” she said.
As he stood waiting for a bus near the Coggs Human Service Center, unemployed FoodShare recipient Gregory Jones, 54, said he opposes the proposal because the end result is still a low-paying job that is typically temporary. He’d prefer to find a full-time job on his own.
“You’ve got eat and you’ve got have housing. Getting food stamps is a good thing, but you got to have somewhere to cook the food,” said Jones, who gets $14 in food stamps a month.
Officials in the governor’s office were not available for comment.
Since 2008, Wisconsin has made the employment and training program voluntary. Walker’s proposal would require recipients to participate in a work program at least 20 hours a week, according to a Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau document published in January.
“My workforce development package provides a hand up to those who are able to work—not simply a hand out,” Walker said in a Feb.10 document in which he vowed to earmark $33 million to the employment and training program.
Daryl Wilson, a 41-year-old FoodShare recipient, doesn’t object to the program. “A person has got to want to help themselves,” said Wilson while standing outside of the Coggs Center.
“Some people just take advantage of this sh**,” said Wilson, referring to welfare programs.

author: Brendan O’Brien


text:
8557385517_ebabf7fb06_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 14, 2013


text:
Youth show knowledge at Black Knowledge Bowl | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Social Development Commission
March 15, 2013
Young women and men displayed an impressive range of historical knowledge at the 5 Annual Black Knowledge Bowl.  The daylong event was held at Manpower Group with 14 teams of high school age youth taking part.
The young participants listened to hip hop artist Chico Monolo and storyteller Teju demonstrate how spoken word reflects and influences history and culture.  The youth then worked on cultural projects including collages and spoken word pieces on their own which they later presented to their peers.
The Black Knowledge Bowl also featured a spirited competition between the teams that tested them on a wide range of Black History.  Teams from Riverside High School, the Boys and Girls Club and Madison High competed in the finals. Riverside won the Championship, outlasting in sudden death the defending champs the Boys and Girls Club with Madison High earning the third place trophy.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
The young people showed off a wide range of academic achievement and creativity through the Black Knowledge Bowl and many they couldn’t wait until next year’s event.  The day was organized by the Social Development Commission in partnership with Manpower Group, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, Sam’s Literacy Foundation, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Social Development Foundation, Landmark Credit Union and Cousin’s Subs.  The goal of the Black Knowledge Bowl is to recognize the knowledge and creative achievements of Milwaukee’s young people and encourage their efforts to fully realize their potential.

author: Social Development Commission


text:
BKB_5_31513_308_nns | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Name *
March 15, 2013

author: Name *


text:
Match Day raises $2.8 million for area food and shelter charities | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Brendan O’Brien
March 16, 2013
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Waukesha County Executive Dan Vraka make online donations for Match Day during an event at the U.S. Bank Center on Thursday. (Photo by Brendan O’Brien)
Match Day, an effort to raise funds and awareness for Milwaukee’s nonprofits, surpassed last year’s fundraising total by about $1 million, organizers said.
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation, which coordinated the event, said more than $2.8 million was raised during Thursday’s day-long online fundraising campaign.
“I want to once again thank everyone who took the time to generously donate to help our neighbors through Match Day,” said Ellen Gilligan, president and CEO of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. “It is overwhelmingly wonderful to see the ongoing compassion and commitment of our community to those in need.”
(left to right) Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Ellen Gilligan, president and CEO of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Waukesha County Executive Dan Vraka and the Famous Racing Sausages attend the Match Day event at the U.S. Bank Center on Thursday. (Photo by Brendan O’Brien)
The goal of Match Day is to raise awareness and funds to support the housing and food needs of the poor in the Milwaukee area. A total of 21 organizations that serve the poor in the Milwaukee area will benefit from the funds generated during Match Day.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“For the Salvation Army, every dollar counts,” said Thomas Flatley, operations and logistics manager for the organization. He noted that a $20 donation buys an array of toiletries such as soup, deodorant, toothpaste and shaving cream for an individual at a local shelter.
“We can’t do it without the support of the community,” Flatley added.
Online alone 5,064 individuals donated $1.9 million, easily surpassing the $1.8 million total raised in 2012, the first year of the event.
“Our main goal is to raise awareness of the ongoing crisis for food and shelter throughout Southeast Wisconsin,” said Rob Guilbert, vice president of communications and marketing at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. “When awareness is raised, that fortunately leads to this great outpouring of generosity.”
Another $750,000 came from a matching pool made up of contributions from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Several other organizations and donors also chipped in, including the Brewers Community Foundation, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and the Faye McBeath Foundation.
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation held a Match Day celebration at the Galleria of the U.S. Bank Center, 777 E. Wisconsin Ave. The event was attended by local dignitaries and officials from many of the charities benefiting from Match Day. The event also featured the Famous Racing Sausages, who entertained and posed for pictures.
“This is a wonderful cause … a very noble cause,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said during the event.


text:
8559364607_08210b789c_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 15, 2013


text:
8559364701_bbdc7e81a6_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 15, 2013


text:
Alice’s Garden farmers training project | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Venice R. Williams
March 18, 2013
Alice’s Garden has one dozen different programs and projects, some offered seasonally, and others year-round. The Farmers Training Project (FTP), for high school age youth and adults, teaches cultural farming education, introduces a variety of sustainable agriculture models, provides a grounding in culinary capital and food culture, and teaches economic development through urban agriculture. Upon completing the orientation and basic training, participants will be guided through one of four training tracts, based on interest and skill.
There is no application fee or direct cost to participants who are accepeted into the project.
ADULT APPLICATION DEADLINE IS WEDNESDAY, APRIL10.
ADULT ORIENTATION IS SATURDAY, APRIL 13.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
HIGH SCHOOL AGE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS MONDAY, MAY 6.
Any City of Milwaukee adult resident, high school age through adult, may apply to be a part of the Alice’s Garden Farmers Training Project. If applications and an information sheet are not attached to this email, please contact Venice Williams at venicewb@msn.com.

author: Venice R. Williams


text:
FTP 2013 Adult Application | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 18, 2013
FTP 2013 Adult Application


text:
FTP 2013 High School Application | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 18, 2013
FTP 2013 High School Application


text:
FTP Info sheet | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 18, 2013
FTP Info sheet


