I'd like to welcome you to the Emerging Youth Achievement Advisory Council.

I am Alderman Josepis.

It is uh Thursday, April 23rd at approximately 8 37 a.m.

Uh joined by uh staff assistant Joanna Ortiz, and I'd ask her to do the roll call.

Mr.

Lindsey?

Present.

Mr.

Hawkins?

Present.

Dr.

Kupa.

Present.

Dr.

Cruz.

Present.

Mr.

President Alderman Petis.

Present.

And welcome in um Stamper.

Good morning.

You here?

All right, present.

All right, excellent.

Thank you.

Um roll right into our agenda.

We uh appreciate everyone coming a little early.

We have a hard stop before 10 a.m.

today, so uh not to rush anyone, but we do want to get through the agenda.

Uh review item number three review and approval of prior uh meeting minutes.

Everyone's had a chance to see them.

Any questions, any concerns?

No sir.

Hearing none on their stamper approves approval, hearing no objections so ordered.

Next up on our agenda, mentor Greater Milwaukee presentation.

How are you doing, sir?

Great, great welcome.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

Looking forward to this, looking forward to this, Mr.

Rain.

Uh oh.

Thank you.

Introduce yourself for the record, and the floor is yours, sir.

Absolutely.

Um Lynnell Raymond.

Sir, yes, sir.

Great.

Good to see everybody.

How to stop, so let me get it going.

Uh we can talk on this committee, that's why.

Yeah.

Okay, okay.

So it's not showing up.

It's not showing there.

Okay.

You can go ahead and start.

Okay.

So here's our mission.

Um our job is to really increase the mentoring capacity of mentoring organizations throughout the Milwaukee.

Um and and we like to say that when I say mentoring programs is serving anybody ages 10 to 24.

Just want to be clear.

So whether it's all in Milwaukee, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, Mentor Greater Milwaukee's job and role is to support those organizations to build their capacity.

Um a little history fact.

Um we were founded in 2019.

Um as a founding partner, you have the city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Bucks, and then of course Milwaukee Public Schools.

So in 2019, we were formed with those three organizations and entities coming together and bringing us here in Milwaukee.

And I say bringing us because we are a part of an affiliate structure that affiliates mentor.

Um who are in Boston, Massachusetts now.

Um there's 23 other affiliates throughout the country.

Um I'll keep it pushing.

Um so we have four priorities.

And that technical assistance and support can look different for each organization, whether big or small.

Remember, part of what we talk about is we want to build capacity.

So technical assistance could be basic mentoring principles.

It could be supporting them through cultural humility training for the organizations or entities, um, whatever those needs are we provide to those organizations.

Um the second one we're talking about, we do is provide recruitment.

We have what we call a mentoring connector.

Anyone who wanted to uh go to our website, um Milwaukee Mentor.com, and when you go to our website, you can select become a mentor or find a mentor.

The great thing about that is it's like a one-stop shop when you think about families or when you think about mentors.

So we think about mentorship first.

A lot of times mentors are recruited through word of mouth.

So if I'm sitting with you all, I say I'm a mentor at X organization.

You say, you know what, I'm gonna try that organization.

If it doesn't work for you, you may not come back to the space of mentoring.

What our mentoring connector does and allows is for you to go and look and research the programs yourself.

Right now we have about 102 program partners.

Um those are all in our connector.

Again, the great thing is a mentor, you're able to say, you know what, let me do some research of different programs first before I select one.

And then we are simply the middleman.

When you reach out to that organization through our connector, it goes directly to the organization.

So it doesn't come to us, we take a look at no, you get to kind of connect with those organizations first and foremost.

The other way is for family on the family side.

This is something that we are trying to promote even more.

Um, but if a mother or a father was looking or grandmother was looking for a mentor for their young person, they can go to that same website.

They just select find a mentor, and it does the exact same thing.

Um, and we'll talk about this more down in the presentation.

But for us, we're trying to get more programs in Milwaukee to be a part of the connector for that purpose and that purpose alone.

When families are looking for mentors, it's easier for them to find it through our connector than parents having to look through a Google search it or word of mouth again.

So again, we're trying to increase the number of programs so families have better access.

Um, the third thing we do is advocacy.

We do a lot of um engagement around promoting mentorship.

Uh many of you may have heard of like our mentoring symposium we do every January, which we um celebrate National Mentoring Month.

We bring a number of speakers around mentorship to the table, and then we do workshops for anyone who wants to be provided.

We also do things like celebrating mentors every home game or one home game a month, um, which now is over, unfortunately, with the Milwaukee Bucks, for example, we do a mentor of the game, and we basically honor a mentor from a program that has been nominated by that program.

Um we also do a lot of things like going we go to Washington, DC once a year and do Capitol Hill Day, and we actually speak to the local representative representatives for Wisconsin around mentorship and the importance of that.

And the third thing we do, and a third thing we use is data.

How do we use data to help um support our young people through mentorship?

Um, a perfect example of that.

I saw my partners in the house from Employment Milwaukee several years ago when we were working with them.

One of the things that they noticed with their Earning Learn program is how are the kids being connected when they were on Earn and Learn.

So we actually worked with them several years ago and trained their supervisors who were earning learn supervisors around building a relationship with young people on the job.

So those are certain ways that we use data to kind of promote or build mentorship or build capacity.

Um what's next after all that uh this is the just information around why mentoring is important is data, right?

We know mentoring works because every when a young person has a mentor, they're gonna do better, do better in school, do better in life, and general overall.

One of the things we do love that I talk about this is when growing up, if somebody has a mentor in their life, chances are they're gonna become a mentor too when they grow up, right?

When you all probably think back when you were young, whether it was a coach, whether it was that teacher or whomever, you're probably gonna have a mentor or you'd be a mentor when you come become older.

So we talked about priorities.

Here are some of the trains that I didn't uh get a chance to allude to.

This is where our elements of effective mentoring practices.

This is something that we require every program partner that we have to kind of um be a part of and take this training.

I do want to be kind of clear and say this.

We believe there's a science to mentoring.

A lot of times people say we do mentoring, but when you ask them, what does that mean?

They don't even know, right?

They may say, Well, I sat in front of a kid today, but they never saw that kid again.

Or we'll ask a program, what kind of training do you do for your mentors?

They don't have an answer for that, right?

Elements actually addresses a lot of that for them, right?

Here's another mentoring.

I talked about workshops that we do.

This is a list of the different ones that we do have.

Everything to basic, what is a mentor to cultural humility and mentoring.

Uh, we like mentoring mindsets, relationship center schools.

These are all of just a variety of trainings that we do have.

Talked about some of this, we talked about the recruitment tool.

This is what it looks like, the mentoring connector online.

Again, it's a very simple tool.

You go on to our website, you find become a mentor, or find a mentor, you answer these basic questions, and then basically it gives you a list, and you get to reach out to those individuals.

Again, very simple, something we're trying to promote and push even more, right?

I got to uh Mr.

Perez, we're gonna get out of here on time.

Um just some more insight.

Also, remember there's a variety of kind of mentoring programs, right?

There's 101, some of the traditional ones we know when it's you and I connected, there's group mentoring where you may have several um uh youth attached to one adult in a sit-down, right?

So there's a variety of programs that do different kinds of mentorings.

Like when you look at this list, right?

Big brothers and big big sisters, even though we all have heard of them, they still have a wait list, right?

So that's why it's important for us to continue to recruit mentors, right?

Um, all in Milwaukee, they have a strong tool, but they use a group concept, right?

Where their students who are involved have multiple young people assigned to one mentor.

Um, so again, our job is to work with all programs and to help them kind of get stronger.

This is just some more details.

Um, 86 of the programs that are right now are actively accepting new mentors and mentees, right?

Um, so our youth interests.

Um we do a youth voice summit every year.

It's in August.

