We are going to bring this Emerging Youth Achievement Advisory Council meeting to order.

I am the chairman for today.

Alderman and President Jose Perez is out of town.

And I'm happy to fill in for him today.

My name is Russell Stamper II.

We have members with us today.

We have uh Amber Dayas.

We have Mark Okens.

We have Steve Mayhem.

We have Brad Krupa.

We have uh I believe this all for um Brian.

Brad, I said Brad.

And then Mr.

Ugo will be joining us.

Yeah, and Brian, did I say Brian?

And Brian, let's see.

Brian's available to you.

Hey, hey, Brian.

All right, so we're gonna get started.

Um with the review and approval of previous minutes.

Um, also like to welcome our director consultant, Miss Bevin.

How are you?

We're gonna have to wait for the minutes because we still ain't gonna order.

Okay, we're gonna hold them Steve will move to hold the minutes of the call of the chair, moving to number four, MMAC be the Spark presentation.

Are they available?

Come on up for the presentation for MMAC Be the Spark presentation.

Good morning, young brother.

Good morning, good morning, thank you.

How are you this morning?

I'm doing well.

How are you all?

Good, good.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and you have the floor.

Bevan, did you want to introduce this pre this uh organization and this gentleman?

Um, I introduced the organization we have not met yet.

Okay, okay, okay.

Um, MMAC.

So Bavin Christie Pivot Consulting.

Um, MMAC has a program called Be the Spark that focuses on um young people.

So we asked them to come and present to this this body.

Excellent, excellent.

Pull this up, but you can actually control.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

Just for all you young people.

This committee is about supporting you all, building you all up, empowering youth, and then supporting the organizations that do that in the community that usually don't get the credit and the recognition that they deserve.

So we developed we established this committee to hear from organizations that we don't usually hear from, and the ones that have great presentations and are making uh huge impact on the young people, we support and fund them.

So far, we've had about six to seven meetings, and pretty much every organization that presented in some shape or form has been funded or supported.

So we so we are uh happy that these many organizations that we're learning of are doing great work in the city of Milwaukee.

So we welcome you and thank you so much for coming.

You have the floor, young man.

Thank you so much.

Um portis.

I have the honor and privilege of serving as the career pathways manager at MMAC.

Okay.

You said Don.

Dom.

With the M.

Dominique.

The name my mother gave me, yeah.

Okay, I got you.

Um, yeah, so MMAC uh is uh the regional chamber of commerce is an economic development organization, so we are uh really committed to working with the business community, um, but our our investment in education and our investment in young people uh is really really strong um because for a lot of our customers, our member organizations, uh, and I'll dive a little bit into that uh in a second here.

But um uh a real um desire from that community is uh a robust and thriving talent pipeline.

Uh and so young people like you all in the crowd um having exposure and having experiences that um uh expose you all to different career pathways, uh especially those um thriving um career pathways that are uh here in our own backyard, right?

Uh and so we want to kind of build up that brand familiarity uh between the community uh and that and the business community and the young people here, so you you all know what's available to you all.

Uh and so we have uh some really like unique things uh or unique program that kind of works um uh or allows us to do that.

Okay.

Make sure I'm doing this the right way.

Um so just kind of touching on MMAC, um kind of giving a brief overview.

So uh the Metropolitan Milwaukee Associate Association of Commerce, uh we represent over 2,000 bit uh uh businesses that employ more than 300,000 people across southeastern Wisconsin and beyond.

And so we got about 80% of our member organizations are small to mid-sized companies, startups, small to mid-sized companies, but we also have some of those larger wells as well.

Corey Joe, please step in at any moment.

Good morning.

Hi, hello.

Thank you for coming down.

Thank you.

We were uh getting started with Dom, but I think he was waiting and expecting.

So thank you for coming.

We're right into the presentation.

So please introduce yourself and you guys can decide how you would like to proceed.

But you guys have the floor of the presentation.

I am Corey Joe Biddle.

I'm the vice president of talent at the MMAC.

Our division covers three parallels under talent.

So we talk about K 312, which is Dom's expertise.

And Dom has been on staff at MMAC for a year.

A year.

He made a year last week, so that's why these overview MMAs, he's like, Where's Corey's inscription?

These MMAC slides now.

But I wanted to cover the MMAC slides just to give context to the work that Dom is doing.

So I would do that if you go back one, and then once we have the context for what MMAC is and what we do as an organization, it'll make more sense our uh lens and our view on our relationship with K-12, which is all about connecting students to the employers, which are our members.

So we have this unique relationship with employers and a unique ear to hear what they are saying around their talent pipeline needs.

So our programs speak specifically to that, and our intention is for it to be a compliment to what already exists in the space and to partner where it makes sense.

So that's where Dom comes in.

But when I walked in, he was going through this slide.

MMAC was founded as a business association in 1861.

We have 2,000 members, and our members are businesses of all sizes, mostly small and mid-size.

We have 99% of the Fortune 500 headquarters that are here, the Fortune 1000 headquarters that are here.

So that 20% are the huge companies, but the heart of MMAC is the small and mid-sized companies.

Just covering who our members are by industry.

You can see by percentage, of course, it makes sense in Milwaukee that the majority of our members would be in manufacturing.

So that's 17% of that total 2,000 number.

Then we have business and professional services, finance and insurance, real estate and construction, communications and advertising and so on and so forth.

So that's the industry mix, which becomes important as we're talking to students.

So as Dom is going to schools and talking to students, he's listening to what they're interested in and what they are excited about and thinking about the members that we can connect them to and give them those opportunities.

Okay, Corey, how does uh a business become eligible for MMAC?

Um if they have an interest in membership, we have a full membership department, and it really makes it really depends on what their goals are.

So there's um our staff is a staff of about 40, 50 if you include the M7.

So it's MMAC and M7, which give us the four county region uh cover for MMAC and seven county region cover for M7.

And those employees, thank you, offer a suite of programs for any of our members.

So it's networking, convening, advocacy, um, uh education, best practices.

It just cut covers the full gamut.

We have a regular uh orientation where people can come and learn about what we offer, and sometimes it's a good fit for a business and other times it's not.

But if it's a good fit, they would just talk to our membership department and join.

I think the the um least expensive membership is right around four five hundred dollars.

Okay, yeah.

Gotcha.

So this slide covers our strategic priorities.

This is you'll find this in our overall strategic plan, and all of the pillars, all of our programs fall under these three areas.

Our area is talent, so about collaborating with employers to develop, retain, and attract um the top talent because that's the way that we're gonna attract the top businesses to the region.

Growth and livability are the other pillars, and there's departments and information um on those, but we're gonna zoom in on talent now.

Okay.

So in the talent department, there's three pillars.

Employer services.

Again, we serve companies.

So inside of each of those companies, there are HR departments, chief human resource officers, recruiters, people who work on belonging, um, benefits, employee engagement.

It just runs the campus.

So we offer opportunities for them to connect with each other, learn from each other, and learn from national uh people in the space who can tell them how can you be the stickiest, most attractive employer possible.

So we convene them regularly around all of those topics.

The second pillar is talent engagement.

You can look at that like community engagement.

Back in the day, we would have called it young professional services.

So we started Fuel Milwaukee as a young professional.

Used to be called young professionals in Milwaukee, and that started in 2001.

Back then it was all about the 20 and 30 somethings.

It was the millennials.

Now the millennials have grandchildren, so they have it.

Um so we're the I think the thinking was that the programming was meant to engage the most um people the people who are most at risk of leaving Milwaukee.

Now that programming and all of our services have expanded beyond just young professionals to early to mid-career professionals.

And what do they what do they want?

Because now everybody can work remotely, that people can move.

There's lots of options for people of all ages.

So all of our programming and talent engagement is about keeping them connected to Milwaukee and keeping them here.

And then the third pillar, and after this, I'll give it over to Don.

This is a K-12 career pathways.

This is everything that we're doing to foster a relationship between the business community and the employers and students, and giving them as early as possible opportunities to be in a corporate space or on a corporate campus, and um on field trips and having conversations with professionals to really find out what they're interested in and what they want to do.

That's where the name Be the Spark came from.

And Don will talk a little bit more about that.

Awesome.

Okay, real.

Does anybody have any questions for Ms.

Burton?

All right, thank you.

Um we've been joined by member and my good friend.

Yes, thank you, and and obviously very familiar with the work that you've done on the young professionals, so yeah, over decades now.

Yes.

One of our board members, yeah, exactly.

So thank you for all the work.

So was it called Fuel Milwaukee now?

It's called Fuel Milwaukee now.

Yeah, so like one now and the social edge group.

Are they considered?

They they're they're like a uh a partner organization, so you'll have like social X, Fuel Milwaukee, Urban League, used to have their own YP.

I think they're bringing it back.

Okay, um New Walkie doesn't operate in that space anymore, but people will hear those names and think.

But any of these, or there's new ones coming out all of the time, but the focus is different because the millennial cohort was so much larger, and then Gen Z is a little bit smaller, and they they move a little differently than we did, they socialize a little differently than we did.

So I'll do the floor.

Uh thank you.

Um, so career pathways matter.

Um, and again, we kind of touched on this earlier, but uh a strong regional talent pipeline.

Um cannot start after graduation, right?

Um, you can't be 16, 17, 18 years old, and and just starting to figure out that you want to be uh a doctor or a dentist or or whatnot.

Um we we need to to create that that interest in that thirst a lot a lot sooner.

Uh and so uh we have uh kind of this process of uh creating that awareness uh amongst young people um and then giving them that that intentional exposure uh not only to to the businesses but the individuals that work with within the businesses, right?

And so trying to create these real um tangible uh things for young people to see themselves uh in these roles that that these folks have that are sitting in front of them, um uh and and really just like opportunity, right?

Uh I think the ideal like the gold standard of um you know what that experience is is uh utilize and be the spark that will eventually tie into or lead into some sort of work-based learning opportunity, uh, some sort of paid opportunity for a young person to get some hands-on experience, um, and we wanted to kind of create that spark, uh, create the relationship between the school community uh and and the business community.

So the goal overall is just to help students understand what careers are out there, um, how to meet people doing the work, how to create a uh a potential mentor uh and and in that particular industry that you may be uh interested in entering.

Um, I'm sorry.

Um and so our portfolio kind of touched on this again, but the be the spark, uh we we uh have traditionally do done this two times a year, uh and so ideally one in the fall, one in the spring, um, where we would uh identify a organization or particular industry, uh, or it can be just a collection of just a ton of employers that are interested in working with young people or engaging with young people at the time.