text:
NNS follows four diverse seniors through their first year of college | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
March 18, 2013
St. Joan Antida High School seniors Nury Plascencia (left) and Darneisha Virginia (Photo by Sue Vliet)
This is the first in a Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service series about four college-bound high school seniors who are participating in College Possible, a program that provides students from low-income families with coaching and support to get into college and earn a degree. NNS will check in with these students during their transition into college and throughout their freshman year.
St. Joan Antida High School senior Darneisha Virginia, 19, has received acceptance letters from four of the seven colleges to which she applied. She’s still waiting for the results of her applications for financial aid. Those results, and the location of the colleges she’s admitted to, will determine which college she chooses to enter this fall.
Virginia leads a busy life. In addition to high school, where she plays on the  volleyball team, she holds two part-time jobs. She works as a caregiver in an assisted-living facility for seniors in Glendale and as a youth leader in an after-school program at Cass Street School, 1647 N. Cass St.
Admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Plattville, UW-Waukesha, Milwaukee Area Technical College and Mount Mary College, she is waiting to hear from Alverno College, Concordia University-Wisconsin and Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
imported stylesheet
imported stylesheet
Sidebar article image (automatically sized to fit
Sidebar article Header and Link
More than 150 high school seniors from seven Milwaukee Public Schools recently celebrated their graduation and admission to college with College Possible program staff and coaches.
Read More
A Milwaukee native who lives with her mother in Washington Park, Virginia wants to go to a small school and would like to stay in the Milwaukee area.
“I like my environment and I like to stay with the things I know. Also, I applied here because it will be cheaper in state,” she said.
An honor-roll student, Virginia is leaning toward social work in a medical environment, but she said, “Honestly, I’m not very sure because every other week I change what I want to be.”
Virginia said her teachers encouraged her to aim for college. “I pretty much always wanted to go to college because I wanted to be a role model for my younger niece. Also, I always wanted to be the first person to go to college in my family.”
Her mother, a high school graduate who last worked as a school bus driver, was laid off from her job.
Nury Plascencia, a classmate of Virginia’s at St. Joan Antida, would like to major in business and interior design. The second in her family to participate in the College Possible program, Plascencia plans to join her older sister at Mount Mary College this fall.
Plascencia, 18,  and her 20-year-old sister were born in Mexico before their parents immigrated to the U.S. She lives in the Silver City neighborhood with her parents and two younger sisters, who were born in Milwaukee.
Plascencia works for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee after school three days each week and volunteers at school and in the community with the National Honor Society. She played volleyball and soccer throughout high school.
She applied to Mount Mary, Marian University, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Lakeland College. She has decided to attend Mount Mary, which has offered her financial aid covering tuition, room and board for four years. Unlike sister Daesy who lives at home, Plascencia plans to live on campus.
Her parents, who are unemployed but who recently earned their GEDs, never stopped encouraging her to further her education, Plascencia said.
“I want to go to college so I have options … so I can do something I love and to better myself in general,” she said.
Milwaukee School of Languages senior Pa Nou Xiong (Photo by Sue Vliet)
Pa Nou Xiong aspires to become a physician’s assistant and hopes to go to Marquette University. A senior at Milwaukee School of Languages, 8400 W. Burleigh St., Xiong has focused on becoming fluent in Spanish since middle school. She is a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society. The youngest of 10 children, she was born in Milwaukee to Hmong parents who emigrated from Laos.
Xiong’s parents were raised in a traditional agricultural society with no formal education. In Milwaukee, they work as farmers and the family lives together in the Sherman Park neighborhood. Four of Xiong’s siblings graduated from college and two others attended college.
Xiong has been accepted at Marquette University, Mount Mary College, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and UW-La Crosse and is waiting to hear from UW-Madison and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
“I would love to go to Marquette, but I have to see about my financial aid package and whether I can afford it. Otherwise, I might go to Mount Mary,” she said, which offered her a scholarship for 85 percent of the tuition.
The whole process of applying to college has been “nerve wracking and stressful but I’m really excited. I have been working for it for my whole middle and high school career. I really look forward to it,” Xiong said.
Xiong would like to live on campus for the full college experience, to meet more people and to be more independent, she said.
Alexander Hamilton High School senior Peter Khanthavong (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
Peter Khanthavong, 17, a senior at Alexander Hamilton High School, 6215 W.  Warnimont Ave., initially intended to major in computer science. An avid tennis player, he looked for schools with a computer science major and a tennis team. Because he wanted to stay near his family, he applied in state to UWM, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stout, Carroll University and Ripon College.
He has been accepted at all five colleges and hopes to attend UWM but “if I don’t get any financial aid from UWM, I may go to Carroll,” he said.
A member of his school’s Asian Club and DECA, an international organization that prepares high school students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management, he now says he’s undecided about his major.
Khanthavong, the youngest of eight children, lives with his mother and a developmentally disabled brother in his late 20s in the Merrill Park neighborhood. His father passed away in 2011 and his mother, a Laotian immigrant, stays home to care for his brother.
Although all of his five sisters and an older brother attended college, only one was able to graduate. None of them had the advantage of the College Possible program though, and Khanthavong is optimistic that the program’s support will help him manage the workload and other challenges of college.
Though he’s nervous about the financial burden, Khanthavong is excited about entering college. “When I was younger I always heard that college was the place to go if you wanted to get more successful and ahead in life. That’s why I want to go to college,” he said.

author: Andrea Waxman


text:
8549698805_765586f7fa_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 17, 2013


text:
8549699707_2454bd6176_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 17, 2013


text:
8554905257_b898a8167c_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 17, 2013


text:
SDC takes services to a neighborhood | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Social Development Commission
March 20, 2013
A Milwaukee neighborhood will, for one day, become the site for several of the Social Development Commission’s (SDC) busiest programs.  The services will be offered to the public at Integrated Mobile Monday being held Monday, March 25, between 9:00am and 4:30 pm at Greater New Birth Church at 8237 W. Silver Spring Drive in Milwaukee.
The day’s event will feature programs like Energy Assistance and the free tax preparation administered through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.  Attendees can talk to staff about services offered through the Lead Hazard Reduction Assistance program which is administered as a part of SDC’s Weatherization program.  Attendees will also have access to Safelink, the free cell phone and minute’s program offered to income eligible residents.
Individuals wishing to make an appointment to see an Energy Assistance Case Manager should call ahead to the Energy Assistance Hotline at 414-906-2800 and reference Greater New Birth.  They can also learn at that time the documentation they need to bring to the appointment to fill out an application for the program.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
Integrated Mobile Monday is an ongoing effort by SDC to take much needed programs to neighborhoods so residents can more easily access them at one location.  Last heating season, more than 40,000 households were served by Energy Assistance in Milwaukee County and the tax program prepared more than 15,000 tax returns.  The next Integrated Mobile Monday is scheduled for Greater New Birth Church on April 15.


text:
Barrett seeks support for residency requirements from business execs | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
March 21, 2013
Mayor Tom Barrett (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
Taking advantage of a captive audience of 300 business executives, Mayor Tom Barrett urged them to call on their legislators to oppose a provision in the state budget proposal that would end residency requirements for public employees in Milwaukee and other municipalities.
The crowd was gathered at the Pfister Hotel to honor 10 companies and individuals recognized by The Business Journal for their contributions to economic development in the city.
Barrett pointed to the $5 billion drop in the city’s tax base since 2008 and the exodus of public employees in other cities following abolition of residency requirements as the reasons for his stance. The result was “downward pressure” on property values, he said.
Daphne Jones of Malone’s Fine Sausages, Inc. accepts an award from the editor-in-chief of The Business Journal, Mark Kass. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
“The reason that I’m asking you to do this is because quite honestly many of you probably have supported the governor and the Republican legislators. My request is for you to contact them this week and say, first of all, this does not belong in the budget and, second, this should be an issue of local control.”
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
Barrett added that Milwaukee has a lot of challenges that the city looks to the state for help on. “But the one thing that I do not look to the state to do is to hurt this city,” he said.
The crowd was gathered at the Pfister Hotel to honor 10 companies and individuals recognized by The Business Journal for their contributions to economic development in the city.
The winners of the annual Central City Business Awards for 2013 in the small business category were GSI General Inc., 2426 N. 1st St., a building restoration and remodeling company and Malone’s Fine Sausage Inc., 300 W. Walnut St.
Medium-sized company awards were presented to Brewery Credit Union, 1351 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.; Capitol Stampings Corp., 2700 W. North Ave.; La Lune Collection, a rustic furniture designer and manufacturer located at 930 E. Burleigh St.; and Pereles Bros. Inc., a plastic injection molding company, 5840 N. 60 St.
Time Warner Cable, 1320 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., won in the large company category.
Individual awards were presented to Lynda Jackson-Conyers, publisher of the Milwaukee Times weekly newspaper serving the African-American community since 1981; Dan Bader president and chief executive officer of the Helen Bader Foundation for its support of the African American Chamber of Commerce; and Maria Monreal-Cameron, founder and executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin for lifetime achievement advocating for the Hispanic community. Monreal-Cameron plans to retire in September after 24 years of service.


text:
8573646898_c919606924_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 21, 2013


text:
8576655736_db80f4abed_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 21, 2013