We um actually hire 12 to 15 interns who work for us, and then what they do is they come up with an issue that young people are facing in Milwaukee, and then they need to come up with solutions, right?

And then they present those solutions at our youth voice summit to other young people.

So there's a full-fledged conversation.

Um, some of the things we've heard though at our youth voice summit from young people, so um challenges are limited time available for mentor, and let's be clear like that's one of the drawbacks when people say they don't want to be a mentor, the time, capacity.

But there are programs that are literally only an hour and a half a month to serve, right?

Then there's programs, yes, that it may be two hours a week, right?

We tell mentors you need to find the program that best fits you, but those are some of the issues.

Um that's why training is important because the other thing we see here is mentor commitment.

Too many times adults step in and then step out all in the same breath, which then leave that young person hanging, right?

So we really believe that you have to align with the program that works for you so you can stay committed, okay?

Um, and then location barriers.

Um you do have community-based mentoring, where are they taking young people?

Where are they going?

Some of like when you think about Andre Leal is in the cage, you know, he's in the garden, right?

And he also has the firehouse next to them.

Are there places like that where mentors can be with their young people?

And those can be some of the barriers, right?

Um I don't know if you all have ever heard of the study done by the Wisconsin mental youth mental health.

They did a 10-year study in 2024.

One of the things they showed over 10 years that there was a decrease of 37% of a sense of belonging for young people, right?

There was also something they showed that in K through 12 schools, African American students in particular.

I think there was 45% of those students did not have someone in the building they felt like they can go to, right?

I want you to correlate some of the numbers when you think about the graduation rates, in particular in our district, right?

It's about 67 to 72% around that number, I think.

Like I said, when you got a 33% or 37% lack of belonging, it's a correlation, right?

Or when you have a 45% student who feel like they don't have someone they can go to in the school, it's a correlation.

So we have to process how do we make sure young people have a caring adult everywhere they are, right?

So just some of the things to think about and talk through.

Um, some gaps that we have.

Um, this is some things that Devin asked me to bring out.

Of course, we know uh uh divestments in DEI initiatives, right?

We serve, for example, Milwaukee Public Schools, Black Latino Male Achievement Department, where they you know constantly under attack, right?

We can't say we're funding for certain things or ask for funding for certain things, even though our program mentor Greater Milwaukee serves all youth.

You know, we're not limited, but there is again some gaps in funding.

Um there's even transformation and funding for youth programs.

If you're not doing work development, for example, example, some people are funders are pulling out.

Like you can't just say we do just this.

No, you gotta have it connected to and or something else like workforce development.

Um, and then lack lack of access to resources and information.

One of the things that's important for us and having our national office is that there's a a slew of resources that any mentoring program can go to.

So even if you don't go through our website and go to mentoring.org, there is access to free resources, but a lot of people don't realize they exist, right?

So we try to make sure we put those out of those.

Um-of-school program for board challenges, staffing issues, right?

If you talk to boys and girls, boys and girls club right now, they'll tell you they have a staffing gap, right?

Um housing and step instability for families, um, issues within our families, mental health issues, poverty still be needs to be something that needs to be addressed for our young people as well.

So these are just some of the barriers and things that we're seeing, the impact.

Um data sharing.

Um, and President Perez and I talked about this, getting organizations to share their data, right?

There's fear in that.

We don't want data to smack people in the hands.

We just want to give accurate data when it comes to mentorship.

If you say you do it, how are your kids um assigned?

Are they matched to one-on-one?

Are you grouped?

That helps us understand the landscape better so we can better serve communities.

So we're trying to work to make sure that any program that says they're doing mentorship, we can have some kind of shared data so we're able to assess the kind of the landscape throughout the Milwaukee.

Um, program limitations.

You have capacity issues.

I mentioned earlier, like Big Brother Big Sisters.

Uh, 200 plus kids on a wait list, right?

They're not the only ones, running rebels, the same way, right?

So we have a lot of programs who are running into capacity, and we're and we're getting a lot of calls for younger kids to be mentored.

You know, you have parents claiming like I have a seven-year-old.

You have a program that we have very limited programs that we know do seven-year-olds.

A lot of them actually start at 10 years old, right?

So when you think about a brother or sister, if you have a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old, you got two children who do not have a mentor based on programs, right?

Um other things we talked about is the definition and the use of the word mentorship.

Again, we say there's a science.

You hear a lot of programs say they do it, but then when you dig deep, it's just oh, we did a panel discussion with kids.

That's not mentorship, that's exposure, right?

So, us making sure that people understand the true definition, time spent.

Uh, we were having a conversation with our data people for mentor, and the the dialogue was about again if you do an hour and a half a month of mentoring for a minimum of six months consistently, you can move the needle on that young person's life, right?

Again, consistently.

If I meet with one kid for four hours on one day and don't see that kid again, I'm not as effective, right?

So those are things that we try to help with definitions so programs know how to be consistent.

Um structured, again, formal versus informal, right?

In some cases, that like a boys and girls club where I spent 13 years.

I may have seen a kid periodically throughout my tenure there.

I can informally mentor that kid because he's coming every day.

We don't have a schedule though, right?

Versus a scheduled program like we had in Milwaukee Public Schools with BLMA, where we have every first Thursday, we spent an hour and a half with young people, right?

So that's kind of a quick definition of that.

And then evidence-based frameworks, again, we use the elements to uh which we know is evidence-based.

All of the training tools that we use is evidence-based to make sure that it works.

We know it works.

If um, if David Mohammed was here, he'll talk about credible messengers, they have a mentoring program.

But if we look at what their success rates are, I think they had like a 90 plus percent non-recificent recidivism rate for those young people who were in the program who had an assigned mentor.

So those are things that we know work.

We just want to increase it.

We have a we have a goal that young people are surrounded with at least three mentors when they go to school, when they're in their communities, and when they're in the work workforce, they should have an adult that they're seen as a mentor.

And I want to be very clear.

Use the word mentor.

Use it because then when you say that, hopefully they know what comes with that, right?

They know that that young that mentor is there to be dedicated and supportive of them.

So I rushed through that for the sake of time, but I do want to share that we do work with companies too.

So this is some examples.

We've worked with Northwestern Mutual, we've worked with Goodwill, we've worked with the Milwaukee Bucks, and what that looks like is a little different.

We've helped Goodwill, for example, built out a program.

We actually helped them create something for their staff, 18 to 26, right?

We work with the Northwestern Mutual, they have integrated mentoring programs where we train their staff or their employees on what it means to be a mentor.

And then with the Milwaukee Bucks, we did a little bit of everything, mentor recruitment, program development, and program training as well.

So what are partnerships look like?

We can do more mentor fairs.

Many of you I think know we did a couple here now, the Rotunda, um, where we brought program partners to the table and they hosted here.

Uh, we're trying to do more of those.

One is to put the word out about mentoring and what it means, what it looks like, how to be involved, how to be engaged.

Um, also training.

We did some training with city employees.

Um, part of um our um work with you all is to help city employees know what it means to be a mentor, and we've done a host of those different things.

Finally, contact information.

And if you anybody needs me, you can reach me and I'll take questions.

Sorry, I'm trying to hustle through that.

A lot of information.

All right, ready?

Yeah, let me stand for thank you, Lenel Rain.

Excellent presentation.

We wanted to get the structure of the program.

So uh a couple of thoughts.

Um what kind of assistance are these organizations asking for to build their capacity?

It it it varies.

Um some of them is just training, right?

They want to say how do they help their staff be better?

Um others need program development.

We have some smaller organizations who are new to it, but we gotta hold their hands on what it means to be a mentoring program.

And that's everything from how they recruit mentors, how they train the mentors, what age groups should they work with, things like that.

So it does vary from program to program.

Okay, okay.

And the waiting list, is there a correlation between one mentor and the ability to have more than one mentee?

There is like again, um, we've seen programs.

Think about um Big Brother Big Sisters, right?

Traditionally, they have been a one-on-one mentoring program.