Uh, we'll reach out to a ton of different high schools uh and we'll bring folks uh into a space and place, we'll break bread with them.

Um, but also we will open up these career conversations uh so young people could not only hear about uh what these organizations do, but what role do you play in that organization, right?

Because you may hear something like we energy isn't the all energy, right?

You may not think about the HR opportunities that are there, you may not think about the HVAC opportunities that are there, and so really uh creating a more tangible picture for young people, um through these experiences, and again, um it is it is not just a lecture, right?

It is more of a dialogue, so young people have the opportunity to engage and ask questions, right?

Uh, what are some of those tick tips of the trade that we don't know about the industry that can that can help me, right?

If you are uh a young woman of color and you are looking to enter an industry that is dominated by men, right?

Like, how can I have the conversation and say what can I be preparing myself for?

What what thick skin do I need to to have so I can actually thrive in here, right?

It's not just about checking the boxes about um creating that thirst and that desire for somebody to to actually see themselves to and through, right?

Um teamship is a really, really uh unique partnership that we have uh in a lot of different high schools in the area.

Um so it's a partnership with with college board that was formerly uh called uh district C.

Um where we would uh connect schools to businesses in the area, right?

And a business will present a real world issue or a real world problem that they are dealing with uh internally, and the young people have an opportunity to work through that issue, do a lot of research.

There are multiple touch points throughout the semester where uh folks from that particular business, we will refer to them as coaches will come into the school and work with those students, uh, and at the end, the young people have an opportunity to provide a solution uh and kind of like a pitch it type of situation.

We're having uh problem with turnover with Gen Z.

What do you think we should do about it?

And they would ask these high school students how to solve the problem, then they come up with a solution and come back and pitch it to the company's HR people, and then they would implement all or parts of it.

Yeah.

Have they done that?

Yeah, well, yeah, um, I think it's it's a lot of value that is uh happen for both the the business community and and the school.

Um I think young people um are um constantly trying to see um how what we're doing in the classroom translates to the real world.

Um and this is an opportunity that that that brings that that uh to reality.

Um and again, the business community can can walk away with you know potential solutions that uh that really work right it's not just a checkbox to say oh we you know we supported the K 12 space in our area uh and we're gonna go out about our day uh is something that's like we're we're actually a more efficient and a better company because of that um and and young people are the catalyst to make that happen um and so when when that becomes uh a reality from from just an idea um I think that process of you know I can see myself uh you know getting the necessary credentials or degree or you know whatever precursor steps that I have to do um to sit in that particular seat right you know um so are there college majors or college desires assisted with these conversations like they'll sit with the group and say okay you are an engineer so I need to go to school to be an engineer um I don't know if it's that direct um but it is you know the name teamship is is intentional right and so there is a collection I it may be maybe five to six students per per team um and so there will be you know anywhere from five to six different pitches that are being presented and because you are a part of a team right you may wear the hat of you know someone who may be an engineer you may wear the hat of someone who may be uh HR person and so you you are not um I guess exclusive to one yeah career pathway or post-secondary path be the spark is more that the more direct conversations about this is what I'm interested in school this is what I'm really good at naturally this is what I think I want to do and I'm gonna talk to an engineer about that I'm gonna talk to a marketing director about that that's be the spark teamship is more the confidence of knowing that you can present to CEOs or heads of departments and that you've actually actually tackled a real world problem and people talk about all the time when the students in their they have two pitch events the beginning is where they hear the problem and they say this is how we think we're gonna solve it.

The end is when they've solved it and they come to pitch what that solution is and the difference in the confidence from that first pitch event where they're kind of like twiddling and they're swaying and they're nervous and that last one after a semester of them going back and forth with the leaders going back and forth with their coaches they're standing up here pitching to a CEO what this is how you solve this problem in your company with confidence.

So I think in the teamship experience is that what do you learn from being on the team how hard it is to be on a team and the confidence you get from you know being in front of somebody that would make you nervous normally and they get past that so much earlier most of us are all the way through college and first job before we lose those kind of jitters but in high school they're having that experience.

So they receive all four programs all four of these programs are available to all of our um all of our members benefit from these programs and each of them have a different suite of partners that we work with to make them possible so our members that 2,000 employers can opt into any of these programs.

But the the internship pipeline I think um you know pretty self-explanatory we we always want to move students to a paid opportunity or or a deeper opportunity to get uh to gain those skills uh so any type of work-based learning internship uh it is is the ultimate goal uh and then just like overall educational partnerships we're not the only folks in this space that are doing what we're doing in terms of being a um a convener um and a liaison between the the business community and the educational community.

So uh different organizations that are out there uh ace mentoring groups CISA One, they are uh doing similar things and have um uh similar efforts um in terms of connecting uh K-12 education spaces to the business community for again uh pipeline that leads to some sort of work-based learning opportunities for for young people.

Um just just some data uh on the Be the Spark event.

Uh and so this one is kind of a snapshot from the first one that I was able to lead since I've been in this role.

Uh and so last spring we were, or not last spring, but in the spring we were uh hosting uh at MyAD.

Um, and so we had over 120 students that were engaged in a half-day career uh exposure experience.

Uh, we had about 15 regional employers uh that were there um uh conducting these conversations, and so uh we had uh not six.

We had actually we had nine schools uh that were participating.

Uh so we had um four MPS schools and then we had two charter schools represented as well, so the seats of uh health network as well as uh the Carmen Schools uh were a part of um the event as well.

We had a really good time.

Um gave us the run of the place.

It was students everywhere in the whole college.

You remember the schools?

Uh yeah, Bradley Tech, South Division, uh Milwaukee Marshall, um, both Carmen campuses, um, I want to say Ronald Reagan.

Okay, um what about North Division?

North Division was was not there, uh, but I got some points of contact over there that uh yeah, the the new principal is uh is a good friend of mine.

So yeah, no, he's we're we're definitely um we're working on some stuff for next next week.

Gotcha.

Um but looking to expand the work of Be the Spark, uh, and so um having like I guess kind of one off uh off-site career exposure events uh in addition to our Be the Spark Cadence, um, but then just expanded workplace field trips, uh, like to call them field experiences.

Um uh but just more employer-hosted student experiences.

A lot of times we we also um kind of are a bridge in terms of being able to welcome employers into different schools.

Oh um, there's a number of different advisory councils uh that I sit on um that I am able to um use my role of decks, if you will, to to bring different folks from the business community to support uh different school communities, um, and then just a stronger overall connection to internships and uh work-based learning opportunities.

Was that it?

I think we had a context slide.

I don't go go back once.

It might we might skip it.

No, maybe it fell out.

Okay, there we go.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Um obviously we are always looking to partner uh with different organizations.

Um even with the be the spark, we are looking at um uh doing, I guess, kind of like some scale-down versions uh that focus on some of the the uh community-based organizations that have youth programming throughout the summer um and trying to do uh some similar work um with those community-based organizations, but always looking to connect.

Uh, if you are a part of a school community that is looking for more support uh in terms of uh strategic partnerships with the business community, please please don't hesitate to reach out.

Um, yeah, that's I think um is the first person that we've had in the education department that actually comes from education.

He actually is a teacher, so he's been a huge asset to that's a stretch.

Um MAC.

He's been a huge asset.

He's so he's so humble.

So humble.

But he's I think he's taught us a lot about how to um work with educators and consider what's uh what their pain points are.

So our approach in our programming uh works for them first.

Um and that gives us better and more consistent access to students.

So thank you, Don.

Thank you.

Alright.

Well done, John.

Thank you.

Okay, do we have any questions about the committee?

What about on the board?

Anybody on the board?

Would they like to ask if you to have any comments or questions?

Well, first, first of all, we want to thank you.

Thank you for the the work that you're doing.

Thank you for absolutely expanding the work that you're doing over the years.

Um two or threefold.

Um, I mean, do you're looking at four use of four MPS schools?

Obviously, how we can expand them.

I was just looking at the broader network of not just the MPS schools but the University of Milwaukee's you know systems.

Obviously, MMAC looking at the corporation side, you mentioned M7, you know, looking at not just the corporations that are here, but as we're bringing, you know, whether it's Here, or you got you know, companies that are that are coming here and or expanding, you know, we talk about attracting um and retaining talent.

I think that plays a huge role in that.

And then last but not least, you know, I'd be remiss if I don't talk about obviously the diverse business community.

Um I think when you're talking about um, as I mentioned also whether it's Namac or the the business council, having youth see uh successful diverse business owners that are here right here in our backyard, I think gives a further, you know, motivation for them to say this is what these type of education career pathways can lead to.

So I just um so again, just kind of looking at you know, as we're collaborating with those three areas, if uh if you guys just want to take maybe a deeper dive on either either one of those.

Yeah, so M Mcubed and Hera have steering committees that I um sit on.

So our role there is not what we covered here, like where we're we have a lot of activity and we're actually like in there doing the work for uh Hara and MQ, we for instance, if there are um micro-credentials on the Hera side, they're looking at what's uh where are we moving students as far as education and are we pushing them in the direction that's gonna be marketable once they graduate?

So increasingly students are looking for faster, quicker, different ways to um get an education as opposed to a four-year degree.

Not that that's not important, but if that's not their pathway, here are some other opportunities, and Hera's deeply focused on that.

So Hera is a convening of this uh 16 college and universities, including technical college.

When they're producing their micro credentials, what is the curriculum gonna be?

What is important?

What should we where should we be putting our money?

We'll say, Well, let us give you access to our membership.

They might come to one of the round tables and say, this is what we're thinking, and the business community can respond and say, No, that's not, we don't have a problem with students having this competency.

We have a problem with this competency, and then they'll change the curriculum.

So our activity on those, both of those steering committees, MCU and um Hera, we I think there's a vital part that we play.

It's just not as active.

So you're right to bring it up, but I don't talk about it as much because we're not doing that work specifically.

We're more giving them access and convening the members around what that work looks like.

But you know you're absolutely right.

I mean that that visibility, you know, people don't know what they don't know.

That's right.

Thank you.

Um, how's the makeup of the youth as far as diversity?

Who's involved?

Who's who we've been seeing?

You know, the black, white, what are our youth?

Um, black kids getting an opportunity or are the white kids what kind of what is the race of the young people?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um I would say it's it's diverse.

I I think it looks um like the city of Milwaukee, right?