text:
Award-winning police officer dedicated to community | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Edgar Mendez
March 25, 2013
Officer Jesus Gloria became the Milwaukee Police Department’s first fully bilingual Community Liaison Officer in 2006. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)
A mother, distraught and mentally unstable waits at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, 433 W. St. Paul Ave., preparing to hop on a train or bus and run away from her kids. Community Liaison Officer Jesus Gloria stays on the phone with the distressed mother until a mobile crisis unit can take her to get help.
Gloria, 36, works in the Milwaukee Police Department’s District 2. He sometimes deals with the worst of the worst situations. But he also sees the best of the best, and when things go wrong, he is in a position to make them better.
Gloria recently was named Community Liaison Officer  (CLO) of the Year by the Milwaukee Police Department during its annual Crime Prevention Awards Ceremony. Gloria’s work in the community includes presentations about bullying and drugs at schools and organizing neighborhood cleanups and graffiti removal projects.
These and other tasks take him block by block across his district. An important component of his job entails getting to know residents and helping them solve problems. Gloria’s biggest challenge is that there is not enough time to help everyone.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“I’m not able to answer the phone or to be there every time they need me,” said Gloria, who added that in a recent two-day period his voicemail had filled and he’d accumulated 161 emails. He says that with a smile, because it means people are reaching out to him.
The Milwaukee Police Department’s District 2 encompasses a 7.2 square-mile area with 87,000 residents. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)
Gloria, born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, became the MPD’s first fully bilingual CLO in 2006 after working the street beat for two years. It’s Gloria’s job to be the “living, breathing personification of the MPD,” according to a statement by Alderman Bob Donovan, who serves parts of the same predominately Hispanic area of the city.
Gloria said his main role is crime prevention. He also connects residents with community resources and organizations. Gloria’s community policing reflects Chief Edward Flynn’s philosophy that the way to fight crime is by increasing collaboration among residents, community organizations and the police.
But community involvement and communication among neighbors is lacking, according to Paul Grippe, president of the District 2 community block watch council.
“In today’s society both parents are working and when they get home they lock the door; they’re not interactive with their neighbors,” Grippe said.
Grippe attends meetings and walks the streets with Gloria, trying to sign up residents as block watch captains or members. Grippe said he and Gloria are trying to change residents’ attitudes toward block watches and to get them to be “true neighbors,” like when he was a kid.
“I grew up on Pierce Street, and if I did something on Sixth Street, somebody would pick up the phone and my mom would know about it by the time I got home,” Grippe said.
Gloria’s charisma helps him to bridge the communication gap, according to Grippe.
“He can really bond with residents,” he noted.
Gloria said that speaking the language overcomes some barriers, but he still struggles to connect with the “unreachables.” He describes them as parents who work two jobs and don’t have time to attend meetings to learn about the work MPD is doing and about community resources. Bringing them to the table is critical to preventing crime, according to Gloria.
“We have around 300 block watch captains now, but just imagine what we could do if we had 1,000.”
Gloria sees neighborhoods such as Clarke Square rising because of community involvement. “I see the changes; I hear from neighbors how years ago it used to be worse there,” Gloria said, referring to longtime residents.
Minerva Santiago-Gomez, who ran the Weed and Seed program in 2006 when Gloria was CLO in District 6, said he was a perfect fit to work with Clarke Square residents. Weed and Seed, an anti-crime initiative that targets high crime neighborhoods across the country, is no longer funded in Clarke Square.
“He understood and was very sensitive to the needs of the community,” said Santiago-Gomez.
She met Gloria when he was a beat cop fresh out of the academy. She also worked with him on a program called “Project Payback,” in which offenders were brought into Clarke Square to remove graffiti and beautify the neighborhood. She considers him a role model, especially for the immigrant and Latino population on the south side.
“He’s an example of a person who emigrated from Mexico, followed his dreams and achieved them,” said Santiago-Gomez.
Gloria’s job is challenging and he knows that not every situation will end positively, but he says he’s gratified by working in the community on a daily basis, helping protect and improve the lives of residents.
To do it, he needs help, Gloria said. “The key is for us to come together and work as one.”

author: Edgar Mendez


text:
8577799840_1d59c028a6_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 24, 2013


text:
8577800306_1c5a6f7601_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 24, 2013


text:
Decade-old TIN program offers home improvement loans in eight neighborhoods | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
March 25, 2013
Homeowner Tanyialisa McDowell is the first applicant to be granted a home repair loan under the Borchert Field TIN program. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
The Targeted Investment Neighborhood (TIN) initiative aims to enhance the quality of life for residents in central city Milwaukee by providing loans and technical assistance to improve and maintain owner-occupied and rental housing.
The TIN program has existed in Milwaukee for more than 10 years, said Sam Leichtling, program director of the Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation (NIDC). There are eight neighborhoods that have been granted TIN status, which lasts for three years. Borchert Field, the newest neighborhood in the program, became a TIN in April 2012.
The program is administered by NIDC, an affiliate of the City of Milwaukee’s Department of City Development. NIDC offers two loan programs in the TINS, the Home Rehabilitation-TIN Loan Program and the Rental Rehabilitation-TIN Loan Program.
Leichtling said that there were several loan applications in the Borchert Field TIN during its first year but McDowell was the only applicant who qualified.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“One of the biggest issues is that if people already have delinquent obligations, whether it’s their mortgages or property taxes, then … they are not in a position to take on additional debt,” he added.
“For those people that are able to do it, our program is very attractive because half the funds are forgiven [after five years in the house] and half is paid back at zero interest,” he said.
The money comes from the federal government’s HOME funds and that is why there is a high level of scrutiny in the application process, Leichtling said.  “We want to always insure that we are good stewards of federal funds, so there (is) some paperwork and documentation that goes along with federal funding, and that can sometimes be perceived as overly burdensome,” he added.
The safeguards are set up to protect borrowers, Leichtling pointed out.
In addition to the financial and credit safeguards, NIDC has technical quality control measures built in to the process, including professional help developing the scope of work before contractors get involved, evaluating contractor bids to see that they are in line with NIDC’s independent cost estimates, and inspecting the work during and after construction, before payments are completed.
Leichtling pointed out that in the Borchert Field area, there has been almost no private lending for mortgages in the past couple of years. “There’s a lack of access to credit that we’re trying to fill through the TIN program,” he said.
NIDC has approximately $900,000 from HOME funds and loan repayments available for home and rental rehabilitation loans this year. It will be distributed on a first-come first-served basis, among the eight TINs.
For a few years more funding was available and the city was able to make loans to qualified applicants outside the TIN areas. This year the program has been scaled back to only the TIN areas and to elderly homeowners outside the TINs, Leichtling said.
“In total, we’ll probably be able to make only slightly more than half the loans we made last year in this program. …It’s a pretty significant reduction in funding,” he added.
Leichtling said he hopes that more people will take advantage of the home and rental rehabilitation TIN loans as they see the projects that people such as McDowell are doing. “That is the goal of the TIN program to begin with. It’s a really beneficial way for people to invest in their homes.”


text:
8552632570_b268b6d475_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 25, 2013


text:
First Borchert Field homeowner gets TIN home repair loan | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
March 26, 2013
Tanyialisa McDowell (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
imported stylesheet
Sidebar article image (automatically sized to fit
Sidebar article Header and Link
The Targeted Investment Neighborhood (TIN) initiative aims to enhance the quality of life for residents in central city Milwaukee by providing loans and technical assistance to improve and maintain owner-occupied and rental housing.
Read More
Tanyialisa McDowell had been thinking about making repairs to her Borchert Field home when good news arrived at her door in the form of a flier. It announced the awarding of Targeted Investment Neighborhood (TIN) status to the 14th Street C.A.R.E.S. block club, covering a T-shaped swath of the North Side including her block.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
The TIN’s Home Rehabilitation Loan Program makes up to $30,000 available to qualified homeowners and up to $15,000 per unit to rental property owners in Borchert Field. Half of the loan amount can be forgiven if certain criteria are met. The balance can be repaid with zero interest.
The flier was distributed by 14th Street C.A.R.E.S.  (recently renamed Borchert Field C.A.R.E.S.). “I knew the time was coming for a renovation project. I was mentally trying to prepare and get my finances together and ask around and do my research. And then [the TIN program] came about. Everything just fell right in place,” McDowell said.
With the help of Dick Haak, a rehabilitation specialist with the city’s Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation (NIDC), McDowell determined that the house’s foundation was in good condition but that she needed to replace the roof and gutters, 12 windows, furnace, garage door and several sinks. The house and garage also needed electrical improvements.
“They tell you what they feel definitely needs to be done. And then you can suggest some other things too. But you only get to borrow so much money and then if it exceeds what you’re allowed, they’re going to do just what they feel really needs to be done,” McDowell said.
McDowell’s heating contractor, RJ Heating & Air Conditioning LLC, installed a new furnace in early March. Work on the roof and gutters will begin as soon as weather permits. She expects all of the work to be completed before summer.
Choosing contractors has been the most challenging task so far, McDowell said.
“To me, that’s the stress of it, getting a good person who’s going to do the work.”
Rather than search on her own, she worked with the city to identify potential contractors. Multiple contractors and sub-contractors contacted her to see the house, discuss scheduling and submit bids. In the end she chose Horizon Enterprises LLC to do all the work except for the furnace.
“[Horizon] won me over,” McDowell noted. “I wanted to get the best price.”
The 1922 house contains several original decorative features, including leaded glass windows. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
Once the loan was approved, contractors were selected and the final papers were signed, McDowell was informed of the amount of her loan payments and the repayment schedule. She must begin making loan payments in May.
McDowell, a certified nursing assistant who works full time, has deep roots on her block. Her three-bedroom bungalow at 3226 N. 13th St. has been in her family for at least 50 years, she said. Her mother grew up there. McDowell and her daughter, then about 8 years old, moved in when McDowell inherited the house from her grandmother in 2001.
Over the years, 11 foster children joined them. The last one, a 9-year-old girl whom she adopted, still lives with her. Her biological daughter remained until she entered Marquette University in fall 2011. In addition, family members from her mother’s side have lived in the house next door since the early 1970s and her aunt still lives there.
McDowell is grateful for the TIN loan and the help she is receiving from NIDC. She said, “It is a wonderful blessing and help. I like that it all can be done at one time and I am so thankful that I was able to qualify.”


