Gardeners gently tamp down the soil. (Photo by Shakara Robinson)

Volunteers equipped with garbage bags, gloves and gardening tools gathered at Walker Square Park recently to clean the neighborhood as part of the 6^th annual Basura Bash. Each year the bash is held at a different South Side park.

Hosted by Safe and Sound and Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful, the event allows residents, business owners, community and faith-based organizations, and law enforcement personnel to band together through community improvement projects.

Joe Kubisiak, director of Safe and Sound’s community program, said the idea for Basura Bash came from a similar event in another city.

Volunteers from across the city, including officers from the Milwaukee Police Department, picked up trash, removed graffiti, cut and removed brush, planted flowers and did other landscaping projects in and around Walker Square. They also marked alleys with identification numbers to reduce police and fire response times.

After picking, pulling, digging and scraping, volunteers enjoyed free food and entertainment at the park.

Kubisiak said the efforts are all related to preventing crime.

Volunteers dump wood chips into a garden plot. (Photo by Shakara Robinson)

“When you have graffiti up, it sends a message. Equally, removing that graffiti sends another message,” he said. “The event brings people together to have that conversation about neighborhood safety and taking pride in their community.”

Kubisiak said during the first Basura Bash in 2008, heavy graffiti plagued the area and gang members were visible in the park.

“You don’t see that now,” he said. “I’m not saying the gang issue is obsolete, but it’s not in my face or intimidating private citizens and children who are trying to enjoy the park.”

Safe & Sound was founded in 1998 as an initiative to reduce crime in high-crime, generally low-income neighborhoods through public-private partnerships. Today, Safe Sound operates in 21 City of Milwaukee neighborhoods.

Jose Perez, alderman of the 12^th district, was one of the event’s sponsors. He said it was a success because of the message it sends.

“We need more events like this that clean up the neighborhood and set a standard for what our neighborhood should look like while bringing people together,” Perez said. “This event says we are paying attention and are serious about keeping our neighborhoods clean.”

Carmen Taylor, a staff member at Bryant and Stratton College, brought three volunteers from the school with her, and said she didn’t mind getting dirty for a good cause.

“We deserve it around here because there are so many people that don’t care,” Taylor said. “It’s nice to see people come together to do something to better the area.”

Both Perez and Kubisiak said that between Saturday and next year’s Basura Bash, there are several things residents can do to keep their community clean and safe.

“Communicate through a block watch, neighborhood association and/or police department,” Perez said. “Residents can also communicate through the city, be it their alderman’s office, the Department of Neighborhood Services or the Department of Public Works.”

Kubisiak added that his goal is for every block to hold a meeting and a community-building event once a year. “Come together and talk about issues, then do something visible to let people know.”

Two volunteers fit together the lumber for a raised garden bed. (Photo by Amalia Oulahan)

The people who came out into the hot sun to build a community garden were as diverse as the crops they planted. Pan-African Community Association volunteers, sisters from a 105-year-old African-American sorority, members of a Reconstructionist Jewish congregation, UW Extension representatives and young PACA campers from Eritrea came together to turn a weed-filled plot into a garden of marigolds, herbs, peppers, tomatoes, beans, onions and more.

Community members affiliated with Pan-African Community Association (PACA), Milwaukee’s Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter, Congregation Shir Hadash, and UW Cooperative Extension got their hands equally dirty, working together to build raised planters and sow seeds for a garden on PACA’s campus near 64th and Capitol. The garden will be an integral part of PACA’s youth summer program this year.

PACA provides services to refugees and African immigrants, connecting families to resources for jobs, housing, transportation, medical care, education and other needs. “We work with families from the moment they arrive,” said Michael Grochowski, PACA’s education program director.

“Milwaukee is a pretty strong refugee state because of proximity to Chicago,” said Grochowski. The majority of refugees resettling with PACA’s help are Eritrean or Burmese. The organization’s summer program, Camp PACA, runs weekdays from late June through mid-August. The camp serves about 30 young people between the ages of 4 and 20, who, Grochowski said, “see it as a second home.”