And so if you just the the schools that I mentioned, right?

Bradley Tech, South Division.

Yes, sir.

Right, Milwaukee Marshall, right?

The the demographics are uh folks that are um from socioeconomic spaces that you qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Okay.

And so my approach through be the spark is uh equity strategy in itself, right?

Um the students that I'm intentional about um wrapping my arms around or including um they are going into spaces and places where um a lot of folks don't necessarily look like them.

Um, and that is on purpose.

Um, but that's not also to say that um, you know, we can't invite a university school or a Dominican high school or anything like that.

It's just um equity is really at the forefront of of my approach personally.

So um a lot of black and brown students from schools that don't have the best representation or reputation, I should say.

Um, and I'm really intentional about challenging that um by putting these young people from these schools that don't have the best reputation in front of these employers to kind of shift that narrative because I may not live in the city of Milwaukee, and I may not have a uh a reoccurring touch point, you know, outside of what I see on the news or you know, just some some other negative take about what's going on in the inner cities of Milwaukee, um, and I allow the young people to to shift that narrative on their own.

I'm not here to to dictate or determine, but I believe in those young people because they believe in themselves and they they show improve every time.

Excellent.

Yeah, so in terms of the businesses, do they reflect at any level some of the youth that are coming to see them?

Are there any black CEOs or any brown CEOs that they can relate to?

I think the nature of these programs brings that out of each, like when if we're gonna say we're doing Be the Spark inside of Northwestern Mutual, for instance, certain people are gonna hear that a different way and be more excited about it because they see themselves in the program.

I think you see diversity across the participants if in terms of students and employers, but I do think that employees and leaders inside of the business community, they believe in what these programs can do and they show up.

Because they sign up for them, yeah.

Right.

And they have and they invest in them.

Yes, Mr.

Chair, I have a quick one.

I have um my first question is how long has um be the spark been going on?

Mm-hmm.

Uh Be the Spark is 12 years old.

Um with the this big relaunch under Dom is the first time that we've had this many students in one um space in a couple of years.

We were doing things virtually, you know, as everyone was the the program started to shift when we were um in the pandemic, so we were a lot dependent a lot on some of these other programs, which is why we started to do Teamship which had a virtual component in umce we got Dom on board, we really wanted to get everybody back in the space with a large number because the hoopla and the energy around these larger programs I think is very is valuable and it was palatable.

So it's been around for uh a while, but it's taking different shapes and forms over time.

So then I I guess my follow-up is I'm just curious if you've seen um, because I think there's benefits for everyone, and I'm curious if you've seen the work that through Be The Spark um if it's shaped curriculum.

Uh, you know, if employers are working with or if companies are working with uh our kids and they're saying like these are the skills that you're gonna need to be in this industry.

Um I was curious if uh that those suggestions are reflected in like what the curriculum looks like at Bradley Tech or whatever schools are coming before.

Okay.

Um I want to say yes and no too.

Um and so I say I say yes because I think um when you have these experiences and you have the opportunities to say I don't know, like what programming language are you all using or you know, um and you might say, oh, okay, we're we're doing something that's outdated, right?

Like a teacher may hear that in that space and and go back to the school and and do the necessary things to um make those adaptations to to the curriculum.

Um, but uh but also like no, I don't I don't think it's a it's not an ongoing conversation enough to to have the is this is be the spark influence in what's happening in the classroom enough.

Um but but I think there are other spaces in which that conversation is happening.

Um I don't know if want to talk about the the lab midwest partnership, but um there are different things that um are happening, right so like our we we had a partnership with some Busyrus dollars that allowed us to not only provide some training to some CTE teachers or some career techno education teachers uh around like a manufacturing curriculum but also uh provide some equipment for those classrooms and we were able to pilot that at four different schools so St.

Artist St.

Prep Bradley Tech um Obama and Market Academy of Science are four schools that that have robotics equipment in each of those four schools.

Those are good schools yeah so I think there's there's again we talked we what what's happening in the space and in this work and those conversations I think MMAC's work I'm I'm seeing the conversations around curriculum more in the tech colleges because I'm actually there at here and I'm actually influencing it I think others are doing more of that work around um MPS and the other schools I don't know that we're MMAC's education committee is more looking at you know uh policy and there so there's different streams but I can't say that beat the spark specifically is that we don't have a direct tie if that makes sense thank you um yes.

Where do you see that you can uh that you can bring in more um and I understand the diversity and things that sort of but what where do you see that you can gamefully add additional students that gives them the same thing this base group is getting now you having more students participate in more programs that's you're receiving the same amount of services that you because right now you seem to be at a good place with your numbers but if you were to you know increase what where would you see that?

Yeah I think um Dom touched on it a little bit so be the spark is sort of an umbrella it's a brand right so some of these larger programs is it's huge effort the students have to be there for half day but there's other opportunities for us to just give them field experiences where it doesn't have to be a full half day and it doesn't have to look like so there's a there's different types of programming that I think now that Dom is in place that can spur out of what we're doing right now and it doesn't require the same level of commitment but it gives them the same valuable um kinds of access virtually in person uh it's teamship which is a longer commitment our career conversations which is a longer commitment but I think as long as we're partnering well with the schools and hearing what their pain points are we really are just creating what works we can just it's nothing for us to say well we you want to be an engineer let me call up an engineer and you know have them come to the school we're just really looking to do whatever works because the employers really want to do it and they want their access to the schools to be turnkey and I think every company has a different level of involvement because they have different staff that are dedicated to this so what we can do as a convener of those businesses and say here is a suite of opportunities for you to get access to students and for students to have access to you and we're just broadening that and I think there's plenty of opportunities for us to partner and change and do different things if different things work.

I just was data wise um I I liked your dashboard.

But is there something that from what you've learned from these businesses and I think that's what Alderman Stafford was he was um roundabouting on is that is there are we learning that we're teaching curriculums that don't lead to that path to career and is there a way for you to is it are you do you have dashboards that show where we should be aiming for some of these kids because uh like I I went to Washington high school and I was in the computer specialty.

Had I known that you know Fortran would have been obsolete in two years, why did I take three years of Fortran?

You know, and so C was it, and still is weirdly, you know, that many years later.

So is there something that you're you're getting, or is there a way for you to get out?

Yeah, more information.

Go Dom, go back to that slide that had the CISA in the bottom left.

Um CISA one is responsible for informing the curriculum for all the career pathways for all of it's all of MPS.

And additional districts too, and additional districts, and the the data that they use is informed by um the research and data that we pull at MAC is part of what we do as our partnership with them.

And Dom is in constant communication with them and we present to them regularly and and help to inform what that curriculum looks like based on where the growth is, where the need is and what the employers are saying.

You leaned in there, so I knew you had something to say.

Or the interest.

No, I'm uh, I thought you leaned in.

I saw it.

That's all they lean on.

I guess I my question is is that you know, when sometimes when you're close to it, you don't see it right, but I think that would be valuable for us and even our staffers to understand uh what where we need to be guiding our youth because we can't waste time, and and sometimes you I heard you say yes and no with MPS, um, and any other educational system, it's just getting with the times and is that practicum gonna be even beneficial towards our youth, yeah.

Yeah, and I guess I will jump in just um I guess for for me, I think what you what you shared about um you know certain programs uh being obsolete, that's that's a constant challenge uh in the education space.

Um I think for me is more about uh how are we uh making making the uh the pipelines that already exist within the schools a little bit more efficient, right?

So you said you went to Washington, it's an IT school, and so you know, if I step foot into Washington as a freshman and I say I'm going to declare as an IT person, right?

I can't do that until my sophomore year, but is there a one-pager that will walk me through it?

My sophomore, I'm a my freshman year is gonna be this, my sophomore year.

I'm gonna have these courses.

My junior year, I'm gonna be eligible for dual enrollment at MATC and UWM.

My senior year, I'm gonna be a half day student because I'm gonna have an internship at you know, and so I think that process, like how that was very, very clean is not the reality at every school, right?

And I think it's it's more about that and less about what curriculum is is in front of them because that's constantly gonna shift.

Um, and so how how can we wrap our arms around the school community to to allow the systems that they have in place to work more efficiently so more students can churn out in that particular career pathway, right?

I think one of the the challenges that the business community is coming to us with, um, just in all transparency, is there's just not enough students that are graduating with this particular skill set, right?

And so one one school may graduate four or five or six students in that particular thing when the companies they need a pool of like a hundred, right?

So they can kind of like go through their process to select.

So how can we increase the number of students that are graduating with the credentials in which the school wants them to graduate with so they can be those attractive uh you know talent individuals that that these businesses are looking for?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you for coming down.

The presentation was awesome.

Uh we're going to follow up with some questions on how we can partner and how you would like the city to support all those young people in these four programs.

So we thank you.

This is the beginning, and uh we look forward to a relationship.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank y'all.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

That will be the other question.

Sure.

Yes, Steve, I need you to help real quick.

Um, does everybody review and approve the minutes?

Can I get a motion?

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Motion has been moved and second.

Meetings are approved.

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

Mayhem will be attending from the virtual board.

Thanks for coming down.

Okay, next, we have number four.

M MACB the Spark presentation has completed.

Thank you so much.

That's real number five Pearl for Teen Girls presentation.

Pearl for Teen Girls, where are you?

Come on up.

How you doing?

Good morning.

Morning.

Good morning.

Pearls for Teen Girls.

I love that name.

Thank you.

All right, ladies, thank you for coming down.

We're looking forward to your presentation.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and you have the floor.

Uh good morning.

I am Jasmine Deakin.

Okay.

Good morning, Dr.

Tiffany Tardy, president and CEO of Pearls.

Happy to be here.

Excellent.

And I serve as director of program services, and I wanted to start the same way that we start our group sessions with a check-in question.

So everyone doesn't have to answer, but just something very simple.

So what did your childhood smell like?

I'm gonna be a teen girl, right?

So no, you don't have to.

I'm sorry.

Let me know.

I'm sorry, let me uh clarify.

The question is to everyone.

If anyone is available to answer, not gender specific.

It smelled like chicken and dressing and uh Sunday mornings or breakfast, uh, it was clean, and uh incense.

A lot of incense in my household.

Uh what about two?

I thought a few things.

The first thing was just like a lot of grilled food.

Uh I dad would grill a lot, like every season.

Um, and then summers up north in the north woods in the air out there, like pine trees.

Um, uh for me, um, it smelled like black ice and leather.