text:
8551530863_eeb853867c_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 25, 2013


text:
8551533991_238ae3869f_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 25, 2013


text:
Thousands of pounds of free food distributed to Clarke Square residents | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Edgar Mendez
March 27, 2013
Alexandria Alvarado of Molina Health Care hands out cereal to residents. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)
Undeterred by unseasonably bitter temperatures, hundreds gathered recently at the Milwaukee Christian Center, 2137 W. Greenfield Ave., to take home their share of thousands of pounds of donated food items.
More than 8,000 pounds of food were distributed to about 300 families, according to Ramon Candelaria, director of the Clarke Square Neighborhood Initiative (CSNI). CSNI co-sponsored the food giveaway with Molina Health Care.
The need for basic necessities such as nutritious food and health care is great in the area, according to Elizabeth Benz of Molina Health Care, the largest Hispanic-owned health care agency in the country.
“Just getting through day to day is a challenge for people who are hungry,” Benz said.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
Ebony Pinkard, Terance Brown and Suzette Pinkard said the high cost of food is tough on families with limited budgets. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)
Molina provided information on the health services it offers at the event.  But according to Benz, supplying residents with healthier items to eat such as chicken, turkey and pretzels is another way to serve the community.
“We don’t want to open more claims; we want people to stay healthy,” explained Benz, who said Molina serves more than 86,000 people in Wisconsin and hosts numerous food giveaways and other community events around the state throughout the year.
South side residents Suzette Pinkard, her daughter Ebony and sister Terance Brown considered the health care information a bonus after showing up for the much-needed free food.
The family lives together, pooling resources, according to Ebony. They spend about $250 to $300 bi-weekly on groceries but say their food budget doesn’t go far enough.
“The prices of everything went up; after you buy your meats you barely have more for anything else,” said Suzette Pinkard.
An additional problem for Brown is that she has no transportation and ends up spending most of her food budget buying overpriced items such as a dozen eggs that cost $3 at the nearby corner store.
“By the time I can get a ride there (to the grocery store) my money is gone,” said Brown, who receives Supplemental Security Income.
Tyna Rule, CSNI council president, said many residents of her neighborhood and across the country have no health care, no jobs and often no food. That’s why the event is important in communities such as Clarke Square, she said.
“They need this boost; they need the food to help them get energy, to feel healthy, to feed their children, and they need the information from Molina so that these low-income families can meet their health needs,” Rule said.


text:
8576808233_f7632a3838_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 26, 2013


text:
8577912070_c32b14b62f_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 26, 2013


text:
United Community Center outstanding service at eighth annual volunteer recognition celebration | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
United Community Center
March 29, 2013
The United Community Center has been successful in serving Milwaukee’s south side since 1970 due, in large part, to the strength of our volunteers. Each year, more than 1,000 community members and organizations share their generosity of spirit with us and therefore share in our victories. The eighth annual Volunteer Recognition Celebration on Thursday, March 21 to highlighted some particularly heroic efforts:
Individual Volunteer of the Year – Mary Marks
She is truly an asset to BGCS, and we are all grateful for her time, energy, and giving spirit. Mary has been a remarkable assistance to teachers, students, and parents in the pre-school daily, always exceeding expectations.
Long Term Volunteer of the Year – Catherine Scaffidi
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
Catherine has been an incredible asset who has made significant contributions of time and effort at UCC since 2009. She is a dedicated volunteer that helps with various projects throughout the year such as UCC’s Anniversary Dinner, Latino Arts’ Noche de Gala, Latino Arts performances, and much more.
Mentor of the Year – Glenn Moore
Over the past eight years, Glenn has offered numerous hours of service working with our youth in various programs such as All Stars, Life Changers, Summer Recreation, Safe Nights, and many more. Glenn is a positive, inspirational, and exceptional mentor to our youth and an activist for healthy life choices.
Athletics Volunteer of the Year – Maria Velazquez
The effort and dedication that Maria has offered to the UCC Boxing Program over the years has been remarkable. She truly cares about and shows compassion for all the athletes with whom she interacts on a daily basis.
Corporate Volunteer Group of the Year – Robert W. Baird
Robert W. Baird has continuously supported the UCC through a wide variety of volunteer projects, as well as donations of supplies for those projects, including Read To Me Projects for pre-school students, Adult Day Center Happy Hours with our senior participants, and our annual fundraisers.
University Volunteer Group of the Year – Milwaukee Visionaries Project (MVP)
MVP volunteers have been motivating and inspiring for the participating Bruce-Guadalupe Community School students (middle school and alumni) over the last three years. The volunteers bring a unique energy and dedication each week and strive to share knowledge of video animation and storytelling with our students.
Parent Volunteer Group of the Year – Latino Arts Strings Program Booster Club
For the past eight years, the Booster Club has worked diligently in support of the Latino Arts Strings Program. We are honored by their remarkable dedication and service in helping our young musicians’ dreams come true through extensive fundraising efforts.
UCC Youth Volunteer of the Year – Roberto Zarate
Roberto is truly a strong and dedicated leader, as well as a role model and mentor to younger students.  His constantly upbeat and positive attitude is contagious.  He continues to display incredible commitment to our youth, and we are proud to have this amazing alum give back.
Community Youth Volunteer of the Year – Ben Sampson
Ben, a student at University School of Milwaukee, volunteered in a number of departments in 2012 and has made a great impression. He is a quick learner with a very compassionate spirit and demonstrates maturity while being friendly to everyone with whom he interacts.
Thank you to all of our volunteers for their contributions and enthusiastic efforts, and congratulations to our Volunteer of the Year Award Winners!