Young girls pull weeds at the edge of the new garden. (Photo by Amalia Oulahan)

This summer—Camp PACA’s second—an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer, arranged through UW Cooperative Extension, will work with the campers, teaching nutrition lessons once per week and gardening with the young people twice per week in the afternoons.

UW Cooperative Extension also helped design the garden, with Horticulture Agent Sharon Morrisey laying out the best placement for crops and a few flowers.

Volunteers from Congregation Shir Hadash acquired the wood—Wisconsin-grown oak—for the planters from Milwaukee’s Bliffert Lumber. Jim Hagen, a civil engineer and Shir Hadash member, drilled holes in the boards and delivered them to the site in advance so the planters could be easily assembled on gardening day.

Hagen said this is the congregation’s fifth annual springtime service project. After previous service projects assisting Community Outing Association (COA), the Jewish Community Center and All People’s Church, the members were ready to take on this project.

“The neatest part about this is you get everybody working together. All parts of Milwaukee,” said Hagen.

Members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority began their commitment to the garden by providing soil from Purple Cow Organics. Over the next three years, they plan to contribute as needed to keep the garden growing.

“We’ll be maintaining, bringing in resources as we’re able, and we’d like to see it expand,” said Khyana Pumphrey, president of Milwaukee’s chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

“I’ve always thought of Milwaukee as a community-oriented community, if that makes sense,” said Pumphrey. “People here don’t mind coming out to help each other.”

According to Pumphrey, seeing members of Alpha Kappa Alpha working alongside PACA volunteers and members of Congregation Shir Hadash demonstrates how positive projects “transcend race and class.”

“Every time I think about it, I feel overjoyed,” said Jeannie Berry-Matos, who is the nutrition education program administrator for Milwaukee County UW Extension. “This is what life is really about. This is how we bring purpose to life, to sustain and build communities.”

Next Door Foundation is donating more than 1,000 pairs of shoes to the Child Protection Center at Children’s Hospital. (Photo by Sue Vliet)

Donated shoes hang from the rotunda in City Hall. (Photo by Sue Vliet)

There is a happy ending for more than 1,000 pairs of children’s shoes that hung in the rotunda at City Hall for the past two months to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect.

The shoes, collected and displayed by “parent ambassadors” at the Next Door Foundation, are being donated to the Child Protection Center at Children’s Hospital.

The “shoe transfer” came about after Milwaukee Police Department officer Carla Lehmann of the Sensitive Crimes Division happened to be at City Hall for a separate event, according to Sara Bauer, parent ambassador supervisor at Next Door Foundation. When Lehmann saw the donated shoes, she realized that they could be put to good use at the Child Protection Center, where she interviews victims.

Next Door Foundation, 2545 N. 29th St., is an education center in Metcalfe Park that works to support Milwaukee children and families. The parent ambassadors all have been affected by child abuse in some way.

Milwaukee County reported 1,068 substantiated claims of child abuse or neglect in 2011.

“This was such a nice outcome to the project,” said Bauer. “We were probably going to donate the shoes to be recycled, but being actually able to give them to children is really exciting.”

Playwriting specialist Fly Steffens is working with a group of students at North Division High School. She challenges them to mine their own thoughts and life experiences for ideas that they might want to write about.

“Prostitution,” says one young woman. “Scars,” adds another.  “Sexual violence,” says a third. “Good,” says Steffens, making it clear that she doesn’t think violence is good, but “it’s a good idea to write about.”

She jots down phrases, words and feelings, finding connections among them and imposing a loose order on the seemingly random thoughts.

Steffens is a Milwaukee Repertory Theatre teaching artist who worked with the North Division students as part of a semester-long program that used theatre to teach them about their neighborhoods. The teaching artists were placed in North Division, 1011 W. Center St., and 14 other area schools by Our Neighborhoods: Past Present and Future, a Milwaukee Rep program that ran for 25 weeks this spring.

Given a chance to express themselves, the students become caught up in Steffens’ enthusiasm, and the images and feelings that tumble forth are as real as the streets of Milwaukee.

“Arguing,” “shooting” and “drug wars” are concepts that come easily to the students’ minds but “churches,” “neighbors,” “friends” and “family” are not far behind.

Steffens is pleased but not surprised by the depth and variety of the narratives the students weave.