So I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.

They had a leather interior car.

We went to build a square, we went to all of the places.

Okay, so black ice and leather.

Yeah, and I know it wasn't the question, but I guess for me it was like one of the favorite smells that I think kind of similar jump to holidays.

Holidays jumped to mind where uh and so for us where uh parents came from Nigeria, so it was uh Chenchen, it's a Nigerian cookie.

Uh and when when our parents made that, you know, you know, the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then all the other holiday smells, stuffing and turkey, and then the other one that jumps up is just summertime, summertime just has just had a smell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Still does.

That was that was a good question.

Yeah, sure.

Um it's always food for me.

It's catfish, fried catfish.

Um, our family always did Friday fish fry, and it always takes me back when we have fish fry.

Okay.

So I wanted to start it that way because that's how we kick off our group sessions.

Is the opportunity for us to find commonalities within each other instead of focusing on the different paths of life that we walk.

So take a moment to kind of just relax a little bit, but then also the smell of outside, right?

That thing, my mommy smell like outside.

But we have shared experiences.

So uh wanted to kick off by saying that uh Pearl started out in 1993 as a volunteer initiative where our founder Colleen Fitzgerald saw that there was a need for girls in the community.

So she wanted to make sure that there was a space for girls to be able to focus on um in the ways that they wanted to improve themselves, but then also opportunity to relate with their peers.

So from that one group at Jackie Robinson Middle School, that one group, those first seven girls, it grew into um where we are now where we have twenty-one groups and five program coordinators.

That's awesome.

I think so.

Oh, even better.

So uh PROLES is an acronym.

It stands for personal responsibility, empathy, uh, awareness, respect, leadership, and support.

And these are our guiding lights.

Um, we want to be able to hold girls and ourselves to be able to be models of our pearls attributes.

Um we start every group session with our pearls promise, and each one of the letters um has um an affirmation at the end of each one.

So um A is for awareness.

I want to know more about myself and the world around me, for example.

Um, but ideally, we want to be able to give girls self-development tools so that they can show up as their best selves.

Our group sessions happen once one to two times per week, and we work with girls in fifth through twelfth grade across the city of Milwaukee and surrounding areas.

Our programming is 100% voluntary.

So while girls are, while girls are uh pearls is always ready for girls.

Sometimes girls aren't ready for pearls, and that's okay.

So if a girl comes to a group session, one time she loves it, we invite her to come back.

But if she's not ready, then she's always welcome to come back when she's uh when she feels ready.

Um we have intergenerational models, so that means that we take to take pride in having adult program coordinators, but then with our associate staff members, it's comprised of three different roles.

So we have um associate program coordinators, and those are people that are in um that have just finished college or finish are in college and they are um paid staff members and they serve as near peer to us, and then we have our team facilitators, and those ladies are in high school and they serve as near peers to the girls.

So I like to give the example of I consume TikTok, but I don't TikTok.

So we need someone in between that knows the dance, knows the lingos, to be able to anchor in the messages that we have for girls, and we wanted them to be able to help us bring it home.

If you think about it, it's the same thing where um your mom may say something to you and it just doesn't land, but you have a big cousin that says the same thing to you, and it just it sinks in a little bit more.

That always frustrates me now as an adult when I'm trying to like impart all this wisdom.

They do not know.

It doesn't hit so we need somebody to bridge the gap for us.

Um our programming has a couple of different offerings.

So we have our own research uh evidence curriculum that we operate off of, which I'll talk about just in just a little bit, but then we also have our college and career readiness programming, and what that is is that we offer girls the opportunity to explore collegiate and career experiences as young as fifth grade.

So they have the opportunity to see themselves on campuses or see themselves on large Northwestern Mutual, was mentioned earlier, but to see themselves inside of that building and have tangible experiences to um drive home like what they can be.

Um, in addition to um those things, financial literacy of course support, and then our CCR um team also helps with scholarship application, any post-secondary success that girls feel like they're interested in.

Our five amazing program coordinators.

Um, they carry between four to five groups throughout the week.

So that means they're working with 100 to 125 girls each week.

Um they're trained in youth mental health first aid, um, SMART goal planning.

So every girl that participates in our program sets a year-long academic smart goal, and we have uh checkpoints throughout the entire year to make sure that they're working toward achieving their goal.

Um, they are also trained in youth mental health first aid, mandatory reporters, um, and of course, we are uh big support to our site partners and families outside of group sessions.

Our curriculum has um five major uh points that we focus on.

So building relationships, which ideally was the example that I gave with the um what did your childhood smell like.

So we have intentional activities around how we can find commonalities instead of differences, loving myself, teaching girls to be able to feel comfortable with how they see themselves in the mirror, um, striving to achieve that is our goal setting curriculum.

So it teaches girls to be able to have uh tangible milestones outside of setting their year-long academic goal, but to be able to see a dream that they have and take it into bite-sized chunks.

Um striving to achieve who am I forgetting?

Oh, helping hands in the community, each one of our groups set a um a service project.

Uh so it is a project of their choosing, we don't decide for them.

Some that we've done uh previously are um one school petition for a crossing guard because it wasn't safe for their peers to cross the street.

Other has been bathroom beautification projects because of all of the graffiti and that negative messages that can be written on the wall, but then also we have some girls that just love animals.

So we do bake sales to help girls um be able to help donate to um what is the name of the book?

Humane society.

They love the puppies, and then um I'm forgetting some boys, striving to achieve uh that's they believe in the skies and limit?

I'm forgetting.

How many programs are there?

So that's all a part of the curriculum that they um they do throughout each year.

So um the topics shift in each group session.

Yeah.

And then that's what is RCCR piece.

Yes, and then that's just making sure that outside of doing tangible experiences in the community that we're making time to have real talk conversations about what we need to do to be able to achieve whatever we want to achieve.

In addition, we have two optional curricula that is uh based with our partners at United Way and Community Advocates.

So we have one life skills that focuses on the consequences of drugs and alcohol and substance abuse, and then we have a sexual health curriculum to talk about puberty hygienes and what consequences of sex can be.

Events, we do all of this work so we have to celebrate.

So girls are uh we do a holiday party each year um to be able to celebrate one just a year coming to a close.

Our closing ceremony, which is our end of year celebration, we give out scholarships to girls, and then also we uh celebrate their work throughout the year by giving them awards for our pearls attributes.

Uh we have a blog party every year uh that's just a kick off to the uh programming year, and then our goal party.

We just recently went to Kalahari with about 75 girls um to celebrate them achieving their goals.

The one thing I would add to is the so one thing I would add is that also at the end of the year we do offer multiple scholarships to our girls, so um uh as they're preparing for post-secondary success.

Our Pearls Girl of the Year, again that's voted on.

Um, there's a whole process that they go through, but then they're awarded um an academic scholarship for college.

Awesome.

And our impact.

So these are the uh the data from our previous programming year where we were able to serve a thousand and twenty girls, and uh we take pride in being able, we can only our programming is for girls by girls, so we survey them often to figure out what it is that we need to do so we can curate programming that matches the current need.

Um, I'm going into my 10th year at Pearls.

Um I started out in direct service, and each time um I will say that I don't want to fall into my 2016 ways of facilitating group sessions.

So it's important for us to have timely feedback from girls, even if so much is asking them at the end of each weekly group session.

What did you think about today?

What other things do you want to do?

The main thing that we've been getting as far as feedback from our end of year survey is that they want more field trips and they want more food.

So Miss Jasmine's gonna do what I can.

Oh yeah.

But um, really proud to say that 98% of our girls at our at the end of this uh programming year, which we're just um we wrapped up in May.

But 98% of our girls said they would return to Pearl's programming and that they will refer to a friend.

Awesome.

Oh, I kind of jumped ahead.

So this is just the percentage of of our impacts from our 20 um 24 25 programming year.

Those are just stats that I just gave that 98%, but I'll give you a second.

Yeah, so um.

So you mean they improve on how they feel about themselves and and their their peers?

That's great.

That's right.

That's right, yeah.

So there's a few areas that we try to survey girls on to really see the impact of our programming, some of that around some of their, you know, more tangible things, like will you refer to a friend?

Other parts of it are about what how did you learn how to um make stronger decisions or emotional regulation, um, being able to manage conflict, those different types of things we talk about with girls as well.

What I love about Pearls in my time here, I always say that I wish I had a pearls because it's the most holistic way and model that I have been able to experience in my career, where all of the pieces of pearls really say that if we focus on this girl building her own confidence and her own um self worth and identity, understanding who she is, then we also then can start talking about all of these other pieces and aspects of a life that um that guide us, right?

So if I know who I am, then I um will be less likely to succumb to peer pressure when it comes to drug alcohol, you know, early pregnant or early um sex decisions, um, having a strong desire to be a steward of our own bodies and the way that we walk through life, and so that's why we say that we're building the future women leaders of this community, because I think it all starts at that core of who we are in our identity, and Pearls is able to really look at all of these different ways, and so if you're a Pearls girl, then you're less likely to get pregnant, you're less likely to be involved in youth violence in the city.

You're having stronger mental health conversations.

We're actually bringing mental health partners into our office space this summer, um, thinking about all of the data that we've seen in the youth risk behavior survey speaking directly towards what's happening around mental health with our youth right now in our communities, right here in Milwaukee, and so much of what our youth are asking for or have been asking for as they've been surveyed outside of Pearls and within Pearls is trusted spaces, wanting to feel like they have safety and belonging, and those are the key components of the work that we do at Pearls.

So we really want to think about what our uh work and role is in the overall ecosystem for youth in the community, which is why we were so excited to be a part of this conversation today, because it really takes a village, and I think we're one piece of that puzzle.

Um, but the work that we're trying to think about as we grow into our future is how we work with other stakeholders within the community to ensure that we are growing the work that we're doing.

I'm so excited about the thousand girls that we're serving every year, and also we know that there's 50, I don't know, 50 plus thousand girls in our city uh that could be touched by pearls in some way, and um the continued impact that we have in the 33 years is that we've served over 13,000 girls in our community who've gone on to graduate high school, go into post-secondary um opportunities, go into career fields um here within our city as well as across this country and world.

Um, so we really do believe that um the impact of our work is much bigger than um we're serving girls.

Yeah, right.

It's it's really a part of how we grow our Milwaukee ecosystem, how we grow the future leaders, how we think about talent in our city, um, and even some of the aspects of our curriculum and thinking about how you give back to your community, right?