author: United Community Center


text:
Milwaukeeans relate to Steinbeck’s social message | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Jennifer Reinke
April 1, 2013
Author-Actor-Educator Paul McComas performs Bruce Springsteen’s stirring “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” inspired by “The Grapes of Wrath.” To his right is a photo of John Steinbeck. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Last year marked the 75 anniversary of John Steinbeck’s classic “Of Mice and Men,” and it’s been more than 50 years since the author passed through Wisconsin on the road trip he chronicled in “Travels with Charley: In Search of America.” Nonetheless, author-actor-educator Paul McComas believes that the relevance of Steinbeck’s message to local social justice issues is as timely as ever.
McComas, a Whitefish Bay native who now lives in Evanston, Ill., highlighted the author’s advocacy and empathy for “the least of these” at the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking in his literary presentation, “Scribe of a Social Conscience: Steinbeck plus 75.”
Through dramatic readings from the aforementioned works, as well as from “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Cannery Row” and “East of Eden,” McComas provided an overview of Steinbeck’s career, which was bookended by two periods of social unrest: the Great Depression and the civil rights movement. McComas also performed Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” inspired by “The Grapes of Wrath.”
The center invited McComas to perform because he engages and challenges audiences to think about themes central to peacemaking through the humanities, said Associate Director Patrick Kennelly.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“Peacemaking is transforming structures and relationships to provide for everyone’s well-being,” he said. “Through this presentation Paul engages the audience to think about how Steinbeck responded to social indignity and along the way invites us to reflect on how we respond to (it).”
Margaret Swedish, director of the Spirituality and Ecological Hope project of the Center for New Creation, reflected on the relevance of Steinbeck’s social message to her career in social activism. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Steinbeck did just that for Margaret Swedish when she was a middle school student, she said. Now director of the Spirituality and Ecological Hopeproject of the Center for New Creation, Swedish recalled early encounters with Steinbeck’s “haunting” vision of poor and working-class characters such as the Joad family in “The Grapes of Wrath” and the workers of Cannery Row.
“It was very vivid and it was a world that, growing up in the suburbs of Wauwatosa, I didn’t know and had no way to see,” Swedish said. “I think we still live in a culture where affluent people have no idea what’s going on in the lives of poor, struggling people. The importance of Steinbeck is to give us a vivid, compelling portrait of the lives of those people – to humanize them for us,” she said.
Swedish, who lives in Bay View, is a social and environmental activist, writer and speaker. She was particularly moved by Steinbeck’s model of solidarity with poor and oppressed peoples by “witnessing to the truth of their situation, and seeing it through the lens of social justice and human dignity…making the poverty and suffering visible in a way that sears the conscience.” This approach, she said, “was the heart of (the) Central America solidarity work” she did for a quarter century.
And, for “poor, struggling people,” Swedish said, “Steinbeck gives them an incredibly dignified image of themselves.”
This is how Billy Malloy, a Marquette University alum and registered nurse at the Wheaton Franciscan St. Joseph Campus, related to Steinbeck. As a student, Malloy volunteered and lived at the Casa Maria Hospitality House, part of the Catholic Worker Movement which aims to realize Christian gospel values through political activism and service to those on the margins of society. Malloy said the Avenues West neighborhood in which Casa Maria is located often received a bad rap from his peers for being unsafe and impoverished.
He found, however, “It’s not always true, and even in some of those less developed neighborhoods there’s community.” Of Avenues West, he said, “The whole neighborhood is a wonderful community and it’s unexpected.”
Added Malloy, “Steinbeck was good at finding those communities in places people didn’t look.” The communities help people to define and place themselves, he said. “So even in places that are relatively disadvantaged, people by working together can make them beautiful and nice to live in – good neighborhoods.”
Rose Herriges stands in front of a wall hanging that McComas pointed out during his presentation. It reads, “Love is found in deeds more than words.” (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Rose Herriges, a Whitefish Bay resident and assistant buyer for The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., said she was “surprised in a good way” by McComas’ emphasis on Steinbeck’s social message. She said she attended because “The Grapes of Wrath” is one of her favorite movies and she has read several of Steinbeck’s books. “I had no idea that the Center for Peacemaking was behind this,” she said.
Herriges appreciated the parallels between Steinbeck’s political activism and recent issues in Wisconsin politics that McComas highlighted. Steinbeck staunchly opposed Republican U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin and the House Un-American Activities Committee for their far-reaching anti-Communist regulations and actions which, according to McComas, “fomented an atmosphere of paranoia and distrust.”
In a 1957 essay published in Esquire, Steinbeck defended playwright Arthur Miller, who was on trial for Communist conspiracy. He wrote, “A law which is immoral does not survive and a government which condones or fosters immorality is truly in a clear and present danger.”
McComas said Steinbeck’s resistance to McCarthyism is “as close as we could get to (his) rebuttal of (the Gov. Scott) Walker regime and its attack on unions.” Steinbeck was a great proponent of organizing, he said.
Bringing it back to present-day Milwaukee, Herriges said, “Pushing aside the labor unions…hurts a lot of people, especially…because we’re a middle-class kind of city and we still have some manufacturing here and people in those kinds of jobs are being dismissed.”
Attendee Louise Cainkar, Marquette University associate professor of sociology and social welfare, said, “Steinbeck dealt with social inequalities, and…the fact that Milwaukee…has neighborhoods that vary widely in housing quality, personal safety and access to healthy food is a symptom of social inequality. If our society had a different approach to human life and human dignity, where it would be assumed that certain fundamentals of life should be of good quality for everyone, then these neighborhood issues would be much less severe.”
While Steinbeck’s fiction writing isn’t generally political, McComas said, the solutions to social problems he posits can be extrapolated into public policies.
“He understood that the personal is political and the political is personal,” McComas said. “In his fiction, he simply tells stories and through his characters political contents invariably come to the surface.”
According to C.J. Hribal, author and English professor at Marquette University, “Steinbeck reminds us through his fiction that the lives of people at the bottom of the social-economic ladder – almost always there through no fault of their own – matter, that their fates matter, that community matters, that we have a responsibility to each other.”

author: Jennifer Reinke


text:
8597706095_e42bb67c9b_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 31, 2013


text:
8598819124_97ff2e4371_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 31, 2013


text:
8598822190_a6c7015aa1_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
March 31, 2013


text:
City looks for ways to jumpstart Bronzeville redevelopment effort | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Mark Doremus
April 2, 2013
The city has offered up 230 feet of frontage on West North Avenue for
redevelopment, but no bids have been submitted for purchasing the property. (Photo by Mark Doremus)
The city of Milwaukee is redoubling its efforts to create an African American cultural and entertainment district along North Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Seventh Street.
Recently the city hired a consultant to interview community stakeholders and come up with a Bronzeville implementation plan. The consultant, Genyne Edwards of WOO Connections, plans to meet with stakeholders this month. She hopes to identify business and community leaders who are willing to lend active support to the redevelopment effort. Edwards has set a mid-summer deadline for delivering a list of suggested action steps to help bring Bronzeville to life.
WOO Connections has begun interviews with key stakeholders and initial themes are emerging, according to Edwards. “There needs to be a development plan for businesses; people have talked about how we might address the vacant and blighted buildings along the North Avenue corridor; they want to see the planning include inter-generational leaders; and they want us to benchmark other cities that have had past successes,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Department of City Development is trying to secure the vacant Garfield Elementary School on Fourth Street, just next door to the boarded-up Black Holocaust Museum, for an African American cultural center that would be an essential component of the new Bronzeville.  City officials hope the museum might be able to reopen in the old Garfield School but the building, which was built in 1887, would require extensive, and expensive, renovation before it could be reopened. So far the city has not yet found an organization that can restore and run the proposed facility.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“All of us would like to see the cultural center tomorrow,” remarked Ralph Hollmon, who chairs the Advisory Committee, during a meeting at the end of March, “but there are some tremendous costs to bringing a building of this age up to date.” Hollmon is president of the Milwaukee Urban League.
Plans to revitalize the neighborhood were formulated by the Department of City Development in March 2005. The idea at the time was to revive the spirit of Milwaukee’s old Bronzeville neighborhood in a new location. The original Bronzeville on Walnut Street was the hub of the city’s African American community, but was bulldozed to make way for urban renewal projects and the Park East Freeway in the 1960s.
Plans for the new Bronzeville included restaurants, taverns, theaters, museums and artists’ studios that would recreate the nightlife and business vitality of the old neighborhood. America’s Black Holocaust Museum, which at one time was drawing 25,000 visitors a year, was to be the centerpiece of the new arts and entertainment district. However, the museum closed in 2008, depriving the area of a crucial tourist attraction. Aside from renovation of a classic building on the corner of Seventh Street and North Avenue, the redevelopment district has not attracted much in the way of new business enterprises.
Alderwoman Milele Coggs, who represents the district that encompasses the Bronzeville project, added that the final choice of a new location would remain with the museum’s board of directors.
“I wouldn’t want to undermine their efforts by suggesting specifically where they should locate,” Coggs stated.  “I have always said I hope to see the return of the museum and hope that return is in Bronzeville somewhere.”
To stimulate private development, the city promised to spend $1.2 million on streetscape enhancements in Bronzeville. It recently installed decorative crosswalks, trashcans, signage and benches along North Avenue.
Last year, the Department of City Development issued a request for proposal (RFP) inviting private companies to buy and develop 230 feet of frontage on North Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets, including a boarded-up brick building dating from 1925. However, there were no takers for the property.
The department expects to issue another RFP for a parcel south of North Avenue and west of Seventh Street, right next to the I-43 north-south freeway. However, Clear Channel Outdoor has a huge billboard on a corner of the site, and the company so far hasn’t agreed to let its corner be included in the parcel to be offered up for redevelopment.
The city has been offering residential lots for one dollar in the area for people who want to build and occupy new homes in the Bronzeville redevelopment zone.  As of last fall, the city had sold six of the bargain home sites. According to Deshea Agee of the Department of City Development, there have been no additional lots sold since then.
An online survey to identify the types of cultural and entertainment ventures that would attract visitors to the Bronzeville redevelopment zone is still open and the public is invited to submit input at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Bronzeville414WI

author: Mark Doremus


text:
photo3-1 | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 1, 2013


text:
photo3-1i | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 1, 2013


text:
Screen-shot-2013-04-01-at-11.14.00-PM | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 1, 2013