“Young people in Milwaukee have really interesting stories and really interesting lives,” Steffens said.

She makes playwriting an energizing group activity, unlike the image many have of the solitary writer agonizing over a manuscript. Authors can write works such as poetry and novels alone, Steffens said. “But writing plays and working on theater is really the form of storytelling that is the most communal.”

Steffens’ belief in these young people is typical of the Rep’s teaching artists.

Teaching artist Fly Steffens jots down students’ ideas for what they might want to write about. (Photo by Alex Perry)

Others, such as spoken word poet Dasha Kelly, came to North Division to share their specialty with the students. Kelly read “Where I’m From,” a gritty rendition of the urban minority experience by poet Willie Perdomo.

Perdomo’s poetry creates vivid images through direct, evocative language and Kelly used his work to inspire North Division’s students to do the same.

Just as Perdomo built his poem from the sights, sounds and sensations of life in New York City, Kelly urged the students to recall their own impressions of growing up in Milwaukee.

For Kelly, her art represents more than self-expression — it is empowerment.

“It’s powerful when you are able to command your own language,” she said. “It’s powerful when you realize that your words mean something.”

Kelly challenged the students to come up with concrete details to describe their neighborhoods. Seemingly mundane and unimportant, these details are the building blocks of what may become powerful poetry.

For Kelly, finding one’s voice is a basic human need.

“The power of the word, the power of being able to get in front of a congregation and raise them to their feet, the power of being able to inspire a group of inmates to think differently, … the power to use your words to make a change or to make a statement or to make yourself whole — we’ve needed that for a long time,” she said.

Student Georgette Moore, a fledgling poet, agreed. “It was inspiring to see that even though we live in this neighborhood, you can still get something out of it.”

Jill Florence Lackey discovered her love for studying and celebrating ethnic groups in America at a young age, after the St. Paul, Minn., native moved with her family to Milwaukee. Her father was an ethnic artist and part American Indian, her mother a German Jew.

“I wouldn’t say my parents were hot on ethnicity, but my father educated me a lot on (it) and he would point out the differences” between various groups, Lackey said.

Now 69, Lackey is the founder of Urban Anthropology Inc. (UrbAn), a nonprofit that celebrates cultural research in Wisconsin and is headquartered at the Old South Side Settlement Museum in the Lincoln Village neighborhood. Earlier this year, she co-authored a photographic history book about the South Side and continues to research ethnic groups.

The book, “Milwaukee’s Old South Side: Images of America,” was published by Arcadia and features 200 photographs and graphics documenting, among other things, the city’s early Polish settlements dating back to the 1840s. Rick Petrie, who succeeded Lackey as UrbAn’s executive director when she retired, is the co-author. Lackey is now UrbAn’s principal investigator.

Petrie said the book displays the area’s rich history. “This is a book that shows that the South Side has always had a lot of different things going on in terms of arts and culture,” he said.

Jill Florence Lackey, founder of Urban Anthropology Inc., has been all around the country, but said Milwaukee will always be her favorite city. (Photo by Monique Collins)

Lackey founded UrbAn in 1999 to share her knowledge of cultural groups with city residents. It’s an expertise gained from seeing much change come to the community. When she moved to Lincoln Village, Lackey said, it went by names such as Kosciuszko Park, St. Josaphat and South Side Polonia. But that doesn’t mean everyone necessarily embraced their heritage, she said.

“I grew up during the melting pot era, when everyone was just trying to be American and deny ethnicity,” Lackey said. “My parents downplayed their backgrounds, as did others around me.”

Learning in school about the Laps, the Mbuti, American Indians, etc., sparked her interest and passion for understanding people from different ethnic groups.

“My teachers would make it very interesting for me,” Lackey said while looking at ethnic drawings and artifacts with visitors at the museum, at Lincoln Avenue and7th Street. “That’s why we want to work so hard at UrbAn to develop more youth programming because I think it is at that age where you get the interest or you don’t get it.” Lackey went on to earn her doctoral degree in urban cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Lackey’s commitment to her work has not gone unnoticed. Alice Kehoe, an adjunct professor of anthropology at UW-Milwaukee who serves on UrbAn’s executive board, said she doubts the South Side could have a better outlet for its cultural history.