They have now kind of rebranded and now do a host of group mentoring as well as school-based mentoring.

So they've even morphed to meet the need to support families better.

So depending on the organization and their capacity, um, they can select what they want to do or do a variety of them, right?

We even say there's some that still do kind of e-mentoring or virtual mentoring, right?

Where they're able to jump online with young people on a on a consistent basis to provide support there too.

So it really does depend on the organization itself and its capacity, and we can help them decide on what that can look like.

So remember when we used to work together a new concept.

Yes, sir.

And right after you left uh June Perry acquired the contract for the mentoring connection.

It was three million dollars a year, and that had a 90% success rate, but they had a budget to give to the mentors.

They paid the mentors, yes.

Yes, yes.

Is there a difference between the paid mentor programs and the not paid mentor just the money, right?

Like to your point, like because those mentors are still trained, um, and independent where they're where they are, right?

So let's go back to like credible messengers.

Those it um mentors are paid, right?

But they still are assigned mentees and trained to be a mentor.

So the the training is still the same.

The only thing that's different is they get paid, and then they have to kind of um um track it on a more uh consistent basis because if you're getting paid, you gotta show I spent X amount of hours with this young person, and this is what that looks like.

So it varies from that standpoint only.

All right.

And um I assume this, but the the mentees are the majority of the household's fatherless.

I wouldn't say that because again, for us, we don't get that data, right?

We we know how many programs we got, we don't necessarily necessarily know what's all involved in all of their data.

So some of that we wouldn't necessarily have on our end.

But that's things that we want to know.

Right.

So as we continue to build programs out, we can say, oh, we need more men because of this issue, but we don't have that kind of data, unfortunately.

Some do when you think of father making progress who does mentoring, like they they they have a focus there.

Um when you have like a running rebel who has multiple kind of programs that they assign mentors to, they have some things like that.

So again, it can be very program specific, right?

So are we officially a partner with the city of Milwaukee?

Oh, yeah, uh-huh, still are so we so the things that we do under CDBG, and that's why we provide free support to all the employees, and also the city of Milwaukee allows, I think it's up to an hour and a half a month for your employees to actually go out and mentor during the day as part of um what Mayor Johnson put in place several years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

So, how successful is that?

Because that needs to be we again that's internally tracked, but we come and train, we do the training.

So we just tell supervisors or managers that they want their staff to be trained to let us know, and we'll come set up trainings.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Excellent.

That's that's pretty much.

So I have a question.

Yes.

Um in the space of mentoring, who actually funds it?

It but it's a variety.

So for us from integrated Milwaukee, um, we we get money from foundations, uh, we do contracts like something like Northwestern Mutual will probably be a contract to support them.

Um we've gotten some national funding uh from different foundations, C D BG funding.

Um we were under ARPA at one point in time, but we know that's now gone away.

Um so there's we have uh kind of a a variety of funding that we receive.

But uh outside of what you receive is uh is there monies that are going to even some of the people you're kind of advising and giving technical support.

We don't fund them, but they they get other funding too.

So for example, um some get state funding.

We think about boys and girls clubs, some get um uh foundational funding, like from some of our local foundations, but they get money, but not from us.

Ultimately, there are some affiliates throughout the country who do fund programs directly, but they receive state money to do that.

So do someone could get state money for funding for mentoring and then tap into you, and then you also provide even more support.

Yes.

So then should their mentoring be double the outcome then, or here's where I'm getting with that because I think I I don't know if all the youth serving agencies are considered mentors.

I don't know if the every line item in their budget says, you know, in our youth work, we are dedicating time and resources and staff to mentoring, or are the boards of directors of those um organizations concentrating on one thing and saying, Oh, we got you to go do the mentoring for us.

Yeah, that's a good point.

No, I I'll say it this way.

We if an organization calls us and say we need support, we help regardless.

Oh, that I get yeah.

I do think to your point though, yeah.

Well, I mean someone's paying them to do it.

Right.

You're getting funding for doing if the organization is getting money on top of that, then I would expect that they'd be even at the top of the list for mentoring.

But I think that's where I would go back and say this is where the science of mentoring is getting misunderstood.

Because people may say they're doing it, and then they think just because I open my door, some kids come in, I throw a ball on the floor, I'm doing a mentoring response.

That's where we're trying to get people to understand to kind of shore that up, right?

Like if you say you do mentoring, here's how that looks, and here's what you should be doing to support that young person under mentoring.

So I think ill-intended, but yeah, we we see it where people think they do.

So, how can the city help when I think about our the funding we do to all the the youth serving agencies are like can can we do a better job of being tight about those monies being very direct about mentoring?

If someone said they do mentoring, I think one of the things to help or and even help you all feel more comfortable, ask them if they are partnering with us.

Can we do evaluations of programs, right?

We will say, okay, let's do this evaluation, let's see if you're hitting these things here to kind of help support you then, right?

Again, it's not a I got you.

It's to say you say you're doing a face-to-face one-on-one, but you only got three mentors and 37 kids.

That's a group, right?

Like, so we can help shore that up and help them kind of better define what they say they are doing so they're better um equipped to be successful.

That's one way.

I think, and and and we so it's called something called the national quality mentoring services.

Betty is I wish she was here that she could explain it better, but nonetheless, it's an evaluation that we can do to be more supportive.

So yeah, I I I want to be clear that if we can do a better job or we can help.

I mean, I I want to start at home before we do all community work.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

I do have a question.

Yes, sir.

Um so I do have a question around your program partners, like a system is in place to assess their programs before you partner with them to ensure that they're providing quality mentoring.

I know you provide trainings, but is there an assessment that you do beforehand to ensure that it's quality over quality?

I'm asking that in two ways.

So if someone reaches out to us and say, Hey, I want to be a program partner, basically what we do is we do sit down and have an interview with them, right?

Um because they're not required to share data or or share everything.

What we do is say we need to know one, you have to be trained in the elements, right?

That's a requirement to be a part of our mentoring connector.

The second thing is you have to at least do background checks for every one of your mentors mentors, right?

That's very limiting because again, they can come to our training, they can do the backgrounds, but we don't see the program or see the results of that.

So that's where we get handcuffed.

So going back to data sharing, if there was a way for us to create a tool, so let's for an example, say somebody gets money from C D BG.

You say requirement.

Part of the requirements you have to do this, and then do the NQMS, which is a basically an evaluation of your program, and then we're able to help then support that program become stronger and build capacity.

So again, we don't grade them unfortunately.

Um well, fortunately, because I don't we're not the the public master when it comes to this.

We just want to be a thought partner and supporter at the end of the day.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, I I don't think it's a bad thing to grade them.

No, no, not at all.

I I think if we want to measure some outcomes and make a difference, we gotta have some benchmark to reach through.

And I think for us, we want to be again building capacity.

So for you, you may say, hey, Lynnell, how do they come in?

We may say, well, they need to learn do these three things differently to be, I think, stronger.

And then you can say, okay, X program, let's work on these three things, partner with M integrated in Milwaukee to they can help you do that, right?

And that's where we can build capacity for them to do that.

So I don't think it's Fred, they reach out to you, check a couple boxes to say we're part of the mentoring program.

Yeah.

And it's really not making a difference.

And those are the things we're again, that's why we host a lot of like workshops like free, like come learn how to do this.

Or we're doing the elements section of one, two, three again, so you can become stronger in that.

So we're trying to do again things outside of just like you check that box, but we're gonna make sure you have consistent kind of support along the every year when we're doing the support services.

Yeah.

Um are good, the Northwestern Mutuals, the goodwill.

Some don't see it because some they don't see us as a direct service.

So some of them will say we will fund organizations who work with the kids directly to do the mentorship, not necessarily understanding our role and how it comes in that.

We're trying to do a better job with that.

We're working with um Corey Joe Biddle MAC to get in front of them more to so they can learn more about what we do.