text:
Harrison Avenue TIN seeks more loan applicants | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
April 3, 2013
Homeowners Rosalia and Eusebio Salazar sign in at the TIN information meeting at Kosciusko Community Center. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
Representatives of the city and the Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers are urging property owners in the Harrison Avenue Targeted Investment Neighborhood to take advantage of partially forgivable, zero-interest loans to rehabilitate their homes.
Some residents in the Harrison Avenue TIN are reluctant to apply for home rehabilitation loans because they are undocumented immigrants, although that does not automatically exclude them, according to Iris Gonzalez, community engagement specialist for the neighborhood’s partner organization, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers.
Undocumented immigrants may be eligible for the loans, which are made from federal HOME funds, but they are not eligible to receive Social Security numbers, Gonzalez noted. Instead, the Internal Revenue Service issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) for the purpose of filing income taxes. This and a lack of familiarity with the system can make the loan process complicated.
“I think because of the documentation of income and issues with ITINs … we saw some people who were either fearful to move ahead with an application or who just were not going to be strong candidates,” Gonzalez said. But Gonzalez and her team can assist.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“We can help guide them and … try to make a strong application that will show that they have income and they can qualify. Of course, we can’t work magic or lie,” Gonzalez said.
This is the last of three years during which a section of the Lincoln Village neighborhood, bounded by 6th and 10th streets on the east and west and Arthur and Cleveland avenues on the north and south, is designated as a TIN. The area includes about 400 households.
14th District Alderman Tony Zielinski hands out his contact information to neighborhood residents and property owners. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
So far, nine property owners have applied for loans. Of those, one homeowner qualified and has completed a rehabilitation project. Two rental property owners are in the process of applying for loans. Six owners applied and failed to qualify, each for a unique reason. For example, one person had already received assistance through the program and another didn’t have complete ownership of the property, according to Sam Leichtling, program director of the City of Milwaukee’s Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation (NIDC).
Gonzalez said that the Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers and NIDC are trying to encourage more residents and investors to take advantage of the favorable loan terms and technical expertise the city is making available to improve their houses and rental properties.
They met recently with interested residents and property owners at Kosciuszko Community Center, 2201 S. 7th St. In separate English and Spanish-language sessions, NIDC Community Outreach Liaison Vanessa Llanas and Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers staff gave a presentation and a team of experts answered questions about the loan application process, income guidelines, what work can be done, and who qualifies, among other issues.
The meeting was the fifth of its kind in the area, according to Gonzalez. “(After each meeting,) we felt the word-of-mouth effect and we had a lot of referrals of people who had learned about the resources … and then passed it on to a neighbor,” she said.
Leichtling noted that the city may extend the TIN designation for a fourth year if TINs get off to a slow start and then see increased activity toward the end of the third year.
Whether residents who attend the meetings can take advantage of the loans or not, Gonzalez wants them to know that the City of Milwaukee, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers and other community groups are interested in hearing from them about what they need.
She said, “We want this to be a vibrant community that has improvement (and) dedicated resources, and for (the residents) to see us as a constant resource and a constant place to seek out assistance.”


text:
8606009095_cbc335b32d_o | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 2, 2013


text:
z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 2, 2013


text:
Youth on the road to success | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Social Development Commission
April 3, 2013
A group of youth is taking a road trip that may eventually place them on the path to success.
Eight youth from the Social Development Commission’s (SDC) Youth and Family Development program are taking a six day trip to institutions of higher learning.  The Annual Youth College Tour will stop at colleges and universities in Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi.  Visits will include the campuses at Illinois State, Fisk University, Tennessee State, and Jackson State.
During the stops, the young women and men will be able to get a feel for the campuses, class and career offerings, as well as get information on the application process and financial aid.  The trips in the past have been instrumental in inspiring young people to shoot high for their career and life goals.  They have led many participating youth to be admitted to and earn degrees from many excellent colleges and universities.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
One past college tour participant, Atiya, is currently a senior at Rufus King High School in Milwaukee. She wrote after taking part in the 2011 SDC College Tour “With my mom being a single mother…sometimes college seems out of the question, but going on this trip has made my dream of attending college more of a reality.”  Atiya made that dream a reality when she was recently accepted at Marquette University. She plans to attend that school next fall.
To learn more about the many youth programs at SDC including the annual College Tour, go to www.cr-sdc.org/index/Programs–Services/Family-Strengthening/Youth-and-Family-Development-Program.htm.


text:
YFDP_College_Tour_4113_006_e | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Name *
April 2, 2013


text:
SDC competing for federal Head Start grants | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Social Development Commission
April 4, 2013
The Social Development Commission (SDC) Head Start Program was named as one of four possible recipients in Milwaukee County to receive five-year federal program grants.  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the nationwide list of 160 programs selected from hundreds of applicants.
SDC Board Chair Kristina McHenry said “SDC submitted a strong application, reflecting it’s nearly fifty years of providing children in this community with valuable Head Start programming. The Board was confident SDC would be a finalist today and is confident that it will be a finalist at the end of the selection process.”
Interim SDC CEO Hannah Dugan added “The success of SDC’s Head Start is due in no small part to a terrific staff, engaged parents and its effective small class size.”  SDC’s classrooms are capped at seventeen for 3 year old students and fifteen for 2 year olds; other local providers have up to thirty-seven students per classroom.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
The SDC Head Start program assists preschool age children with academic and social skill preparation as well as dental and health screenings.  An elected Parent Council ensures parental involvement and program innovations.  SDC and its delegate agencies serve over 3,000 children or two-thirds of all Head Start children in the County.  The program recently received a positive report from the Head Start Regional Office for a review earlier in 2013 of program practices and procedures.
Even though SDC has not received the final word on funding, it continues its planning and preparations for the end of this school year and for the next school year in September. “The teaching goes on” says Ms. Dugan.
Health and Human Services has started contacting agencies identified as preliminary grantees to start negotiations.  The federal office plans to announce its final grant decision for Head Start Programs by July, after negotiations are complete. In its announcement, HHS listed SDC, Milwaukee Public Schools, Council for the Spanish Speaking and the Next Door Foundation as the Milwaukee County’s preliminarily-selected grant awardees.
To learn more about the SDC Head Start program, visit the SDC website:  www.cr-sdc.org/index/Programs–Services/Education–Training/Head-Start.htm.


text:
Summer camps offer wide variety of options for working parents | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Brendan O’Brien
April 5, 2013
Children participate in the Wacky Olympics tug-of-war during a summer camp offered by the Milwaukee Recreation department last summer. (Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Recreation department)
As Milwaukee begins to turn its collective attention to summertime rituals such as Brewers tailgating and Summerfest, working parents are going through their own ritual of attempting to find somewhere for their kids to be safe and have fun during the summer.
That’s where some local organizations come in, offering summer programming that not only allows parents to keep their work schedule, but keeps kids cared for and engaged.
One such organization is the Milwaukee Recreation department, which offers eight-week Summer Recreation Enrichment Camps throughout the summer. The all-day camps, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., feature themed weeks, field trips, games and educational activities for children 3 to 12 years old.
“We have an emphasis on fun and games, but we also do enrichment and try to keep kids thinking throughout the summer,” said Brian Hoffer, assistant supervisor at the Milwaukee Recreation department, which is a part of Milwaukee Public Schools.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
The camps are held at half a dozen locations throughout the city. The rate is $80 per week per child and those who qualify for the Wisconsin Shares discount can sign up for a $30 fee.
The department also offers extended summer camp hours, allowing parents to drop off their children at 7 a.m. and pick them up at 6 p.m. if needed.
YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee
The YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee offers a wide variety of all-day camps featuring sports, enrichment and educational opportunities. Camps run from June 3 to Aug. 30 at YMCA sites throughout the metro area.
Many camps run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The YMCA offers free before- and after-care, allowing parents to drop off their children at 7 a.m. and pick them up at 6 p.m.
Camps are available for children between 4 and 17 years old. Camp fees range from $186 to $450 a week per children, depending on the age of the child and the activity.
Scholarships based on camp capacity, demonstrated need and the YMCA’s ability to fund the assistance are offered.
Children use binoculars to bird watch in Riverside Park during summer camp at the Urban Ecology Center in 2012. (Photo courtesy of Urban Ecology Center)
Urban Ecology Center
The Urban Ecology Center offers a range of summer programs for children between preschool and 12th grade. Program activities include exploration, topical educational opportunities and outdoor skill building
“As they explore the natural world together, campers gain outdoor skills and ecological intelligence,” according to the center’s website. “By learning about science and art through fun, outdoor activities, campers will be better prepared for the school year.”
Times and dates of each program vary, with some offered from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
The center offers before- and after- care for $9 a day or $45 a week. At Riverside Park campers can be dropped off as early as 7:30 a.m. and picked up as late as 5:30 p.m. At Washington Park and Menomonee Valley, parents can drop off their kids at 8 a.m. and pick up is as late as 5 p.m
The cost of each program depends on the length of time and the age of the participants.
The programs will be held at Riverside Park, 1500 E. Park Place; Washington Park, 1859 N. 40th St.; and Menomonee Valley, 3700 W. Pierce St.
If your organization offers full-day summer programs for children and teens, please let us know at info@milwaukeenns.org.


