Engaging Children With Art
In the ’80s and ’90s, printmaker Barbara Manger brought arts programs to a few Milwaukee Public Schools. She was amazed at the results. “The projects enlivened things for both the students and the teachers,” she recalls, “in settings that, unfortunately, don’t always encourage children’s creativity.” At MacDowell Montessori, for example, Manger and a dancer helped the students make 9-foot elephants out of papier-mâché, and the kids danced around them. “It was a terrible mess, but it really stimulated the kids’ natural powers of imagination,” Manger says. In 1998, inspired by those programs, she gathered a group of people – teachers, museum educators, art educators, artists – to seek funding to develop artist residency programs in schools, and Artists Working in Education was born. Today, the organization has four full-time employees and works with 12 artists. It runs a variety of programs that bring hands-on visual arts experiences to schools, community centers, businesses and informal settings such as parks, playgrounds, libraries and community events. For example, the Truck Studio is a cargo van that brings teaching artists and free art supplies – for painting and drawing, sculpture and digital art – to community settings. The Artist-in-Residence program collaboratively designs murals, mosaics and other types of public art all over Milwaukee. Manger, 80, served on the board for 21 years and now has emeritus status. “If I did anything right back then,” she says, “it was to ask key people to be part of it.”
Provides youth with arts enrichment programs that advance learning, enhance human potential and cultivate community.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Building a Community Clinic
Stephanie Findley doesn’t back away from challenges. In 2017, she founded The Findley Foundation to provide workforce readiness training in the construction trades for inner-city residents, carrying on the work of her father, a welder and mason who encouraged other African Americans to enter those lines of work. She quickly learned that a variety of issues prevented the trainees from completing the courses: illiteracy, substance abuse, anxiety and depression, untreated or unresolved trauma. “We realized that if we didn’t help them with these issues, they weren’t going to graduate,” says Findley, who is also a paramedic and an ordained minister. So she and her staff began to do case management, bringing in therapists, nurse practitioners and other health professionals. This morphed into the Findley Foundation Medical Clinic, which now serves uninsured and underinsured patients in Wauwatosa, just beyond the border with Milwaukee’s Northwest Side. Services include primary care, urgent care, vaccinations, laboratory services, wellness exams, and food and housing resources. Pop-up clinics bring services into neighborhoods. The pandemic didn’t slow down Findley and her staff even as other agencies were cutting back. “We felt we owed it to the community to continue to provide a full range of services,” she says.
The Findley Foundation Medical Clinic
Offers primary care and urgent care services to uninsured, underinsured and insured patients.
Helping Others Turn Their Lives Around
“Hey, Peter, this is Governor Tony Evers calling,” the voicemail starts. “Certainly you have turned your life around, and your deep work in the recovery community is doing well. I’m glad we were able to provide you with a pardon.” It’s a message that Peter Brunzelle had hoped one day would come. At age 12, he began drinking. At 17, after bouncing around in boys’ homes and detention centers, he began a string of property crimes for which he was convicted of two felonies. While serving two years in jail, Brunzelle decided he wanted to live differently and started working the 12 steps of AA. After his release, Brunzelle realized he wanted to be of service. “I became aware how many people needed the help I was looking for myself,” he says. He worked for recovery and mental illness facilities around the country, setting up their systems and services. In 2016, he founded Project WisHope in Waukesha, a nonprofit, peer-run agency whose services include recovery housing, addiction treatment, peer recovery coaching, resource maps and a 24 /7 support line. Now age 47 – and 28 years sober – Brunzelle had another dream come true: becoming a husband and father of two. “Because I never learned relationships in my youth, I always thought I’d be solo,” he says. “This is an amazing journey.”
A nonprofit, peer-run, recovery community organization that provides resources, education, advocacy and peer support.