So appreciate you coming.

No, thank you.

Thanks for having me in touch.

All right, yeah, and have you back to check in again.

Yeah, maybe at the you know, maybe at the end of the summer to see what the summer is.

Well, our youth voice summit is their first week in August.

So we'll get an invite to you all because it is designed to have the youth have the voice around this.

And again, their issues, like for example, issues last year were gun violence, um, homelessness for youth, um, culturally responsive teaching in schools, and then they all are connected to mentorship because the young people then talk about how mentors can help each area that that might be something to come and talk to as well.

You know, yeah, you talked about that these issues are brought up by young people and they they provide solutions.

You're looking back, is there something you all worked on that then the kids, you know, the youth came up with a solution and boom something happened that they can look back and go here's a change because of us?

I won't say a change, but I can say how it was used.

Last year, again, we used one on gun violence.

Kit um the DA came down, he he listened.

The young people wrote a white paper.

He used that white paper to do a presentation in DC to talk about reducing gun violence.

So one outcome in this was it was used in a way to help kind of create a new solution.

Um and so we're trying to build on that.

We're trying to build on the more.

Last year was the first year we have the young people do a white paper to kind of share their um information.

So we're trying to use that to get to your point, get it out there so it can be used for somebody else to do something with.

So this body, we're working on young people being represented here, and uh we're gonna expand our our our committee, but um we're we're we're gonna welcome any and all suggestions for some policy change that we can do internally.

And one of the things that might be a requirement for C D BG funded youth to tighten up this mentorship piece.

Right, absolutely appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Good to see you.

Thank you, man.

Excellent.

All right, next on our agenda is employee Milwaukee.

Come on down.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and uh floor is yours.

Hi, good morning.

Um Cody Harding.

I'm the performance and reporting analyst for Employment Milwaukee, but I wear a few different hats um depending on what day of the week or time of the year.

Gotcha.

Um I also oversee uh kind of an elite project coordinator capacity, the Earn and Learn Program.

It's our summer youth employment program, community work experience.

And I am Romeo Greer, I am the cam director for the Camp Rise program and the special projects manager at Employee Milwaukee.

So uh the Earn and Learn Community Work Experience Program Um basically a subsidized work experience program where Employee Milwaukee as the workforce board works with employers all throughout the city of Milwaukee and the county of Milwaukee.

We work with faith-based organizations, private organizations, community-based organizations, um, really any organization that can provide a work-based learning experience.

Um public sector as well.

Uh we work with the county, um, you know, other municipalities um to provide work experiences.

It's a full um first-time work experience for teenagers, ages 14 to 24.

Um, we do the onboarding, it's so they learn how to do an I-9 to learn how to fill out a W4, WT4.

Um that's a very uh critical uh and important part of this program that a lot of people don't really think about because a lot of adults can't fill out um a lot of these forms accurately.

Um so getting them at a young age, filling these out um is incredibly important.

There's a financial literacy piece to our training, our orientation training.

Um we also provide an opportunity for all the participants to open a non-custodial bank account for free um through a partnership with educators credit union.

We subsidize the wages 100% for all the participants in the program for 20 hours per week over seven weeks in the summer at a wage of twelve dollars and twenty-one cents per hour.

And basically the work sites are providing that supervision, reporting their timesheets um on a weekly basis, providing that career exposure, career exploration, and then guidance in the workplace.

Um we really focus on that kind of work-based learning experience for all participants.

And then here's just a few of the work sites we've worked with.

Um these are kind of some of our longtime work sites, um, just focusing on last year.

Um in the top left here is a creative arts space and Bay Shore Mall.

Uh the middle top there is Milwaukee County Parks program where they do community cleanups, some landscaping and things like that.

Uh top right is Style Pop Cafe in Walker's Point.

They take a few kids every year.

And then the bottom left is a very long-time partner, Morris Cathedral, where um those participants are working to support the food pantry uh there at Morris Cathedral.

Um, our big partners on the South Side is United Community Center, um, just kind of highlighting them as a you know South Side probably needs a few more work sites for those participants, um, but highlighting kind of best practices for for uh a location on the South Side.

Uh UCC has had a long-term program.

Um basically they provide pre-college youth development for their participants, and a lot of their previous Earn and Learn participants who've gone off to college come and help support that program.

Um it's also just an important part of that, you know, neighborhood and community that participants in that area are the ones participating at the work site, um, doing a lot of good work in the case.

The unlearned participants with UCC their students?

Are they uh yes, yeah.

They're their students.

They're their students, but they also UCC in particular will always take additional participants that are not necessarily their students.

Um I can find out, but I believe last year 12 to 18 participants total, uh, I think is uh is a good number.

I believe this year they're they requested 18 participants.

But you don't know how many of that aren't students.

I mean I can find out.

I don't know right off the top of my head.

Yeah, sure.

Um I guess does earn and learn set aside a certain amount of positions.

Sorry.

I guess there's that organization set us set along a certain amount of uh spots for earn and learned students.

How many, I'm sorry.

Do they you know so no Perez's question is based on uh them being students, correct?

I guess I'm not understanding the question.

Are you I can answer the question?

Are they participants of the work site already before the program starts?

Standard amount.

Like, you know, is are they do they set us you know their students or they set aside through earn and learn program?

Because I assume you only have a certain capacity.

Yeah, well, each work site as a part of their application process requests a certain number of students.

Yeah, yeah.

And they and they're the same students.

Are they the same students?

My question is pretty clear.

You you you got UCC up there as a big participant, right?

Of the students that participate for UCC, those participants are they their students?

And if they're not, if they're from the community, then I want to know.

Yeah.

Right, but in addition to that, those students are they are those slotted spots for them through the Earn and Learn program.

Yes.

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah.

Um sorry, sometimes I'm so in the program that I it something seems like yes.

So and I'll talk a little bit more about that, and I can also talk about the actual work site process if you guys are interested, absolutely.

Um so the balance of Perez's question would be spots that are not already selected.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

And I can find out exactly how many they take they do, but yeah.

How many South Sides participants are like UCC that have kind of a set amount, they always get you applications, they participate.

I mean, they're spread throughout the city that way, correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, all throughout the city, yeah.

I mean as far as who gets placed at which particular site, it's usually based on the participants and how far they can travel.

So style pop's on the south side.

Yeah.

Are there are are all their participants from the neighborhood?

Not necessarily.

So they could be citywide participating at depends on the participant.

They recruit their own students in.

No, those are participants.

Yeah, style pop, I know they recruit like two participants every year, and then they usually take one from the community as well.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

Um and it really just and then those the way they pick them, they go through an application process.

But if style pop says we want three slots, and we got two already, and then the third one is from the community, they get to pick those students.

They don't get to pick participants.

They don't get to pick that additional one.

They pick up can pick the first two that they're referring to themselves, obviously.

But a lot of our work sites actually recruit from the participants that come to our website to fill out an earn learn application, so it's not as if you know it's not the same type of students that might be coming to our website as normal earn and learn participants.

So they do pick them from the website of applications, or they could direct them to the website too, and then correct?

Yeah, it can go both ways, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But we still have to show some interest in that particular professional.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um so Havenwood State Forest is another long-term part, uh, long-term partner.

Um this one's highlighted particularly because uh this individual um was a participant of the Camp Rise program for two years.

Uh they were placed at Havenwood State Park and they've been referred back uh several years in a row.

It's kind of like as a best practice.

This is exactly what we look for going from Camp Rise as a pipeline into the Earn and Learn program.

Um and particularly for this individual, I don't think they had a particular interest in this field, but they found an interest by being placed there.

So that's another that's another kind of important component of the program.

So this is um kind of a standout experience.

And as the as the Camp Rise program goes longer and longer, we're seeing more and more of these situations where it's kind of that direct pipeline.

The participants are finding uh like a long-term relationship with an employer or you know, a community organization.

Okay.