Like what that looks like is all um a part of the the strategy of Pearls.

So um I uh I think I would leave with just as we're thinking about the future of the organization.

There's a lot of work that we're doing in our current strategic plan that's specific to we're calling it our neighborhood strategy, where we're really um we've worked with schools primarily and some community-based organizations.

What we're trying to do is kind of shift that some where we want to continue, of course, to work with schools, um, but with a lot of the challenges that are happening within schools, financially, et cetera, it has been um there have been more barriers to access for us to um to I would love to be in every school in the city of Milwaukee, and that's just not currently possible.

So you can see where we currently are in partnership with really really thinking about how we go deeper in our relationships across some of these community organizations and our um school partners and um education partners, etc.

Um, but then also how do we do this in a way that um structural or financial barriers are not reducing the access to the actual girls in the community?

So that's just why we're really working currently.

We're partnering with the boys and girls clubs, we're working with a couple of their sites um across the city this summer and into the next year to um again meet girls where they are, so going into community centers in neighborhoods where they can come from down the block uh from home and come to a safe space and get received Pearls programming.

Um, and that's why Jasmine was saying also like growing in our um field trips and opportunities to then bring all of those girls together because currently they'll have their sisters in a group of 25 to 30 girls at their school or organization where groups are, but we again are at a thousand girls that we're serving.

So, how do we make sure that we are bringing them together across communities again, so that they're connecting and getting to know and growing together?

Um, I'm sorry.

How many uh directors or facilitators do you have again?

How many?

You gave a number earlier?

So we have five full-time um program coordinators, and then we have associate staff members as well.

So those vary depending on points of the year, but um currently we're at one.

We have our one team facilitator on staff this summer, but then also have space for a couple additional associate staff members.

So how does that break down happens when you see over a thousand people?

So do we have, I mean, how many touch points will we have for every facilitator or staff member handles 50 or 100?

I mean, so it's kind of some big numbers.

I mean, how does that break down for so um I mentioned that we have group sessions that happen once one to two times per week, and our five program carry program coordinators carry four to five uh group sessions.

So the max capacity for each one of that those groups are 25.

So that means that that PC works with about a hundred to a hundred and twenty five girls per week.

Okay.

So it's twenty-five per session or okay.

So it's not overwhelming.

Okay.

That's a good that's excellent question.

So, example, um Nicola.

We have um we work with all of the girls that are in high school there.

So we have a junior teen group, which is freshmans and sophomores, and we have a senior team group.

Um, so that program coordinator would go on Tuesdays and Thursdays to Nicolay.

So we know Tuesday, Thursday mornings, those girls can expect to have a group session from 10 45 to 11 45.

That's my mama.

Well, and the one other aspect of our program we did mention is our shorter-term drop-in experiences.

So we have kind of our weekly groups that we do with girls, but then also, as Jasmine said, like wanting to make sure that we're meeting the girls where they are today.

Um, that model from 30 plus years ago has been what Pearls has consistently done.

What we're seeing in our youth today is they have tons of other opportunities and they're also just um, I won't say shorter attention spans, but they they are they are engaged in a lot of different things, so you don't necessarily see a girl that's gonna come group after group after group, year after year after year, um, in which case we love when that happens, and we have I think a strong return rate, which is amazing, and also um the the thought process for us is then how do we meet those girls where they are, and so if that is a one-term experience at a conference, when we were at the Go Girl Conference um a couple of weeks ago, or at one of our school partner conferences, or if we are we have school partners who aren't able to afford pearls, then we can go and do some of those experiences with girls on um, you know, building a shorter term opportunity for them so that they can still um focus on particular areas.

So some schools may reach out and say that they're experiencing challenges with bullying with girls or something else with girls, and can we come in and do some programming with them and we're able to do those things as well?

So we have that kind of year-round programming, but then we also do some additional work with girls um and wanting to continue to grow in that area as well because we've been seeing a lot of really great um benefit from that from our school partners, yeah.

No, thanks.

No, it's seem like there's a I mean, there's a wide range of topics and services that are very important that you guys provide.

So can you speak to like what type of certifications or training or qualifications go into?

I mean, these uh because I mean it's it's they're they're covering some important things that are that our young ladies need.

But I mean, so I would, you know, how do you know it's I mean, I assume it's a very strict um interviewing process.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, so they're all full the our our program coordinators are full-time staff members, are all um bachelor's level full-time professionals and um yes, they're all background checked, all of those kind of uh standard procedures, but then we also have a number of trainings.

Yes, youth and mental health first aid training, so that basically teaches girls how to um teaches us how to be able to teach girls how to leverage all of the things that they have in their tool, their toolkit and to be able to leverage resources that they have on campus.

Uh, we're mandated reporters because in our group sessions, of course, we share a lot of things.

So we want to make sure that our duty is to make sure that they're protected.

Um, we also make sure that our team is trained and understand how to identify an academic smart goal, and then we also work in collaboration with our site partners, whether it's an educational institution or community to find out in what ways that they see that their girls can grow and improve on campus.

So we want to make sure that we don't.

If a girl says she wants to get an A and gym, we're like, let's figure out something else.

But then also we have the girls that are scholarly, so we push them to be more well-rounded on campus.

Um, and then there's things that come up throughout the year where we really need to stretch in.

So this um going into this fall semester, we'll be doing a training on ADHD and how we can be a support in those things.

Uh, we had MMAC not in not too long ago so that we can understand all of the um availability that's for girls when it comes down to the um the workforce that's here in Milwaukee.

So we lean into um same financial literacy and all of those things.

We work with secure future so that we can be able to um have strong, we can be able to help girls understand financial literacy, but I also want to make sure, like while we have all of these deep topics that we work with, we also understand that we're in the business of building relationships, which is why we have strong partners so we can have them come in and speak directly to girls about the things that they're experts on.

Um I think the only other um oh, and then of course, facilitation, so how to engage with girls.

We keep that going on a weekly basis where we come together in our programming team meetings to figure out what our peaks are for the week and then our challenges, and we come together to be able to say these are tools and strategies that we use as work previously.

I get to throw in my 2016 ways there, and they just edit it so that it worked for today.

Well, and then the other thing I would add is that we're seeing more desire from our team and learning around um trauma-informed care.

So we've been doing some additional trainings with them with uh TIC and uh doing uh another training this summer.

Uh, one of the the the I'm I come from a higher education background, so it's key for me to continue to grow and educate in our team because the also added benefit with the Pearl staffing and intergenerational staff is that we also have really great young professionals that are working on our team too.

So we really do try to also think about them as an extension of our girls and making sure that we're helping them grow professionally as well as they prepare for whatever the next steps in their careers are as well.

So we have monthly professional development series that we do across our entire team, and then the programming team also then has their own separate set of additional training and uh development that they do.

Mr.

Chair?

Yes, I had a quick one.

Um I'm just wondering for Jasmine since you've been doing those 10 years.

Like, what do you think?

I my first question is like, what do you think has been remained consistent, and then what has really drastically changed in 10 years?

That's excellent question.

What has remained consistent is that um there's a certain level of charisma that we have to have, and we have to be able to open up to girls in order for girls to open up to us.

So the thing that has remained consistent is that if we show up as um, if we don't show up trying to adultify our youth, then they show up and they actually get the opportunity to be kids.

So the more that we can be a um example of that as we go into the many different schools and community-based organizations that we work with, as is as often as we can show that as a character trait, we start to see a change in that ecosystem.

Uh, what have I seen change the most?

Well, um, wow, let me see if I can pick one thing.

Um, maybe um interest.

I've seen interest change for career fields and the entrepreneur landscape is huge.

And I feel like that's something that we've been really intentional about making sure that we lean into so that girls can see business owners that are here in the city that are doing amazing things.

But when I was facilitating, it was a couple of things.

It was law, it was healthcare, or it was engineering.

That was the main thing that we took girls on experiences for, but now seeing that so many of them are making their own things and having their own LLCs and baking things as young as seventh, eighth grade, right?

With of course the help of their parents, it's important for us to begin having those intentional conversations very young too.

Uh one last follow-up.

Do you think that there's an interest in learning through experience and not through like school?

Like, I'm wondering, like, if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, do you still have a desire to go to school for business?

Or are you like, no, I'm just gonna learn by like doing it, or let's talk to other people.

Yeah.

Let me start.

So um we've had that conversation actually a lot with um partners as well, and thinking about what our role is, right?

Because oftentimes that is the case, and we've heard that from a lot of our youth.

Of like, I can I actually was just at um one of our sites um before groups ended at Howard Fuller and was having a conversation with one of our um high school juniors who was talking about a business that she has a um a fashion brand and that she's doing all this great work, and um, I'm like, okay, uh-huh.

And also, like, what are we doing to finish high school?

Because we also want to have that foundation, right?

And uh a lot of times it is I think important for us as the um trusted adults or supporters to also help them understand kind of how do you become that full-rounded, um, well-rounded entrepreneur.

Um, so some of our visits um we haven't scheduled this yet, but one is for example a lot of ladies interested in um uh hair salon, styling, esthetician, etc.

So actually taking them into a salon with a business owner to understand that there's a there's all these aspects.

Do you know accounting, you know, you know, taxes, do you know all of these other things to make sure that you are equipped and prepared to do whatever it is that you want to do?

Because yes, a lot of times with the kind of quick businesses or quick things that we see online, it's like easy to say, oh, I can just go do this, which some, you know, maybe the one person can, and also how do we make sure that we help set you up for success so that you have that foundational knowledge is the efforts that we try to have.

Yeah.

To Tiffany's point, that is the the beauty of being able to have tangible experiences.

So we had uh a day with MATC where we talked about women in male dominated fields, and we got to tour the trades before we met with um a construction company that was run by women.

Um we um that was one of the first steps at the cosmetology school.

We're so grateful that the their professor came out.

Like you can't just be in your kitchen being a beautician, like there's things that you have to and the way that they leaned into that conversation and got to see the um ladies that didn't make the choice to go ahead and go through the program and saw them like actually like practicing and the way that their eyes opened up, I'm like, we will be back because this is something that they really want.

So those, yes, and even in group sessions when we're not out in the community, um, majority of our interactions through those um the building relationships and loving myself, those are all tangible activities where they're working with someone or um they're working with someone or they having to uh put together a proposal for a business or something that they want to do and being able to present it, it's just teaching them that those small character building skills of if you have something, how do you talk about it with confidence?