“Dr. Lackey’s unwavering dedication to effectively helping people in lower-income neighborhoods, and her valuable oral histories and vernacular architecture, has shown others that neighborhoods and ethnic groups are interesting and vital to our city’s good health,” Kehoe said.

Barbara Nelson, a resident and business owner who has lived in Lincoln Village for 33 years, said it was Lackey’s great reputation with Milwaukee’s philanthropic foundations that helped make UrbAn what it is today. In 2009, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation awarded UrbAn its first grant as a part of the city’s Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative.

“She commits and delivers what she gets money for,” she said.

In her spare time, Lackey does free genealogy work for residents. She is also an avid traveler who says she has visited every U.S. city with a population of more than 150,000. However, lest there be any doubt which is her favorite, she said, “Milwaukee was always my choice city.”

Jorian Giorno (center) of Layton Boulevard West Neighbors shows a little boy the mobile bike hub during its unveiling. (Photo by Brendan O’Brien)

Dozens of adults and children attended the unveiling of a new “mobile bike hub,” an adult tricycle fitted with bins full of tools and supplies intended to spur greater appreciation for bicycling and to get children outdoors and active.

The vehicle was on display for the first time in front of the offices of the Wisconsin Bike Federation, 3618 W. Pierce St., during Bicycle Fiesta, a culminating event of Bike to Work Week.

“This is awesome,” said Milwaukeean Maxwell Washington, 28, who brought his three children to the event, sponsored by Layton Boulevard West Neighbors (LBWN). “It fills a big need and it will get kids out here and interacting … and exploring the world.”

The mobile bike hub will be operated by Milwaukeean Jorian Giorno, a long-time bike enthusiast who spent several years working at local bike shops. LBWN recently hired Giorno to be the part-time mobile bike hub coordinator.

Giorno, who graduated in 2012 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with master’s degrees in both urban planning and public administration, will ride around the neighborhood fixing bikes and promoting bike safety. For those with an old or broken bike, the hub will offer a chance to get back on the saddle for free, organizers said.

The mobile bike hub is an adult tricycle fitted with bins full of tools and supplies. (Photo by Brendan O’Brien)

“It’s been really well received … my expectation is that I will be busy with, at the very least, giving kids the knowledge of how to fix their bikes or get the bikes fixed,” said Giorno, who will work with neighborhood schools to get the word out about the hub.

Giorno will ring the unique-sounding bell affixed to the hub as he rides through the neighborhood, much like ice cream vendors do throughout the city.

As children and parents mingled around the bike hub, enjoying popcorn and taking part in raffles, the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin sold used bicycles across the street.

“They want to ride and they need to be physically active,” said Liz Drame of her two children as her family shopped for bicycles.

A band of volunteers, including two architects, designed and built the hub while Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin staff members lent their expertise to the project. Construction of the bike hub was completed at midnight Thursday night.

“I got a tear because, for me, it was just a moving moment,” said Jezamil Vega-Skeels, a neighborhood planner at LBWN who spearheaded the project. “It’s overwhelming. I am more than happy.”

The federation, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Milwaukee, Charles D. Jacobus Family Foundation and the City of Milwaukee Neighborhood Improvement Development Corp. helped fund the hub, which cost between $5,000 and $6,000.

If the pilot bike hub project is successful in the Layton Boulevard West neighborhoods of Layton Park, Burnham Park and Silver City, it could eventually be replicated in other areas of the city, according to Giorno.

According to Giorno and Vega-Skeels, one of the project’s biggest challenges was designing the hub, which needed to be easy to ride while carrying the tools and supplies — such as bike repair stands — to make it functional.

After months of trial and error that included drawings and tinkering, the team came up with a design that features a sliding door that covers three tall bins while acting as a service table when closed.

“We’re the pioneers, so when other neighborhoods start talking about doing this, hopefully we can help them iron out those unexpected bumps that we struggled through,” Giorno said.

Time rewinds to the early 1900s when a visitor steps into Andrew Parker’s home. Staged with vintage furniture and filled with natural light, the mini-mansion features a mosaic-tiled fireplace, and ancient artwork decorates the walls. Everything from the chickens in Parker’s backyard to the stained-glass windows and handcrafted urns has a story — and so does he.