Uh a newer partner, um, I know we've worked with them in the past in different capacities, but last year in particular, uh UWM design and build program, the College of Architecture and Urban Design, um Urban Planning, um hosted a uh program kind of around green infrastructure and architecture and things like that.

Um this one really highlights uh the career exploration and training aspect of the program.

Uh you know, moving away of kind of moving away from general labor and things like that into like a mere more specific training focused career exploration opportunities.

Um so there's a quest for kind of the application details.

I mentioned this a little bit before, but um our general eligibility items are there, and then kind of the documents that we require to show those eligibility criteria from the participants.

Um Main eligibility criteria ages 14 to 24 uh by June 29th, 2026.

That's the start date for the program this year.

Residing in Milwaukee County, and then have to be eligible to work in the United States.

Um our participant application for this year is open for another week or so.

Um those employer referrals will also close at that time.

Um we do a supervisor training in June for all the participants, and then about 10 days of orientation.

That's not encompassing all of our orientation participants, families, and our work sites all kind of you know have different schedules, and some people can't make these orientations, so we kind of do rolling orientations at our location wherever we need to to make sure everybody is ready to go on that June 29th start date.

Uh this year, the last day of Earn and Learn will be August 16th.

Um so I kind of just waited uh to get these numbers this morning because I know there's interest in the actual numbers.

So the number of applicants this year, the uh application hasn't been open since uh the first of this month, and we've received uh 2,276 applications uh as of last night.

And um the top zip codes um the following zip codes, the top six account for about two-thirds of those applications.

Uh that's five through two oh nine, two one eight, two one six, two zero six, two one zero, and two one two.

Um the following uh account for the last third is two oh eight, two, two, five, two, two, four, two zero five, and two two three.

Um this year we've had uh we have eighty-three work site organizations, those applications are still open for another week, and we're still interviewing them, reviewing applications, answering their questions.

Um, even though it's 83 work site organizations, it's well over a hundred actual physical work sites throughout the Milwaukee County, just because of you know, some of the organizations we work at work with, like Milwaukee Recreation or Boys and Girls Club have quite a few sites throughout the throughout the county.

Um Cody, can you give us the number for uh in in reference, particularly to the 83, what number that they attest to, like, oh, I can take 10, I can take five, I can take 15.

Yeah, and I did also want to point out too uh 64 of those locations are 501c through tax exempt organizations.

Um the total request of all those organizations is at this time 1,069 participants, so that's how many they they could serve.

Um it's it's yeah, it's quite a quite a large number there.

Um and then uh the approximate number that we plan to serve this year so far, you know, as we you know, sometimes we get extra funding boosts as it's as the months go on, a weeks go on.

Um right now it looks like we're serving approximately 800 participants through the program.

So that means of all those applicants, you can only slot it under them?

Correct.

Is that in addition to Camp Rise was the same?

Yeah, Camp Prize is a separate program with a separate separate funding.

How much does that cost?

Camp Rise program?

No, oh um it depends on how they're paid.

So some organizations pay a stipend, some pay a wage, but uh right now I believe it's at like 1.1 million.

1.1 million for eight hundred earnest learned participants.

Yeah, I can get the exact number.

But that's what's what what kind of the overall budget of employed Milwaukee?

The one point one?

I'm not sure.

But that is the number for the twelve dollars and twenty-one cents per uh hour.

Okay.

Mr.

Chair.

Oh, all the little more.

Welcome.

Ah, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um you're not Dr.

Group, but you may want to get rid of that.

Right.

Sorry.

Um, just wanted to uh just really briefly.

Um I know I sat in the back while while Lynnell was um presenting for greater mentor greater Milwaukee, so I'm glad that you all have these folks um coming to the table.

Um I've worked with Earn and Learn for many, many, many, many years.

And so um right now, as you all are hearing, um, the reason why I just wanted to come to the table is because um we've also been working with them on um figuring out how to also support opportunity youth, and those are young people age 16 to 24 that are out of school, out of work, disconnected, right?

And so I'm uh I'm gonna table that for a second.

I want you all to think about the numbers that you just heard.

Currently, right now, give me that number again, Cody, 2,000, as far as applicants that folks have signed up for, 2000.

2276.

2276.

2,276 applications.

Now everybody won't feel you know, some of those folks will drop off and won't go through the process.

But out of those applicants, and if we go hard, we can get more young people, but the issue is there is only a capacity for 800.

I want you all to understand that this is an absolute problem.

We should earn um employ Milwaukee has an infrastructure.

We listen, we can get more as far as the um the work sites, um, and again, we have well over a hundred work sites, and well, and we can get more more folks to come into the mix.

The issue is we do not have the funding to be able to make sure that every young person that wants a summer job has the opportunity.

People are calling me about Camp Rise.

I'm I'm calling Ron Um I'm calling uh Rennell and I'm just like uh Rome, and I'm just like, and he was just like, we do not have the funding to be able to work with the younger kids because it also creates a pipeline.

What the again they've done really well, and the mayor supports um Camp Rise and I love that he supports Camp Rise, but when we talk about earn and learn, we need more money.

Point blank.

We have to have more resources to employ more young people at the height of it, particularly during COVID.

I think at the when dollars came in, I made 1400.

I we what was that roughly?

What was that number?

Um Yeah, I've been doing I've been in the program for a few years, and I think my first year was 23 and it was around 1400.

And that was that was at the peak.

On average, I think at that time, um, you know, even probably before that, we might have been around a thousand to eleven, twelve hundred young people.

At the end of the day, y'all, we should be providing at least two thousand jobs for young people.

And that's and that's bare bones.

We should be providing at least two thousand summer earn.

And again, this is just we just talking about summer, which is a time where young people are out, they're not engaged.

We have to do a better job in advocating for more resources.

We can get the partners, that's not an issue, but we have to get the dollars to employ more young people, and with that, we also have to have a tier.

So this $12.21, we can't pay a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old $12 or a $23 year old $12.21.

This is where we work with the business partners, and we can subsidize some of some of those dollars.

You know, hey, we'll pay a little bit.

You pay you come to the table so that these young, you know, these older young people are getting 17, 16, 17, 18 bucks an hour, depending on what field they're going into.

So I wanted to just, you know, sound the alarm because 800, it's it's good, it's better than last year.

However, as a body, I want to really push you all to figure out how we can literally triple this number because it's the reason I asked what the one point one was of the overall budget for employee.

Now looking at the list of all the there's even people on this on this board that are on the employee.

But their budget, their net and their organization budget doesn't have anything to necessarily do with summer earn and learn because these are outside dollars that they used to support this program.

And they and again, it's been refined over the years working with manpower.

Um there's a uh a few different things that you all have done a little bit differently.

I just want this body to understand that more you know, more money can come in to help support other nonprofit organizations.

Again, it's well over uh about sixty-four or 501c3.

We can pull more people in.

We can pull more of our small business owners in to help them subsidize some of this cost to give young people some first time work experience, whatever it may be, but we need money.

This that we we should we should at least be having three million dollars for summer earn and learn to figure out what to do, a minimum.

Cody, I do have a question.

What percentage of the 83 employers have or offer to subsidize some of the costs for the earn and learn staff?

Zero.

Yeah, most of them are nonprofits.

64, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and it is critical for uh you know a handful of these nonprofits to support their summer programs, they're using these youth, these subsidized wages to support their critical programs in the community.

So and pretty much the entire budget goes to the w directly to wages.

We're not reimbursing employers, work sites, we're not paying training fees.

It's just going to wages.

All to wages, yeah.

No, I I it's part of the reason I think our data committee is digging into data to figure out even on the C D BG side, how well are we collecting data?

Maybe it's a repurposing of funds to fill in some of these caps.

But um Yeah, I I hear you.

I just um I everyone looks at employment Milwaukee as the employment arm, right?

So um the state doesn't give you enough money.

They give us some.