That's an excellent question.

Um, there was one final piece I wanted to make sure we added, which was just specific to costs.

Um, so this is uh what we would share with kind of externally with partners who are interested in partnering with Pearl.

So we do have a fee that our school-based partners um opt into to have that year-round programming.

Um this is kind of our sticker price for the schools, although it has um deviated and changed much based off of what the school's actual um uh financial capacity looks like.

So um we definitely try not to again have costs be a barrier, but this actually we're currently in the process of updating because as we um we the prior the uh primary dollars come from fundraising and so through our individual foundation sources, etc.

But the actual cost of our groups are actually closer to now 40,000 per group of 25,000 or 25 girls a year.

Um, so we are fundraising as much as possible.

We're also working to really secure more sponsors for the actual school partners because even the cost, which is a small fraction of the full amount of the cost, right, that the schools we um asked to pay, they are they're not able to afford it, and we know right why because it's so um challenging right now financially across all school districts, and so we are really trying to think about creative ways of how we can continue to serve girls, which is what I was sharing before with working more within some of these community-based organizations, reducing um actual school uh partner fees um to as little as possible, but then that means then we have to subsidize that, um, continue to to grow in reducing those costs for our partners.

So, yeah, so that's the that's the last piece that I would offer is that one of the things that perhaps we were not facing um earlier on in our work, we are seeing in a very different way as obviously the economy and so much has changed, um, where there were budgets for these types of um services, and I think that we have so many great pieces of feedback from our school partners about um the value of pearls and they want pearls, and Jasmine has a list of probably a hundred plus schools who are um not able to to say yes to pearls um and the majority of them are because of cost.

So that's something that as um a leadership we're actively working on trying to identify solutions to reduce or eliminate the actual out-of-pocket costs for school partners to be able to have pearls in their schools.

Okay, yeah.

What other than schools?

Is there like a summer program or a weekend uh after school program or is there a location that I can send my daughter to?

So that's a great question that we didn't mention.

So um we are in those specific schools, but our Pearl's office, a hop skipping away right there on the 7th and McKinley Monday through Thursday, 4 to 6 p.m.

We serve any girl from the city of Milwaukee.

So they can come to group at our office throughout the academic year, and then we also then are hosting a number of different opportunities in the summer um for girls as well.

So if the city was supported, uh and you apply for some funding, how would you apply it?

Would it would you pick a school or would you would it be for what you just stated?

So it's a great question.

How would you apply some excellent question?

Yeah, so we um the biggest kind of fundraising desire for us is specific to our school partners.

Yeah, so really trying to um get the cost um to close to zero as possible.

Right, subsidizing the cost for schools because um one of the things that just continues to not sit well with me is that we have schools who want pearls in their schools that we can't that can't afford us to be there.

Um so we have been uh like I said, working with some sponsors to um try to get some uh different corporate partners to sponsor said schools, um, but that would that would be exactly how we would apply those dollars is um one getting into more schools, which then also then means that I need more staffing, right?

To be able to um because the the intentionality around our services keeping those groups small so that there are actual real relationships being built um that allow for the growth and development that we see in those girls.

Okay, and if uh school doesn't have 25 young girls signed up, can you split like 15 here, 15 year?

That is uh an excellent question.

Very good.

Yeah, I'm hoping to just about anything that they have.

So I love to tell them like we can create a pathway that makes the most sense to you uh because of how most budgets are set, is like um uh one of our partners, Journey House.

For your example, they're also connected to Longfellow, but they have two completely different budgets that they operate off of.

So the internal extra work that will go, and I have no idea those behind the scenes, but I'll offer as much as I can because my goal is for us to get to where the girls are.

So whatever is within their range, yeah, we're perfectly fine to do.

We've also um, in addition to uh our drop-in experiences, which are one time, we've done short stints where we've come and we've worked with at the same group multiple times, um, or even getting creative with a couple partners that I've been speaking with recently and like maybe we just do a semester of programming, or we do a couple of uh group sessions in the fall and a few in the spring, just so we can have at least some sort of touch base and be able to offer those girls the opportunity to come to our pearls office for group sessions, all right.

Thank you so much.

We think we're just things uh, hopefully you got some for us to thank you all, yeah.

So you want me to get to connect on you have any more questions?

All right.

Ladies, excellent job, and thank you so much for our partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will be in touch, thank you.

Hey, were you guys on MLK at any point?

Yeah, so you're not doing anything.

Yeah, officially a year and next month.

So, we'll get a lot of people.

Yeah, hey.

Hello, right, all right, all right.

Good question, good stuff.

Okay, thank you for coming up.

Good morning, good morning.

Let me introduce you number six, you know, Latina Resource Center presentation.

Yes.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for coming up and present your pleasures now.

Now we are looking forward to your presentation.

So you have the floor.

Thank you.

Um, my name is Mariana Rodriguez, and I am the director of the Yumo Satina Resource Center.

Okay.

And first of all, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to talk about one of one of many programs that we have, the Latina Resource Center, and that's Raices, which is the youth program, targeting middle and high school youth in the city of Milwaukee.

And today I bring my group, actually.

We have Jennifer Rodriguez, who is actually the lead family specialist.

Okay.

And then we have, you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah, I'm Ellen Mendoza.

I'm a youth leader in races and what in Raices.

Our youth group is called Raices, which translates to roots.

So it's yeah, so you we get call each other roots, I think.

Okay.

My name is Santiago Perez, and I'm also a youth leader at Raices.

Okay.

Hi there.

My name is Diana Gonzalez, and I'm actually the manager from Health Promotions, also part of Yumo's social services division.

Awesome.

So today we wanted to really share with you.

I mean, we really wanted to make sure that we invited our youth leaders who really play a really big part in what we do with our program with um raises.

And so which way do I go?

Do I just press or we can try that?

Okay.

Oh, sorry, here we go.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

So uh really quick, um, you know, I UMOS, we are a multi-state organization, but our headquarters are here in Milwaukee.

The Latina Resource Center is one of the one program under the umbrella of the social services uh program headed by the vice president uh Marjorie Rivera Torres, who's joining us back here, and so we have multiple social service programs, um legal um, you know, community pathways, and uh of course Latina Resource Center is one um of the uh one of the programs along with health promotions, and so the Latina Resource Center uh what we focus on is we actually are a domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking um program.

And so we have intervention programs, we have housing programs for families who are um facing housing um insecurities because they're fleeing abusive homes, and we have uh programming for children who witness domestic violence or s or sexually assaulted, um, and then we have a human trafficking program where we address both labor and sex trafficking around the state.

Um, one of the programs, of course, is our youth component, and that is more focused around prevention.

How do we prevent the next you know from uh the next group of young individuals from um being victims, uh, but also how can we really support them to be leaders, to be the peers to support their friends and education about what it means to be healthy.

How do you support somebody who is addressing who's facing some challenges at home or facing uh might be in a in a relationship that it's abusive?

And um, and so we know that with um teens, you know, it's it's it's very it's prevalent, and with teens they start when they start to form their initial relationships, they love deep.

You know what I'm saying?

And so they don't often have the information to best know how to navigate the challenges that they may be experiencing in their relationship, whether it's a very over possessive boyfriend or girlfriend, um, or there is a great deal of stalking, and a lot of the violence that we've ex that we um know is occurring are in the schools, they are in the schools, so um raízes is about really building up leaders.

Really getting them out there, um, and getting a group of teens to support each other.

So we have so we actually um implement two um curriculums.

One is expect respect, and the other one is dating violence.

Um, sorry, safe dates.

Safe dates, and they're all around prevention and focusing on healthy relationships.

So before I go in there, um I do want to talk about, I mean, uh, Diana's gonna talk about a very specific program for youth that is also about focusing on healthy youth.

This is part of the component, and so um Diana.

Yes, thank you.

So health promotions we basically use um serve the community with different services, but under the Jew specific services, we have the tobacco prevention program, and this program is uh educating the community and the youth about the prevention, the consequences of vaping and tobacco use, educating them um and open having this open space so that way they can learn about it, but also they can go out and speak to their peers about the same thing, um, building that knowledge to the peers.

So that way they don't start.

And two components is fat groups, that's where we share, we join just a group of Jews, but we speak one on one, like uh, you know, like a good group, and they get get that knowledge and they spread it out.

The other component of that is where we partner with the Milwaukee public Milwaukee police department and the cadets where they go out to the retailers and make sure they are compliant and not selling to underage individuals.

Okay.

So that's a good leadership building for the youth, so that way they know hey, they have advocacy for them for them and they can know they're doing something positive to the community.

Oh, yeah.

And besides that, we have good re um feedbacks from both adults and youth that they also they have a voice to the community and have that preventive part and to their health and to their youth and themselves.

Thank you.

So that program, I sh at at licensing committees.

What's that?

At licensing committees, when businesses come up to renew their license, I ensure that that program is in every last gas station, convenience store, and liquor store in my district.

So thank you.

They gotta sign up for that.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

So that's y'all.

Yeah, so some something to add.

Something, something to kinda add to that program and just kind of the style of how it works really well.

Again, uh, they they kinda offer again uh uh this kind of stake out like s uh like plots.

Uh so for example, they'll work with um, you know, a youth that it's a little bit more like older, so seventeen, eighteen, right?

Um they'll go out, you know, uh into the to the stores and then they'll just try to go buy, you know, this product.

And a lot of the times unfortunately the the shop owners will not even check IDs and they'll be like, here's this product, right?

And then the uh the youth comes out, right?

They they have an adult with them and they're just kind of thinking like you know, they they talk through the process of like, oh my god, it was so easy.

I just went in there, right?

Like they didn't even like flinch, right?

So then um my youth again, like we all kind of work together to kind of create that that system, that plot of like, okay, how easy is it, right?

And then where are we getting this stuff from?

Like we've had conversations about like like honestly, like things like time has changed, right?

So like I was telling them like a few years like 10 years back, I was in high school, it was super cool to be smoking cigarettes, but now it's like what are you guys smoking?

Like, right?

Like what are you guys?

They're like babes, pens, babes, pens, right?

Like, and it's even easier, right, to get access to this stuff.

So these are the conversations that we have, right?

Because again, I think um similar to uh one of the programs behind me how they're like we want to get the information from the teens, like we want to know what's going on, hear them out because times change, like again, cigarettes are gross now, right?

But back then it was cool we were smoking them, right?

But now we're looking at tobacco in a whole different image.