text:
8619559645_d666ab4188 | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 5, 2013


text:
8619561285_2ee8c96790_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 5, 2013


text:
Top 5 Tips: How to have a successful ACT test day | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
College Possible
April 8, 2013
As high school students across the country prepare for the upcoming April 13 ACT test date – and Milwaukee Public Schools juniors prepare for the district-wide ACT on April 23 – test anxiety is in the air. Students wonder how to get ready, and parents wonder what they can do to support their children through the standardized testing process. One group of students will go into these testing days feeling especially confident and prepared: College Possible students.
After months of preparing with College Possible Milwaukee, a college preparation and success program for low-income students, the official ACT on April 13 marks the fifth time (yes! you read that right) the program’s 300 juniors will take the 4-hour exam. With the support of the program’s near-peer mentors during two-hour after-school sessions twice a week, and four full-length practice tests over the past eight months, students have devoted more than 160 hours to ensuring a successful score on their ACT exam.
With all of this experience helping students through the ACT process, College Possible students know how to prepare for success on this important college admissions test! Here are our ACT Prep Coaches’ Top 5 Tips for success when taking the ACT this spring:
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
With these tips and the intensive support of our programming, College Possible Milwaukee juniors increased their ACT score by an average of 19 percent last year. Historically, 98 percent of College Possible students have earned admission to college and 80 percent have either graduated or are currently working to complete their college degree.

author: College Possible


text:
Washington Park residents welcome Habitat for Humanity initiative | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Andrea Waxman
April 8, 2013
Garfield Newble was pleased to hear that Habitat for Humanity is focusing on Washington Park, where he has lived for many years. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
Garfield Newble bought his home at 1615 N. 33rd St. in the Washington Park neighborhood 13 years ago. He paid for it with cash. Now the house needs repairs so when he saw a Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity sign and people gathered in an empty lot across the street, he walked over to investigate.
“My house needs siding. I got good credit. Can I get an application?” Newble asked Habitat Executive Director Brian Sonderman.
It was then that Newble, 74, learned that the nonprofit had just announced that Washington Park had been chosen for its first Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. After two years of strategic planning, Habitat and its corporate partners adopted a strategy to focus the organization’s new housing construction and repairs on one neighborhood. Habitat also will work with Washington Park Partners, an alliance of residents, businesses and nonprofit organizations, to incorporate other community-building activities.  The initiative is expected to cost almost $20 million and take approximately five years.
Newble, a father of seven who previously owned and lived in two other houses in the neighborhood, was pleased at the news. “I feel good about Habitat building new houses here. Then we can bring the neighborhood up. Houses like this need repairing. We shouldn’t have to live like this,” said Newble, who volunteered for Habitat years ago.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
According to Washington Park Partners’ Sustainable Communities Director Matt Melendes, “The housing stock in this neighborhood was built between 1890 and 1920, so it’s 90 years to 120 years old. Residents need help fixing up these old assets.”
Neighborhood homeowner Rosalind Cox, a retired postal worker and former member of a U.S. Navy Construction Battalion in Iraq, also welcomes the initiative. “I think it’s wonderful,” said Cox.
Rosalind Cox, a member of Washington Park Partners and resident of the community, addresses the media as Matt Melendes, Washington Park Partners’ Sustainable Communities director looks on. (Photo by Andrea Waxman)
An active member of Washington Park Partners, Washington Park Neighborhood Improvement District and Neighborhood Leadership Institute, Cox is working with Habitat to plan repairs to her home at 1623 N. 35th St.
Habitat selected Washington Park for the initial Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative because of its strong resident leadership and the interest of its corporate partners, particularly Harley-Davidson whose headquarters is there. Funders include the Harley-Davidson Foundation, Joy Global, Wells Fargo and the Brewers Community Foundation.
Sonderman said he is impressed by the number of residents who are actively engaged in the community. The Washington Park Sustainable Communities Plan “demonstrated to us that they had a vision for what was possible and it was not outsiders coming in and prescribing a solution, but residents themselves identifying what they want to see happen,” he added.
Some areas the initiative will emphasize include financial and home maintenance education and access to community resources.
“The Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative takes Habitat’s model and plugs it into the idea of community development, of all of us collaborating and working together on multiple facets of the neighborhood,” Melendes said.
At some point during the five years, Habitat will begin to explore replicating this model in another neighborhood, Sonderman said. “But for now our focus and our energies are really on implementing this strategy in Washington Park.”
In addition to building 150 new houses, Habitat’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative offers Washington Park homeowners the opportunity to apply for zero interest, partially forgivable loans of up to $15,000 to assist with critical home repairs. The program is aimed at elderly or disabled residents, single parents, veterans and households with five or more permanent residents. Habitat will offer twice-weekly orientation sessions in the neighborhood.
Newble said he plans to apply for a loan.


text:
8620572872_82ab018769 | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 7, 2013


text:
8620573388_fda27fb8f4 | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 7, 2013