There's uh the uh Tony Evers summer youth employment program, we get a decent amount, enough to serve about a hundred and forty kids from my memory each year.

Um but we we won't know ex how long that will last.

I mean there's no signs of that going away that we know of, but um every year we get we get that every year.

But a majority of our funding comes from it's that uh we get some of the C D BG money.

Um and there has been an effort on our planning team to try to build paid work experiences into all the grants that we apply for.

So any grant we have, we try to build in youth paid work experience so that we can help offset the cost and try to get more kids in earn learn that way.

But those always come with a lot more restrictions because they're usually restricted by the type of work that's being done.

So for example, if we have a hospitality-related grant that supports paid work experience, we can only subsidize positions in paid work are in hospitality, we can't subsidize like a summer recreation experience with that money.

So it's that's very restrictive.

Yeah.

And and what's the what's the tracking like from the participants that have been in earn and learn?

Tracking as far as outcomes.

Yeah, I mean, after they spent the summer, you keep in touch with them to say, look, that experience led to this, that, the other, and yeah.

Well, I mean, I know there have been efforts to try and track that.

Um it can be incredibly difficult to track that, but we what we were really rely on is the actual work sites, particularly the community-based ones to give us that information.

But I can say just uh anecdotally that a lot of these participants are staying with their work sites from year to year, they're developing relationships over the summer.

Um I know we we do have kind of a new partnership with for camp rise to try and track some of this information more accurately.

Um, but as it stands right now, it is mostly anecdotal in that regard.

And can I just really say too, really quick, Mr.

Mr.

Chair?

Mr Chair just let me finish the thing.

No go ahead.

When you look at what other program do you have where you have that many applicants and so little slots sorry employ and employ Milwaukee when you look at this program you have more than double the applicants for the amount of people that or amount of young people that you can employ what other programs that employee do you have that kind of same scenario where that many people are employing yet you we don't have enough slots for them.

Right.

Yeah other than these two programs what else do you have I mean our adult programs sometimes there's a wait list for them but it's not nothing to this degree.

I understand that well yeah nothing and this is our these are our only youth well not our only youth programs we have some we owe a funded youth programs but and there are occasionally wait lists for those but yeah like there's nothing to this degree but that's also because of the history and uh you know how much the community knows about earn and learn and they hear things about earn and learn and everyone wants to have a nice good summer experience in a safe place for the kids to go and yeah so when I was 14 it was third jobs for progress.

Yeah.

And then we're located on the South there were like a UMOS kind of thing but it seemed like every nonprofit back in the day was employing people young people.

So okay all of Mr Chair uh what years were those and when you were you don't want to tell us we're not just I can wait no my apologies.

No no go ahead.

Go ahead when we're looking at that cap because I'm again just looking from a business owner's perspective when you get a demand of twenty two hundred how do we get to that cap of eight hundred why do you get to that money.

No no no I understand okay so um so let me look at it differently what's what's the cost per kit if we got 800 some openings or eight hundred some positions what's the what's the breakdown per yeah I mean like I said it it can depend because some again some of our grants do require a little bit of a higher wage some can are doing stipend work and it it's not an exact number for every single different work experience but in general it's a a little over two thousand dollars per participant for a seven week program.

Is the budget one point one or is the budget something to do I'm speaking off the top of my head last time I looked at it and it's a little over a million dollars from yeah well I'm just do doing again just doing some quick quick math public school at education I mean that's that's about thirteen hundred that's what per person it should be it should be about it it it's actually should be about you know twenty three I think if I'm not the the figures that we typically get during our advisory meeting typically about 2300 for a young person that includes the taxes and all that stuff.

It's about 2300 per young person.

Then that would be a larger budget than one point one that for I I may have misspoke.

I really need to actually see the budget in front of me I'm just saying last time I looked at it it's a little over one million.

Well um and I mean but it's yeah it's probably more numbers numbers are important.

I mean it and especially when you're looking so but let me let's flip it up on its head though the other thing is um to and obviously the the money's important and so forth but I guess um 20 some years ago somebody told me hey the the uh the money doesn't matter and and and the reason why I mentioned that is is to me that the other thing is the value proposition and I hate to sound that blatant but the value proposition from what you guys are doing is is large not just on the economic to the community for the youth and so forth.

And when you have a demand again just from a business owner perspective demand of 2200 that's a value proposition to everyone involved.

You mentioned you do UWM early uh uh the uh college of uh design and so forth are are we also work with MQ uh because again you know that's gonna be broader not just UW Milwaukee but also Milwaukee Public Schools a huge collaboration I I look at what what you're doing about a a large value proposition to that entire ecosystem of public schools not just CW Milwaukee M ATC Milwaukee public schools and so forth but then also as you mentioned uh as the auto woman mentioned um obviously the business community you know you've got a demand of twenty two hundred yeah youth there should be other businesses that are leaning in and so forth so to so to me I I guess when you're looking at that demand you know of twenty two hundred to me there there there's that's a huge value that that we're that we're coming in when you present you know the value to me the the money will be there you know and and and so I so I so I guess you know so so to me it's when you're looking at 2200 um that should I mean th you know that how do we make that work and obviously understand understanding you know per person or per pupil or per participant you know what that what that number is again 1300 is different than 2300.

So so for me in in business you know if we a we if we had two thousand some widgets plan but also we got a demand for five thousand guess what we're making some way that other three thousand is going to happen because the demand is there.

So so to me it's but but first of all, we gotta understand what that per unit number is.

Is it 1300?

Because now we're talking, you know.

So if you're talking for a business owner or UW Milwaukee or so forth and say we've got an additional 500 demand, and that additional 500, that additional thousand or that additional 1,500 is gonna cost us this delta, you know, per person.

Now it's different.

Okay, we we can take these 50 people for this amount of money.

We can you know, so we kind of breaking that down, um, looking at the value proposition, and now it's a it's an easier bite if we understand what that per byte is, you know, and whether it's 1300, 2300, that's that's a big shift, but I think being able to speak about that per person and then looking at the value that you're bringing to that organization.

I think you could find 10 organizations say, hey, I can take this amount, I can take this amount, I can take that amount, you know, and now that's you know, that's and that's different, you know, as opposed to just talking about millions here, millions there, you know.

Uh I think it's a different conversation.

Again, again, that's just the way I'm wrapping my head around it.

I mean, kind of speaking of what you're saying is is we have tried this new system of sponsorship where if they want more participants, they could pay for those participants, but but still take some of our other ones.

So we can give them three or four, and they can pay for the next five or six.

So they're still getting some benefit of the 100% subsidized participants, but they're paying for the rest.

So kind of a, you know, but again, so far there's not been many that have or any that have taken us up on that.

Yeah.

Um, and again, to your point, more private uh organization support would might lead to you know more partnerships that way.

I will say we do have some great partnerships.

I know you're talking about MCU.

Um we do work with Milwaukee Public School in particular one that off the top of my head, you know, we're we're doing an ambassador program with Marcus, um, where Marcus provides work experience, Milwaukee Public School does the recruitment um to make sure it's interested, relevant participants, and MATC is providing an additional like culinary training course.

So it's kind of bringing everyone together.

Um and we want to do more of that.

And I would hope that more of those private partnerships might bring more of what you're talking about.

So I just I just looked online and it says uh financial statement for 2024.

So support and revenue is I believe 15 million in government and service contracts, contributions, which I don't know what I don't know if that's private, is 770, all the revenues a million, and then when it goes into expenses, it says 5.9 million on youth, 8.8 million on adults, uh, another million, yeah, million on uh dislocated workers, and then another 1.4 on management in general.

So according to your own information, it says you expend 5 million, 5.9 million on youth.

So I'm assuming those are contracts you have for there's more programs too.

Yeah, yeah.

What about the 5.9 than 1.1 is yeah, and like I said, I it's likely more.

Yeah, I'm just taking off my last look at it.

Um, Mr.

Chair.