So when y'all do that, reports on their record, then they get a suspension from it.

Yeah.

I suspend them.

And then they can't make money for 10 20, 30 days depending on what they're working.

So they're gonna be more strict on it too.

So then they're not like, oh, we're not gonna do this again.

We're actually gonna follow procedure, right?

So it's it's the ultimate what you guys are doing, that's the end, it comes to us and we hold them accountable.

Yeah, and uh for the last 30 days we have completed a hundred and fifty eight retailer checks.

You gotta do what?

For the last thirty days, we have completed a hundred fifty eight checks on retailers.

Keep it up.

From eight straight street to 51st, love us to believe.

Well, I think the other part is again is um it's youth led too.

So they are the the group that is out there in the community.

Um, you know, so there's a you know a great deal of training and discussion, but they're the leaders, they're the ones that are going out there.

Um, and it's not just an adult walking in there with a little checkboard or anything like that.

This is like, you know, what these teens are helping us to address in the community.

Absolutely that's empowerment, and that is what we really focus on with uh with the leadership.

So Raises is um the other component, which is about healthy youth and healthy relationships, and so um um, you know, a little bit of the overview is that we empower through you know youth through leadership development, prevention education, healthy relationships, and community engagement, and those are really our kind of our primary pillars um where they are um really involved in making sure that they are reaching um their their it's like the peer-to-peer conversations, um presenting, talking, so that they are the ones that are leading and less voice of of adults, and um, you know, and we've had a youth summit actually, Santi spoke at the youth summit, and um there was a great discussion around immigration or uh police involvement in the community, and there was such great insight that's coming from the youth in terms of how do we form those relationships because if we don't have good relationships with our community partners or at least the teens, they're gonna be con they're gonna be treated as suspicious, you know.

Let's pull them over, let's talk to them, versus these are the young individuals who are leaders and who are out in the community and know what's going on, and they can they are the ones that can inform us adults as to what we need to do better.

So, um, so they are amazing around that.

Um again the core the core um pillars of of our group, and we are funded by End Abuse Wisconsin through it's a program through uh the department of children and family services.

It's a very small grant.

Um Jennifer is really our only um at you know our only youth facilitator, and we tend to do a great deal a lot for um for the support that we receive.

So the leadership development, the prevention education, everything, the community engagement and advocacy voice are the things that um Jennifer does in groups.

So the teens are participate.

So uh the group, right?

Like on what that kind of like what does this look like in action?

Um it really consists of uh we meet every Wednesday, and my students come from all over the community, right?

So then, for example, as we mentioned, we have advocates um in the LRC are left in our resource center.

We have um advocates and they work with these families.

Um, so then the first kind of wave that I get is references, right?

So let's say um dad comes in, he reported a uh, you know, he wants to do a restraining order on on mom because mom was being abusive towards him and his uh teenage daughter, right?

So then we're uh we have an advocate working with dad to file that restraining order, but then I'm working with a teenage daughter to make sure that she knows what a healthy relationship in a safe space looks like.

So then that's kind of the first way, right?

I I work with references um from my peers, the rest of the team, and then the second wave is really just um students who come in from all over the community, like I mentioned.

Um Alan goes to Bradley Tech, right?

Um, or both of you, sorry, both of you guys go to Bradley Tech.

I have students from um Reagan, I have students from uh San Agustine Prep Sound uh John and Tita, San Jonatitas.

We work really well with as well.

Um I've done uh, yeah.

So again, we have uh members uh from the community that come willingly, they come every Wednesday, um, and we'll do different programming.

So sometimes I mix it up depending on you know the theme.

So for example, um Alan, do you want to tell them a little bit on what we did for like the week or like the month of Pride?

Yes.

Uh we attended Pride Fest and we had like a setup, a display of what we had of our resources, and just like advocating for ourselves and what we provide for the community.

Okay.

So then we'll go out to the community, and again, they're the voice.

So I'm just sometimes I'm just sitting back they're doing you know they're doing the work uh they're they're talking about you know the resources that we have right but um the point is to kind of have them um be introduced this was our first time at Pride Fest it was super cool it was fun um but again we were there with a mission and that was to spread the the message of the resources that we do carry.

So it's again going back to that youth leadership component um uh so then again part of the students that come from all over the community uh but then I also go into school and I do facilitation so then um I'll do offer one time free um workshops to just kind of get my foot through the door about the tobacco prevention right or kind of um we did this really fun presentation at um Howard Fuller um and we did it a combination of what does tobacco smoking prevention look like um and how does mental health go in connection because when we're going out we met with San Jones as well uh we we talked to them and we asked what's going on right like you guys are finding vapes what are they telling you when you find these vapes a lot of the students are saying I smoke because I'm stressed I'm on a I'm on the city bus for a full hour every morning to get to school I'm on an hour back heading home I'm stressed I'm hitting that vape right so then we did that um co-presentation on tobacco use vape use and mental health and what coping looks like um just as a reminder like we could cope in different ways healthier ways right so then uh Howard Fuller again those are some examples of like different schools that we've been kind of like going into I think in a year we'll probably um I mean in terms of outreach the teens had all of that like they said they do part of that is being involved in the prevention the leadership um the public speaking we have attended um the teen summits um that had headed by the department of um children and family services they are the ones the teens are the ones that are presenting on a topic whether it's mental health suicide or what have you again it is the um the way that the teens are leading the work in our community and how we're just there to empower them so that they can make a greater impact peer to peer um you know and be more practical in terms of what we are asking them to do and that is more community engagement and involvement um so the education piece of that um santi did you want to say anything about uh community involvement uh yeah we actually with the teens uh we engage with them uh we set presentations and activities uh to let them know and spread awareness about um mental health also about safe safe relationships uh how they may or may not look like it's just the good environment to learn in in non school like you been with the program sorry how long have you been with the program about like a year and a half he's a great guy Alan actually also I mean Alan D I mean they you guys want to talk a little bit about your experience uh in terms of you know field trips and exposure to communities um I think we ended up going to the Holocaust the Black Holocaust Museum um because we want to be able to make sure that we are being very inclusive and making sure that there are our communities are very similar in how we're how we are addressing barriers.

It looks a little different but when we are building across to other you know communities and sharing um we can become one community and really address them together we can be stronger.

Yeah and so um like a really cool example of the the black holocaust museum like we went of course um around Juneteenth right and then our tour guide was amazing there again big shout out to them they were great uh they we we did the tour we kind of you know they they presented to us and whatnot and then um my mistake I uh ordered the bus like a whole hour later, so then we're kind of hanging out there for a minute, but we were like, you know what?

They gave us the space.

So we had more of like a sit-down table conversation, right?

We're like, you know what?

We'll do our debriefing here.

So um do you guys want to kind of talk a little bit if you remember the conversations we had and the similarities of what the patterns that we saw um in the black I think it was a great learning experience because well, in my history class, I didn't really learn much of what was presented there.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, I think it was a great learning experience because well, what I learned there, it wasn't really taught in my history class.

Right.

And it was like we learned about the lynching of um of black Americans.

We learned about uh what was it was like these green greenhouses?

Oh, the uh the red zoning in Milwaukee, the red line zoning.

So we talked a lot about that and how we still see that till this day.

Also, they got a slider all the way up with um present day, yeah.

Okay.

And we we also I think um something that like the teams mentioned that really come on, like my attention to is that we saw a lot of the similarities and patterns of, for example, um right now uh for the Latino population, right?

A lot of the fear that we're seeing is um off of the immigration and ice rates that we're seeing throughout the country, right?

So um I know one of my teams um or a few of them kind of had said that they see those similarities with uh the slave catchers and then ice, right?

And then how the migration patterns of how we uh they would start off in the south and then they would kind of make their way up north, right?

So a lot of our backgrounds.

Uh so that was a really cool conversation that I was like, oh man, like I that's very true.

So I think you know, so what so the greater impact that we want to kind of re-emphasize again about the program is that again with Raices, when we're looking at prevention um of uh violence, whether it's community or uh intimate or dating violence, we know that it's uh you know there's a great deal of intersectionality where families are struggling um in, you know, in in so many different ways and aspects, and politically, kids are being impacted, and so when we are giving them when we are providing them the space to really process what's happening outside of our homes, we have to connect how all this plays out in the way that we form ourselves as healthy individuals, how we you know continue to work towards being healthy adults and raises at the end is you know, is is really our goal is about really talking about what that looks like versus always looking at um the uh the dimensions of uh what does violence look like.

In our in our um feedback that we received, most teens can identify abusive behaviors.

What they cannot identify is what it means to be a healthy individual or how to healthy how to support a friend who is experiencing challenges, you know, um peer-to-peer development is really important, and that's what we want to really build them up and so that they can be able to understand, you know, communication.

You can argue, you can di have differences without hurting somebody.

Right, right.

And so, um, and so these are some of the things that we have been um really addressing, how violence has been playing a part in our lives, and and that's why it's so prevalent.

And so we are bringing kids to these spaces in these museums, we are really getting into some deep conversations about the prevalence of that and how and what our role is to make sure that we continue to be healthy.

So, yeah, so that's um so that's the impact and um, you know, and again, we are in middle schools and high schools, um, and uh, and so we definitely want to make sure that we continue to support the youth in all of the work that we do.

So yes.

What what type of tra again?

What type of training does um because these are obviously some very serious and important community issues that um uh so what type of training does your staff do your volunteers go through for this and then also uh equally important we have to be cognizant of what type of resources that you um that you're giving to your your staff and your volunteers when they're you know, um when they're handling because they're gonna need uh heavy, heavy stuff.

Yeah, they're they're gonna need some resources also when they're when they're uh when they're dealing with these uh important issues.

Yeah, what's really neat about this project is that um, you know, uh there's a great deal of training that is offered to um to the staff and how in there's monthly meetings with all of the funded projects.

We're like five projects around the state that's being funded, and there is a great deal of connection and interaction between all of the programs to provide support and training, at least for the for the for the leaders.

Part of the curriculums of what we uh implement in um in the expect respect and safe dates, they have components in how we can train teens into how to have these difficult conversations and the resources and how not to get in, you know, not to get involved, but rather how do you support, you know, um uh a peer who may be disclosing and all the peers have um connections with um our youth with um Jennifer so that there's always conversations like if there's anything very serious that has occurred, the teens are uh trained to communicate with the lead, you know, in terms of other things that we need that an adult needs to follow up.