Known as “Andy” to friends and family, Parker, 49, is out to make Milwaukee’s Historic Concordia community a better place – starting with the house that he and his wife, Marie, bought for next to nothing at an auction and have remade into a bed and breakfast. Located at 3026 W.  Wells St., it’s filled with knickknacks, portraits and collectables, but it’s not a museum, he said.

While the structure is Victorian style, “All of the things you see are very different than what you’re going to find in a Victorian home,” said Parker, who is also a movie lover, artist, handyman and father of two. In addition, he teaches kindergarten at Texas Bufkin Christian Academy, 827 N. 34th St., which is four blocks from his home.

In the 1980s, the Milwaukee native teamed with neighbors and the city’s Office of Historic Preservation to establish the area bounded by 27th and 35th streets, and Wisconsin and Highland avenues as Historic Concordia. Parker is president of Historic Concordia Neighborhood Inc., an organization working to enhance the community.

Stained glass windows beautify Andrew Parker’s bed and breakfast. (Photo by Aaron Maybin)

“He was one of the original people that worked to get the board going and the historic designation,” said Kristi Westcott, a 10-year resident of Concordia and Parker’s friend. “Andy and his wife were some of the first people we met when we moved here.”

Parker and his wife opened the bed and breakfast in 2000. It is one of three in the neighborhood that let weekend explorers uncover the city’s lost culture, he said.

“We have neighbors who are very much into the history of their houses,” Parker noted, “restoring their houses, maintaining and protecting the historic value of their houses, as well as living in them and having a pleasant neighborhood. There are a lot of really cool people (here).”

Parker’s passion to preserve Milwaukee’s history stems from his roots. His mother, a full-blooded Oneida Indian, taught him and his nine siblings to value their culture. These days, he supports Native American students at Marquette University, said Jacqueline Schram, Marquette’s governmental and community affairs associate.

“His family is a founding family of the Indian Summer Festival and he continues to volunteer on the festival grounds,” Schram said.

John Hennessy, president of Hennessy Group Inc., has known Parker since 1990 and said he is a “big fan” of the changes the organization’s president has helped bring to Historic Concordia.

“I think it had a little bit of a set back the last few years,” Hennessy said. “But I think it’s on its way back. Once people find out about the area, they find it to be pretty attractive.”

Parker said he is confident that if the city mimics locales elsewhere that have reclaimed tourism, such as Charleston, S.C., then more families will be drawn to its historic charm. “Tourists want to see more of this.”

“It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” Parker said. “But it’s fun. Things can get better (in Milwaukee) if we just roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

More than 50 people crowded onto the 33rd Court Bridge during the naming ceremony for Three Bridges Park. The name was chosen from more than 750 contest submissions. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)

Debra Tuckweed, originally from Boscobel, Wis. (pop. 3,231), moved to Milwaukee 35 years ago to work as a parole officer. She remembers riding into town with her parents and seeing the blighted Menomonee Valley for the first time thinking, “This is where I’m going to live?”

Once an eyesore that split the north and south sides of the city, today the Valley has been transformed into a vibrant, thriving public space.

The new park, once a railroad yard, is being built along the banks of the Menomonee River. It will be known as Three Bridges Park, the winning name in a contest that drew more than 750 participants. The name will go before the Common Council and Natural Resources Board in coming weeks for official approval.

The 24-acre park, which officially opens to the public on July 20, is the last major development of the From the Ground Up initiative. In 2010, Menomonee Valley Partners (MVP), the Urban Ecology Center (UEC), the City of Milwaukee, State of Wisconsin, other community-based organizations and countless individuals partnered on the initiative, which resulted in improved access to jobs, outdoor education programs and recreational activities.

The 33rd Court Bridge was one of the projects of the $26 million “From the Ground Up Initiative.” (Photo by Edgar Mendez)

The $26 million initiative also included construction of the UEC Valley Branch, 3700 W. Pierce St., the Hank Aaron State Trail and three pedestrian bridges that inspired the name of the new park.