Sure.

Um and I appreciate that you guys don't have like all of the information that we're asking and we're asking.

We can get it.

Yeah, but um, just generally, could you help us to understand um uh where the makeup of the funds are coming from?

You had mentioned state, you'd mentioned C D B G grants.

Is there any other things there, philanthropy that funds uh specifically earn and learn?

Yeah, we have a few.

We've had some philanthropic support.

Um I honestly can't speak to exactly where it comes from.

Yeah, no, that's okay.

Uh but yeah, like if there's like a pie chart, either like the different things.

Um it's not as significant as C D BG and the state DWD money.

Um, but our other funding mainly comes from our uh internal grants.

So right now the big ones are serve, which is a hospitality grant and our biohealth grant.

Um which those are also that's a very specific niche area where there is not a lot of call for youth work experiences in biohealth because it's like biomedical manufacturing and stuff like that, and they're just not a lot of work for 14, 15-year-old and even older kids.

You know, it requires more education.

So we're finding ways to make it uh work within the round, you know, within the bounds of the of the grant.

Um, but those are our two other main things.

Okay.

Well, um I I think that it'd be helpful if you could either send to to myself or committee members some of the information that that's out there.

So Chip Perez, just one quick question.

I won't pepper you with money questions.

I know you're that right.

Um more program questions or more uh observations.

I work for Milwaukee Public Schools, been a long time rec employee before I took other positions.

How have you started to think about how to maybe make the training of our young people more year-round because what we found is they're different, like not a bad way, it's just a different way they communicate, a different way they need to be communicated to uh attention spans are different.

And we're asking them to um oversee other young people in some senses and things like that.

So we see a lot of cell phone, they can't let those cell phones down, or like those are certain things that it takes a while to get are your thoughts about like developing more training so they're really they don't take four weeks of their program and seven weeks to really get you know, they're taking a long time to kind of catch up to speed.

Any thoughts about that?

Yeah.

I mean, for me personally, uh it's something I would like to see.

Um, but then again, from like a budget perspective, pretty much all of the money that we have goes to the wages.

Now we're trying to find staffing for those things.

And that's where we really do rely on the work sites to say, hey, you need to build in some of this work-based learning, and we you know want you to form a relationship with these participants and keep up with them throughout the year.

I mean, the goal is especially for our small businesses and things like that, is to hopefully move them from subsidized to unsubsidized work like over the school year.

Yeah, um, even if it's only a few hours a week, just to keep that relationship intact and you know, help with some of the things that you're talking about.

Um yeah, right now it's kind of like out of the scope a little bit.

You know, we want to provide a really good work experience, and obviously what you're talking about is important, incredibly important for the rest of the year and for the next year and for every participant, but right now we it's not really part of the scope, unfortunately.

When they all came in to talk about they can help with those sort of skills and yeah, things, yeah.

Yeah, I'm really sorry, we're running out of time, so I want to make sure you get 30 seconds.

Well, a little more little more than 30, but uh we we want to hear for you.

Yes, most definitely.

Well, my name is Romel Greer.

I am the director of the Camp Rise program.

Camp Rise is a program that has been going now uh since 2022.

We service um 350 kids from Milwaukee public schools ages 10 through 13.

Um we also give them stipend for their participation in the program.

Um this is a work-based program, and we do a lot of life skill enrichment where we try to get young people prepared for what is to come.

We try to give them a lot of exposure throughout the city of Milwaukee, things that we don't that they don't usually see.

Last year, something just is very simple.

We took them to the port.

98% of those young people never seen a boat before.

So being able to see the port of Milwaukee was something that was refreshing to those young people, but also with something that was able to intrigue a different aspect of them.

We can go to the next one.

Um, camp runs this year from June 22nd until August 7th.

We will have a week off between June 26th through July 6th, with MPS doing some cleaning, things of the sort.

So the camp that will be closed for a week.

We have we are working with Milwaukee Public Schools.

All students come from Milwaukee Public Schools.

Um we are giving a building by North Division, we are given North Division for the summer, and we work with those young people there.

So that's kind of like the central city.

Uh we provide free busing, free lunch.

Um, we also provide field trips, stipends throughout the summer as well, too.

So they'll receive one large stipend for completing the summer as well, too.

Um as we stated, it started out in 2022 with 200, just 200 boys, just flat out with 200 boys, and our biggest complaint was that what about the young ladies?

Young ladies need some mentorship as well, too.

This year, absolutely.

So this year we are expanding ourselves to 350.

We will have 250 girls this year and 300 boys.

So we are excited about that.

And to me, this sounds a little bit more biased, but the girls are always so much easier to work with.

After we get through that first little week, we're absolutely fine.

So the boys we got say that number again because the total is 350.

The total is 350, yes.

Give me the number again.

Three boys and girls.

It'll be 250, but it'll be three 200 boys.

Wait a minute.

That's 550.

Yeah, no, it's 200 boys and 150 girls.

I'm sorry.

No, no, no.

Here we go.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Okay, hold on, hold on.

How many?

200 boys.

200 boys and 150 girls.

Okay.

350.

Okay.

So we'll be serving 350.

Well, back to that ratio.

How many apps?

Uh we have right now uh ours opened up in May first, I mean April 1st and it closes on May 1st, and we have 500 applications, and we have 245 slots available.

So we made sure that this year we want we knew we were gonna try to go a little bit bigger this year, so we're gradually trying to increase.

Um what we were able to do was we were able to get in more 13 year olds, 12 and 13 year olds last year, so we would have more positions that will become available.

So now our 10 and 11-year-olds are 12 and 13 year olds, and then we have a lot of positions available for those 10 and 11-year-olds and some 12 and 13 as well, too, just to try to keep them coming through the pipeline.

I'm confused.

So we don't have 350 spots.

We do not have 350 spots.

So I was 350 people, only 245.

Correct.

So that was 350 was last year.

We'll we'll have 350 participants, but we do not have 350 slots available.

No, we do not.

Okay.

Yeah, the returning participants that we have from last year.

That's why we have because we have we have to keep in the participants.

We keep in the participants who already participated.

So we have a hundred and I think it's a hundred and fourteen, a hundred and fifteen slots that are available for that are that are returning campers.

In addition to the two forty-five?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

So that's how you get to the almost to 350.

Yes.

Got it.

But you got 55 apps.

Yes.

I guess back to the other original question what is the cost per uh student.

I could get the cost of it.

I can get the cost of it.

I don't have the cost at hand after now.

Keep going, keep going.

So here are some of our zip codes in which we've serviced throughout the years.

We try to make a major emphasis to make sure that we hit a lot of those unspoken for districts.

Um, the 5325s, you know, uh South Side.

We try to make sure that we do a lot of um working with the guidance councils, working with school counselors, being able to try to get flyers, try to get information over there as well, too.

Um, job fairs, different things of the sort.

We try to get all of that stuff over there on the south side and the far west north and the far north side as well, down northwest side as well.

And you so when the youth signs up, they choose between the two camp rise or camp rise is 10 to 10.

Right, right, Ross.

Anything over 14, they go to earn and learn automatically.

Yeah, and I will say, yeah, any camp rise participant that ages out, so they turn turn 14, they automatically get given us a position in earnest.

Yeah, we make sure that.

You didn't mention Cody, you didn't mention how many internships or slots are available that the city provides.

What is Milwaukee City of Milwaukee?

I believe we got the port.

It's not the city.

Well, we have some C D BG funding, is that what you mean?

No, that position is like internship opportunities.

So working with the city.

Well, the city actually goes has their own earn and learn program.

So it's it's a little bit different.

We don't do it.

No, that's ours is the CWE at the community work experience.

It's a little bit different.

But they go through the city, not through you.

Correct.

Okay.

Here's some information that we just spoke about about the camp information, how it'll be ran.

Uh we do have them separated in different groups by age.