text:
Milwaukee Area Time Exchange expands to include those who need it most | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Jennifer Reinke
April 9, 2013
Danell Cross, Metcalfe Park Community Action Team (MPCAT) co-captain; Duril White, MPCAT co-captain; and Debbie Davis, Milwaukee Area Time Exchange executive director, look over a sign-up sheet at a recent potluck dinner. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Yahyal Siddiqu, 23, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome a few years ago, has found support through the Milwaukee Area Time Exchange.
A member since 2011, Siddiqu has banked time credits by helping people move and garden, building shelves at People’s Books Cooperative, gardening at Weber’s Greenhouses, counting ballots at the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and assisting at Time Exchange potluck dinners. In turn, he has redeemed time credits for transportation to an Autism support group and Time Exchange activities, and for attendance at the cinema.
“Timebanking is the sharing of skills and knowledge rewarded by a community currency based on time,” said Debbie Davis, Time Exchange executive director. Participants earn time credits based on hours worked, and can redeem these for other services. “Everyone’s time is valued equally,” Davis said.
Through exchanges, Siddiqu has met other people with disabilities and has been able to discuss living with a disability with people in similar situations, he said. Siddiqu is unemployed and believes the Time Exchange will help him to find work.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
“Each member has connections to different professions. Hopefully one of those connections will be to professions that I’m interested in,” he said. Siddiqu, who describes himself as shy and reserved, has met people with expertise in history, visual arts, law and nature through the Time Exchange.
Yahyal Siddiqu, 23, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, reads a book given to him as a birthday gift by a friend he met through the Time Exchange. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Like Siddiqu, Susan and John Olson, Time Exchange Inclusion Team members, have found support through the organization. Susan Olson has cared for her older brother, John, who has Down syndrome and dementia, since their mother died in 1985. When she learned about the Time Exchange, she knew it was what they needed.
“The biggest issue with people with disabilities is enforced poverty,” she said. As her brother’s caregiver, Olson is compensated by a state program for older people and adults with disabilities. But, she said, “I knew this long-term care plan could not support him.”
John Olson lost his job at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in 2006 when the store at which he worked filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Despite active job searching and services from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and other local agencies, he has failed to find work.
As a member of the Time Exchange, Olson has earned credits by doing office work at Best Buddies and the AFL-CIO, as well as participating in the Inclusion Team and assisting at Time Exchange potlucks. He also has offered to teach rug-hooking lessons.
“It’s always good for people to see that a person with a disability can contribute and be part of the production process for a business,” Susan Olson said.
Another chronic issue for people with disabilities, according to Olson, is that their only contact is with paid caregivers, and they have little choice in who helps them. “How meaningful can your life be when it’s surrounded by people who are paid to support you?” she asked.
When Olson grew tired of cleaning her brother’s bedroom, she couldn’t get his care plan to pay someone for the task. Through the Time Exchange, she found Tina Hulen, a Milwaukee Public Schools early childhood paraprofessional to clean his room monthly.
As the mother of an autistic child, “(Hulen) gets it,” Olson said. Not only does Hulen provide a service, but she and Olson also have built trust and exchanged disability-related information. Hulen earned Time Exchange credits by providing respite so that Olson could attend an overnight conference.
Olson admitted that timebanking has “not only been for John. It’s been for me as a family member. There’s nothing in the long-term care plan that addresses the caregiver.”
The relevance of timebanking to people with disabilities extends to the elderly and other populations reliant on social services.
“There are people who won’t ask for help unless they feel they’ve earned it, especially the elderly.… Just a little help can help elders stay in their home,” Davis said.
With the de-institutionalization of nursing home care and redesign of public services to be more community based, Olson added, complements to the social service system for people with illness, disability, the elderly and those in the criminal justice system will become increasingly important.
“Timebanking augments the social service system – not replaces it,” Davis commented. “(It) uses the social service system more strategically.”
Bregetta Wilson, Children’s Hospital community health navigator for Metcalfe Park, fills out a member application for the Time Exchange with her son, Shyaam Butler, 3. (Photo by Jennifer Reinke)
Like people with disabilities, people living in distressed neighborhoods often face similar experiences of scarcity. Community connections, resources, safety, self-esteem and feelings of empowerment may be in short supply.
“Participation in the market economy (through employment) not only provides purchasing power, it extends our social networks and gives a sense of being valued by our communities,” Davis explained. “People who are elderly, disabled or living in distressed communities are missing out on this opportunity.”
As a Safe & Sound community partner organizer in Metcalfe Park, Erin Dorbin said she met many individuals with talents and skills, but realized they were isolated from their neighbors. “It clicked that timebanking would work…to rebuild trust and investment in the neighborhood,” she explained. Now inclusion coordinator with the Time Exchange, Dorbin is working to bring timebanking to people with disabilities and underserved neighborhoods.
“Timebanking has appeal across income and ability boundaries because we all look for creative ways to share and access resources as well as connect to our neighborhoods,” Davis said. In timebanking, “Every person has social value and every neighborhood is resource-rich.”
Davis and Dorbin shared that message at a potluck dinner co-hosted by the Milwaukee Area Time Exchange, 205 W. Highland Ave., and the Metcalfe Park Community Action Team (MPCAT), which is becoming a Time Exchange member organization. The gathering, which took place at the Dr. Wesley Scott Senior Living Community, 2800 W. Wright St., included residents as well as Metcalfe Park neighbors and Time Exchange members with disabilities.
MPCAT is a resident group working with the Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP), a White House project to support and strengthen neighborhoods. Next Door Foundation, 2545 N. 29th St., is the lead agency for the Metcalfe Park BNCP.
“We can foresee including timebanking in our neighborhood strategic plan,” said Duril White, MPCAT co-captain and executive chef at New Manna Café & Catering. Timebanking coincides with MPCAT’s value of intentional engagement, or purposeful relationship building, he said.
By using timebanking as a community currency, the Time Exchange provides the infrastructure for MPCAT to “develop a neighborhood-based economy that supports all the gifts and talents in (the) neighborhood,” Davis said. As a member organization, MPCAT will also be able to compensate residents with time credits for service to the neighborhood association, she added.
“The timebank is a subset of what MPCAT does,” explained Ted Matkom, Wisconsin Market President for Gorman & Company, a residential and commercial development firm with units in Metcalfe Park. “We want to bridge our tenants—whether living in apartments at the Scott Senior Living Community or in (other) housing—to MPCAT to bring the community back to what it was. We have got to come together as a community so that we don’t live in silos. We’re an intrinsic web,” he said at the potluck dinner.
According to Danell Cross, MPCAT co-captain and BNCP site coordinator with Next Door Foundation, “One of the barriers (in Metcalfe Park) is trust. We would like to use this for the residents to reach out to each other… I believe that we have some awesome people and some awesome assets in this community and we want for them to know that and for other people to know the assets in MPCAT.”
Bregetta Wilson, Children’s Hospital community health navigator for Metcalfe Park, attended the potluck and filled out a member application for the Time Exchange. She requested childcare, yoga, meditation, automobile care and foreign language lessons, and said she could offer transportation, advocacy, counseling and tutoring services, among other services.
Although she is an East Side resident, Wilson works in Metcalfe Park and knows it well.
Timebanking, she said, “provides permanency and stability within the neighborhood because of the relationships built. It provides a positive outlook (and) allows people to feel empowered once they start to identify things that (they can do).”
The Time Exchange started the year with 40 members with disabilities and plans to double that in 2013, Davis said, as well as expand its reach in distressed neighborhoods. A second office space will open this month in the Washington Park Library, and The Exchange Gallery, a public art installation through IN:SITE’s “Art on Fond du Lac” initiative, will bring the Time Exchange to a vacant building in Sherman Park early this summer.
The organization currently has a presence in 53 ZIP codes, with membership concentrated in low-income neighborhoods. Twenty organizations—primarily nonprofits—and 750 individuals are members.


text:
8616417275_a466eeb728_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 9, 2013


text:
8617532672_f6c098166b_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 9, 2013


text:
8617537134_ebf58e9ae5_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 9, 2013


text:
Immigration reform rally-goers come home optimistic | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Brendan O’Brien
April 12, 2013
Members of Voces de la Frontera’s Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) group take part in the National Rally for Citizenship in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Voces de la Frontera)
More than 200 Wisconsinites who traveled by bus to Washington, D.C., to take part in a massive immigration reform rally returned home on Thursday with a sense of optimism that the fruits of their labor will result in a path to citizenship for millions.
Joe Shansky, spokesperson for Milwaukee’s Voces de la Frontera, was one of the 245 travelers from Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin. Shansky said the momentum has come to a crescendo for immigration reform that will consist of an accessible, affordable path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people in the United States.
“It’s pretty clear that we are at a critical moment right now,” said a raspy Shansky during a phone interview Wednesday night from a bus heading out of Washington after the National Rally for Citizenship.
“It was a totally successful trip,” he added.
Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing!
Members of Voces de la Frontera pose after meeting with Sen. Tammy Baldwin during a trip to Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Voces de la Frontera)
The group spent Wednesday lobbying for legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship and ending “the devastating separation of families through deportations” during meetings with Rep. Paul Ryan’s and Sen. Ron Johnson’s staff members. About eight members of the group also met personally with Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
“She said that she will make a public statement supporting fair immigration reform,” said Jessy Lopez, an undocumented 17-year-old who met with Baldwin.  “I am really hopeful. I feel our meeting was really good and we accomplished a lot with her.”
Lopez, who attends Carmen High School of Science and Technology, 1712 S. 32nd St. , told Baldwin about her struggles as an undocumented teenager: unable to get a job, internship, college financial aid or a driver’s license.
“She said that our story-telling is the number one tool for people to see our struggles,” Lopez added.
National media outlets reported on Wednesday that a bipartisan agreement on immigration reform had been reached in the Senate. The agreement includes tightening of border security and amnesty for undocumented people who have lived in the United States for 10 years.
The group also took part in the rally on the west lawn of the Capitol, where thousands from around the country demonstrated.
“There was a fever pitch. It was clear that people were very, very happy to be uniting,” Shansky said of the rally. “People have been uniting locally for a long time, but to be able to unite on this level is really unprecedented.”
A demonstration, in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Washington, called for the end of deportation.
“Myself included, there were many people moved to the point of tears,” said Francisca Meraz, a 19-year-old Milwaukee native who attends Marquette University. “It was very powerful.”
Meraz, whose father became a United State citizen in 2000, described her extended family as “mixed-status.”
“It’s been really difficult with family members passing away in Mexico and family not being able to go and parents never getting to meet their grandchildren,” Meraz said. Immigration reform “would make a huge difference in the dynamics of our lives.”
Voces de la Frontera, 1027 S. 5th St., has been advocating for immigrant rights since 1998. Shansky said the trip to the nation’s capital was the result of a grassroots mobilization focusing on educating the community on immigration reform legislation during the last few months. The effort, he said, will continue until reform legislation is passed.
“We need to continue to put pressure on our elected officials,” Shansky said.


text:
8640885725_9d3c58600f_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 11, 2013


text:
8641987652_863961ea25_z1 | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 11, 2013


text:
8641987652_863961ea25_z | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
April 11, 2013