The park will be part of the Hank Aaron State Trail and will serve as the new “outdoor classroom” for the Urban Ecology Center’s Menomonee Valley branch. It is accessible via three bike/pedestrian bridges – located at 37^th and Canal Streets, 33^rd Court and behind the Mitchell Park Domes – that connect the Valley to surrounding neighborhoods.

Laura Bray, executive director of MVP, said the name was chosen both because it can roll off a child’s tongue and because it captures the spirit of the initiative.

“We’re bridging neighborhoods, past to future, north to south, city to nature,” Bray said.

Bray added that $22.5 million has already been raised for the initiative and that MVP hopes to complete the park by the end of summer. The park’s completion would be the last step in the valley’s transformation, according to Bray. It is expected to serve 10,000 children a year,

Tuckweed, now retired, bikes and jogs on the valley section of the Hank Aaron State Trail daily. Absent now is the stench from the nearby slaughterhouse as are the decrepit, shuttered factories that years ago made her cringe. She calls the park an added bonus to the atmosphere that already has been created in the valley, saying

“I grew up in the country so it’s nice to have the country nearby.”

Omar Bonilla-Ortiz, who works at the UEC Valley Branch and grew up just across from the long inaccessible Menomonee Valley, said he couldn’t wait to tell his nieces and nephews the name of the new park next door.

Added Bonilla-Ortiz, “They’ll be the last generation to know of the blight that was here.”

Sallie Brown, Rhulene Artis, Dave Libert, Alisia Moutry and Kirstin Anglea display the Milwaukee Environmental Sciences banner inside the new school. (Photo by Sue Vliet)

Between now and the first week in August, when Milwaukee Environmental Sciences is expected to open, the new principal and others have a lot of work to do to get the former 65th Street School building ready.

Milwaukee Environmental Sciences will be a year-round Expeditionary Learning school, using hands-on projects to explore topics in depth. More than 150 schools in 31 states and Washington, D.C., use this model.

According to Dave Libert, school planning leader for the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC), children will spend several weeks studying topics such as water quality, urban forestry, ecosystems in nearby Dineen Park’s lagoon, or gardening on the school’s planned green roof.

When students study water quality, for example, they could delve into the 1993 outbreak of the cryptosporidium parasite in Milwaukee’s water supply. Lessons might include presentations by Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District personnel and other experts.

“This isn’t like kids playing at answering [real-world] questions; they’re working on them,” said Libert.

This is the fourth attempt to bring Expeditionary Learning to Milwaukee. According to Libert, who was not involved in the earlier efforts, the earlier schools were unsuccessful “due to a lack of rigor.”

New principal Kirstin Anglea is ready to begin the school year this August. (Photo by Sue Vliet)

Milwaukee Environmental Sciences plans to blend academic rigor with student participation to ensure that the school performs at a high level. The school, spearheaded by MTEC, will also offer professional development for teachers in training. Milwaukee Environmental Sciences is MTEC’s first charter school.

The MPS School Board approved MTEC’s proposal for the new charter school in January. MTEC’s lease on the building begins July 1.

According to Kirstin Anglea, the new school principal, the building will need work before students arrive.

“[Over the next few months], my biggest concern is to make sure the building is impeccably clean, the library is ready to be filled with books and be a comfortable space,” she said. “I want to make sure the bathrooms are as environmentally friendly as possible and clean. … For a lot of the rest of the space, we want to work with the kids to make decisions about the school.”

Another big task during the next few months will be to reach out to families to encourage them to enroll their children in the school, according to Anglea. The planning team is holding parent meetings, distributing fliers and door-hangers in the neighborhood surrounding the school, and will host a June 8 picnic for families. Organizers hope that 180 students in grades pre-K through 5 will sign up for the school this year.

Tina Weatherall’s granddaughter will be starting K4 at Milwaukee Environmental Sciences this year, and Weatherall said she is excited to “get in on the ground floor.”

“I had been getting ready to start researching schools for my granddaughter,” said Weatherall. “It was going to be a process. When I went (to the library) for the orientation, I was so impressed; I just knew that this was the school.”

Weatherall said her granddaughter is very active, and she hopes the EL curriculum can keep young students like her focused on learning. “When they’re that age, you really have to be able to hold that attention. The teaching style of that school is really going to work with my granddaughter.”