Family members are not together, so we do not have brothers and sisters to be able to be together so we can have them kind of branch out on their own, build their own relationships, things of the sort.

Uh we will go this year from 8 to 2 p.m., 8 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Um the boys start at 8 a.m.

The girls go from 9 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

and the boys go from 8 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

Oh they don't mix.

They do not mix.

We don't mix, we don't have a mingling.

That creates a whole nother problem.

And then the whole notion.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Get them right out the way.

Get them right out the way.

That is the last thing I need to be sitting here talking about.

Right, right, right, right, right.

All right.

Our staff is, it includes uh the majority of our staff people that we have that are working throughout the summer are MPS employees, whether it's recreation, teachers, guidance counselors who may not have work throughout the summer.

We just try to make sure that they come in, help us out, and and you know, you get paid a decent wage and they're able to kind of help us out throughout the summer.

We have a one to eight ratio.

Um, and I'm on site at all times at North Division to handle any situations that are going on with parents, children, things of the sort of just trying to be the mediator in between and try to make it an easy summer for them as well, too.

Uh we also have MPS security on site, North Division, Milwaukee Public Schools does an amazing job with being able to help us out and being able to direct us in the right ways in the right directions of handling situations.

We um the train only time that the kids are alone are on the yellow bus, and we have a contract with the same bus companies that MPS is using, and they are fat, they are fabulous.

We have not have knock on wood.

I have not lost a child yet, so that's a positive thing.

Um but we we we do free pickups, so it's corner pickup, even 10-year-olds is their first time ever getting on the bus, and we just make sure that they get there and get home safely.

Bus drivers are amazing.

Um our attendance rate is better this year.

We have a five-day policy, a five-day grace policy of which kids can be absent.

Last year we had a three-day three-day was a little bit too strict for some of the young people because they would be terminated if they didn't come for three days or three days consecutively.

So now we've moved it to five days in order to have more of those participants be able to complete the program as well, too.

So that is it.

So we can go, yeah, the field trips and everything.

I know we got a hard stop, so I'll just cut it there.

Just answer any questions that may be available.

And I hope wait, and I hope that we all can participate because they're coming to do a tour at City Hall.

We would like to.

I reached out to Otterman Stamper and uh reached out to your offices.

I'm there.

I'm pulling in Rust.

Yeah, we'll be here.

Uh Romano, appreciate it.

Thank you, Melbourne.

I would love to.

Well, um, I'll check the details.

Absolutely.

Is it coming up?

Absolutely.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Organized.

All right, cool.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Oh, man.

I guess if we wanted to come on site and visualize it, what would we do?

Just contact you.

Just contact me.

Just let us know.

We will, and I it won't be all of the fluff.

You can get right in, you can get right in the mix.

And you know, we have um this year, just to kind of speak about it.

We quickly we have a pre-apprentip program that I created for them.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna have them.

We have so many young kids that are going into or want to learn about apprenticeships or going to high schools that have and offer apprenticeships but don't know the language or the lingo.

So what we did was this year we created four lanes in which we want to try and work with these young people on.

So our 12 and 13 year olds will be working in a field of health care, manufacturing, STEM, and public service.

So what they'll be able to do is they'll be able to get an event where they'll do like a big project all together and kind of learn a little bit about it.

So with healthcare, they'll be doing CPR certification, first aid certification, how to close up a womb, manufacture it.

They'll learn what happens at Pepsi.

You know, we've had some great partners with public service.

We would love for them to be able to come to here and be able to talk to the older person and learn what their older people do.

Absolutely.

Learn what goes on down the city hall, how do they get involved?

What is something they can learn to do in the public sector and all of those things?

Um, and then with STEM, we're working with MSOE, and they're gonna have a week-long camp as well, too.

So they'll be able to go there, kind of do some uh prosthetic dog legs, things like that, learn how robotics makes the world go round.

So this is something that we're working on with our 12 and 13 year olds, and we're taking our 11 and 12 year olds or 10 and 11 year olds, getting them to kind of look at them as the big brother and kind of envy what they're doing and say, I can't wait to do that next year.

And that'll kind of keep the rotation going.

That's good.

Mr.

Chair, thank you.

I just wanted to say, you know, just with the work of um camp rise, we could easily have a program on the north side and the south side.

Absolutely.

We could easily have you know these numbers doubled where half is on one side of town, half is on the other, just to again, these are 10 and 13-year-olds.

When I um when I talk to parents, and I'm just asking them, well, what is your kid doing for the summer?

They're like nothing.

And I'm just like, oh Lord, we gotta get you doing something, you gotta do something, right?

You gotta get engaged in something.

But the number of young people that apply, the majority of these young people aren't going to get placed.

There's a which tells us there's a great need for this sort of program.

And remember, they pay the young people a little stipend.

They don't get an hourly rage, but they get a little stipend, just as this, you know, you know, when you get a few dollars in your pocket, you feel good as a kid.

Oh my gosh, right?

So thinking through, you know, future tense, how we build out because you have to have staff, you know, the the funds that they have for food, you know, there's certain dollars that can't be used, you know, for food.

So it's a matter of figuring out how do we build out again.

This is only for we're only talking about summer, y'all.

How do we build out something a little bit more robust all the way from our 10-year-olds all the way to our 24-year-olds, and we got a lot of work to do um in that category.

But thank you all so much for your right.

I chime in and say, I think um parents need strategies too to be on the hunt for opportunities and looking.

I mean, oh, I agree.

That's why I do the all-in all youth resources.

All the applications pretty friendly.

Yes.

Yes, it's a two-page application.

Uh one the second page is just a questionnaire, just asking you questions, but it's just we don't collect major information, not social security numbers, just date of birth, school, and SID number from MPS.

Okay.

And that lets us know that they're MPS students if they have that SID number.

Excellent.

When you mentioned We're here to help, man.

We're here to help.

Oh, my problem.

Uh when you mentioned the trades and manufacturing, you did mention some corporation involvement partnerships and mentioned Coca-Cola, I think, or something.

Well, we're working with Pep.

We have uh Pepsi, uh, Pepsi for the manufacturing, Aurora and Freighter for healthcare, MSOE for STEM, and you guys for public service.

What about uh what you say trades?

I mean construction.

You talk about um do you have any of the carpentry?

I mean the I mean the list goes on the I mean trades obviously there's there's a lot of our construction firms that might be able to lean into that absolutely I had to I had to be strategic about it because um I couldn't give them free labor because they're teen years old.

But I tried to just have a learning or learner a learning experience.

These fields here were fields that relationships that we had and it was a short term and it was it was a short turnaround so it was about a 30 day turnaround and I was able to reach out with these individuals or places that we've already been in the past and was just like hey why don't we try these things but going forward we are looking to expand those as well and make it a full-fledged apprenticeship as well.

No we got limited time there we we gotta go uh a lot of these major firms though they're not myopic so they are leaning in they are trying to build that interest at an early age in these trades so it's not always about labor though so and I can point you out the I would love to talk about it.

Yeah um I've asked MPS to come back because we ran out of time for the career and technical education and the MPS coin.

So those have been uh held to the call the church at the next meeting I I believe that Alderman Stamper had an update on Milwaukee succeeds partnership.

Yeah I do um you know we all aware Vincent Lyles came and did an excellent presentation regarding Milwaukee succeeds so we want to bring the concept to our board so he discussed preparing youth via their civic engagement model to do a better prepared uh to serve our various city boards so uh we just want to partner with them um and uh see how we can support their program basically okay yeah they've been up here before and presented so yeah so to the update yeah we just want to make sure we move forward with Milwaukee okay and then our next a much more of a longer discussion but we're you I can't we don't have no time yeah that's right okay and then um our next meeting is is May 14th 2026 appreciate y'all being here thank you please stay in touch we really appreciate the work you do and um appreciate any follow up after that just for the record the reason why we got a rush they're gonna it's a lot it's like a school we're about to go to there being no further being recorded