Having worked in childcare for the past 11 years, Weatherall said she knows what to look for in a school. “You see a lot of charter schools opening up nowadays, and, being honest, this is the first charter school that I researched and I was very impressed with. It’s not just someone coming in trying to make a few extra dollars,” she said.

As a “non-instrumentality” charter school, Milwaukee Environmental Sciences will have its own governing board and fewer regulations than MPS schools. However, Anglea emphasized that it will be a public charter school. “We are not just taking the best and the brightest,” she said. “We want a diverse student body.”

According to Anglea, who most recently was a graduate professor in educational leadership at Cardinal Stritch University, hands-on instruction in real-world settings is key to learning.

“Kids have disengaged from school and we can’t afford that,” she said. “Not if we want engaged citizens in the future.”

Stephanie Harling leaned forward as she sat across from Dan Woodring at his desk, rapidly suggesting ways Waukee Engineering Co., a local company that supplies equipment to the heat processing industry, could engage in community development.

“We need to sustain this community,” said Harling, executive director of Havenwoods Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit agency focused on improving the quality of life in the northwest Milwaukee neighborhood.

Woodring, the company’s product and quality control agent, said he would be willing to work with the organization, possibly joining a manufacturing roundtable discussion or training young people for technical careers.

“If this is better for the community, it’s better for our business,” he said.

Harling, 46, became the nonprofit’s executive director 11 years ago.

She works with residents and local businesses to improve streets such as Kaul Avenue and housing developments such as Westlawn on Havenwoods’ southern edge.

“I love Milwaukee,” Harling said. “I’m a life-long resident, so I want all of the city to thrive. I just love seeing people have opportunities in front of them.”

Harling cited her mother, Mary Jo Morris – who advocated for Milwaukee public education as a member of the PTA until her death in 2007 – as inspiration.

“That’s where I get my civic passion — by being dragged to school board meetings as a 7-year- old,” Harling said, laughing.

Stephanie Harling (right) discusses with Dan Woodring of Waukee Engineering Co. possibilities for the company to engage in community development. (Photo by Rob Gebelhoff)

The Bay View resident found her career in economic development by accident. After earning her bachelor’s degree in corporate communications at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1991, Harling worked in sales and marketing for broadcast companies. She considered pursuing a master’s degree in elementary education, but found herself working for a nonprofit development group temporarily. That sparked a passion for community improvement.

Changing perceptions is the most difficult challenge in improving Havenwoods, Harling said.

“When I told peers that I was working in community development, they made references to ‘Gunshot Alley’ and ‘good luck,’” she said. “They were referring to what they thought was a challenging, hopeless community. What we’ve discovered is that it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Harling organized her group’s initiatives into three categories: crime prevention and community organizing, economic development and healthy neighborhoods. Community leaders have noticed differences in the community as a result of these initiatives.

Police Capt. Jerome O’Leary, who has spent the last seven years with the 4th Police District, credited Harling and the nonprofit for helping to cause a major shift in the area.

“If you look at what the neighborhoods used to be and what they are now, they’ve really changed,” O’Leary said. “If it weren’t for Stephanie and for her group, it would not have changed.”

He added, “I love to see kids riding bikes in the spring and summertime. I smile when I think of all the work that we’ve collectively done.”

The nonprofit developed a relationship with the 4th District by involving police in community activities. For example, Harling’s group guaranteed a police presence at landlord compact meetings, which discussions that address drug and crime problems in the area. O’Leary said this made a significant difference in his job.

“You need people like Stephanie to build trust among the residents … by talking with people and also by showing that she has a strong relationship with the police,” O’Leary said.

The business community also has noticed Harling’s efforts. Woodring, for example, pointed out efforts to beautify the area.

“The new Havenwoods signage and the little things around the area makes the community great,” he said. “It shows that things are improving – that people care.”

Harling sees room for more improvement in Havenwoods. In the next five years, she can envision the Silver Spring Drive’s retail area revitalized, with more leadership and engagement from residents.

For now, Harling said she won’t rest because she’s “fallen in love” with the neighborhood.

“We have good-working, salt-of-earth people in this community,” she said, “and that’s the message we would like to get out.”