The truth of the matter is is that teens are dealing with things by themselves, and the kind of advice that they may get may not be always the best, or they might not even say anything to an adult.

And so some of these topics, like you know, um drugs, the use of drugs, or the fact that they might be in an abusive relationship, um, and you know, um, or pregnancy, some of these things teens already know.

They know what's going on around their circles.

So are your place?

Do they have certifications?

Are they educational requirements?

So when it comes to our advocates, yes.

So when it comes to our advocates, uh they're all again uh college educated, they have their background specifically in that um in those realms, right?

Uh I myself have my bachelor's.

Um, and then when it comes to like again, training and making sure that all my you know knowledge that I'm sharing with the teams um is up to date.

Uh uh my, you know, my my team, my boss, they they offer really great opportunities for trainings that we are able to get, right?

So then just like online trainings, we'll go to seminars.

Um I know there's a seminar coming up in Texas that we're kind of on right now, um, all within the topics of of youth leadership, right?

All in within the topics of of healthy relationship mental health.

So it's just again keeping sure making sure that like my you know, my resume is always being updated with all these different kind of trainings and whatnot.

Um, and then again, uh community partners, those are really gonna be our strongest suit.

So sometimes I might come up with um, you know, a situation that we're not too familiar with, right?

Uh we work with a lot of our neighboring uh partners, like Soju is one of our homes.

Again, we work with the city, so we we work with a lot of different uh departments throughout the the city as well to just kind of do the whole, you know, the again uh it takes a village for sure.

So it's it's one of those.

Yeah, we we've partnered with the com uh with the um the uh safety and wellness uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

With um yeah, with Julian, so we we so yeah, with Julian, so we we're very partners, so we definitely have those resources.

We're very open to to uh collaborating, so again, just always um there's always room for growing and learning and whatnot.

So we we definitely partner internally, right?

With the tobacco prevention and the rest of the team, uh, you most, but also um on a larger scale when those resources are available to us as well.

Yeah, thank you for that question though.

Thank you.

Where's your physical location?

Uh uh on Chase 2701 South Chase Street next chucky cheap.

There you go.

That's the headquarters.

That's the headquarters of UMOS.

That's yeah, so that's where we are.

We have our own location there.

Yes.

So you guys give out uh support for families for housing too, right?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

Excellent presentation.

We look forward to working with you all.

That's what this meeting is about.

Uh you'll get some follow-up from uh Mr.

Crump or uh the president's office or our manager Bevin uh on how we can partner and continue.

Oh, thank you.

We're gonna support you guys.

Thank you for doing my district and helping keep those uh businesses clean.

No, they they do so much.

Anything, thank you guys so much for going on.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Look forward to the partnership.

Thank you for ride.

All right, next we have project Kindred update.

We have June 13th and MKE Love Recap, June, July 9th, Civic Love Programming, and then July 16th, City Hall Engagement and Scavenger Hunt.

Bevan, are you presenting on these?

Okay, yeah.

And then Cliff, are you presenting on these?

You and Yah, are you are you working with y'all on us?

Is y'all here?

I can no longer hey, has it going?

I can no longer share my screen.

Uh, that one.

Yeah, that's her.

The screen is her.

Oh, screen is her.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Well, how about it?

Because otherwise they're gonna disconnect us.

No, she has to present.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You know what you're doing.

We practice.

All right.

Uh so yeah, this is project schedule.

Um, if you got some open remarks, or better remarks, to get us on the same page.

Um, yeah, so we there was a June 13th event that yeah, it's going to um tell us about, and also the prep for the scavenger hunt, and then we have the change of time for the July 16th.

Okay, where the scavenger hunt is going to take place.

So I'll hand it over to you.

Um, Clifton Crump.

Um the uh uh what am I here again?

The office for you and I got so many titles.

Help everybody else, I'm on there.

Um, uh Mr.

Chairman, committee members, as you know, um Project Kendrit was just awarded uh 150,000 through the Black Brand Office.

Yes.

Um, and again, these are the types of relationships that like you mentioned, the entity appears for this body.

They're impressive, they have a nice resume.

They they're have ongoing programming.

This that group uh Project Kendrit had not received any city dollars.

Right.

Um you saw fitting President Perez to put that forward.

Uh they got funding, so this is really part of a big picture and a lasting relationship.

We hope that it's kicking off this summer.

Um June 13th, they had a event at the Kazi Center.

Uh, it was a lot of youth that attended that.

That's gonna spill into the um the event at Marquette from uh, I think July 7th to the 10th.

But we hope some of the members come and help this uh youth create um as they work towards their root cause.

They're gonna come up with questions to pose to city officials that then will come on July 16th, and then we'll uh eventually have our EAC meeting and talk about um their root causes and how we can help assist them in solving them, which are all problems that the city faces.

Excellent.

All right.

Looking forward to it.

All right.

Uh we might proceed, yeah.

Hello.

Is everybody is my screen?

Okay, great.

Um, so yeah, so uh as Bevan and Clifton said, we had an amazing event that was youth clan powered.

Um in uh on July 13th at the Kazi Center.

Um a hundred and fourteen people um signed um our signing uh uh form.

Uh 70 of those uh people were young people, and the most is age the represented the most was age 17.

Um, 30 uh partners come in, so um they were hoping for 150 yes.

Uh we could have easily have had 150 guests, um, but we didn't have a sign up at the back door, and a lot of people were coming from a bike event that was happening outside in the park um through the back door.

So uh could be could even be more um than that that attended, but the the young people um raised four thousand dollars on their own um through a uh youth led grant um if Milwaukee Succeeds and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, um, and then the city um supported the event um with uh seven um thousand uh two hundred dollars.

Um and then um the educators um supported um um with bags for the summer kits and um a thousand dollars.

What we did learn was there was a bike event that was happening along the street that we believe kind of hindered.

We had a couple vendors that were like, This was such a great event.

We enjoyed being outside with you.

It was like, yeah, that was the other event.

So we did um there was a couple mix up, like you said, uh, invited some firefighters to come and um offer some um to present their job opportunities to the young people, and you know, they were at the they ended up at the bike event.

So um just making sure that we coordinate um with 16th Street next year um and make this like a whole inside outside event cool.

Um, and um I do want to mention the young people, um, they created a command center um while they while they were there, and every time um I went in there, the main thing they had to say to me that they were um so appreciative of um the community leaders that came.

So uh President Amparas came and was they um uh shrinky bakes.

Uh I don't know if you guys remember that from back in the day, or you know, putting the flame of hot bag in the oven to watch it shrink.

Um so they brought uh something like that.

Uh crap, one of our vendor partners, and he was there, um, you know, uh playing with the young people and and um, you know, really uh getting in the mix, and that's the type of stuff that they noticed.

So not only were they very proud of themselves for putting on such a great event um for their first time ever, but um also um that the community showed support the way that it did.

Um moving on to uh our uh MOOC cause uh to action um event at Marquette University coming up July 7th uh through the 10th.

We are so excited uh for this.

Um our young people are excited for this.

Um Marquette is excited for this.

Uh the 7th through the 8th, um, our young people um we're hoping to get between 20 to 25.

We have about we have three or four suits still open.

So if anybody knows some young people that are interested in change, please send them our way, but the seventh through uh the eighth, um, they will be um exploring issues in their community, um, things that matter to them, what power is uh who gets to make the decisions, who's influencing, um, with choosing if they want to um highlight something good that happens in communities that they want to see more of, or if they want to address a harm or issue um in Milwaukee that they want to solve for, they're choosing it then on the 9th.

The EYAAC is coming in to help them prep for their community day.

Um, you guys will come in, um, help them not uh shape their root cause, but shape how they investigate that root call.

We are going to help them come up with questions, help them think about what they should be thinking about, um, you know, letting them um uh you know bringing up things that they don't know they should be um focusing on.

And then um on the 10th, um we have our community day where community partners would come in, um, connect with them in the afternoon, and they it'll be like um a lightning round um where community partners will move from groups though.

There's uh there'll be four different causes or up to four different causes, I should say, because it's up to them to quickly put what they want to do.

And then they'll ask some questions and we're hoping community um expertise helps them shape uh their solutions, and we're asking for um anybody who's willing to connect with young people to come in on the tenth.

You don't have to be an expert or industry expert or a C-suite level um person to come in.

Lived experience is also great in this situation.

Um, so yes, like I said, um you're not critiquing the cause, you're not telling them if it'll work or it won't work on the ninth, um, but you all will just come in and just help them with clarifying questions.

Um, you know, maybe even maybe they're thinking about connecting with the department and and you can guide them and let them know that that's that's a different um person or connection you want to make their um both type of um those type of insights are are what we're looking for.

Because we want them to leave the ninth with care issue areas with strong investigative questions, um, want them to um feel confident connecting with the community um with you know their questions and and um knowing they'll um be able to ask voting questions to really get the answer that they need, um and um yeah, so just making sure that they're ready for the tent is what's happening with the EYC on the 9th, and then for um the city hall experience on June 16th, um uh we've broken it down to um the morning um we'll do an opening welcome.

We're hoping to get a little uh government one-on-one going with them.

Um there's no real formal EYAAC role at that time, um, but you all are welcome to spend uh the day with us.

So as your um calendar um permits if you're if you're there, we're we're bringing donuts, so please you can make it um all welcome.

Sure.

Um and then um they'll go do their department visits, um asking the questions, meeting the people, um, seeing the things, um, and then um we um have an uh maybe something can verify, um, but we do have a rounds.

Um, but if if somebody was if there's um you know backup chaperones or if you would like to to join a group um the more the merrier.

Um, like I said, you guys are welcome.

We did have um uh email go out to the departments and asking um we had an email go out to the departments asking for the information, contact people because it will be a quick turnaround between the 10th and the 16th to get to get that department visits um portion set up for the young people.

So um we did have four departments respond to that.

So maybe doing um uh reminder um email might be good.

Um and then lunch.

Um there's lunch in room 303, the same room that we'll be in for the rest of the afternoon.

Um, and this will be where um you guys will engage with the young people, seeing what they came up with with their visits, seeing how they're connecting it um with what they discovered at Marquette, and then really um helping them bring it together because um after lunch, they'll be presenting um what they've come up with, what they're thinking to the EYAAC meeting at one same room 303, um and then it'll be up to you all to say um you know what that needs a resolution, or that's that's an annual event and and or you know, whatever the whatever or however you can support that solution, you would be um you know, letting them know um what is possible, and then um you all would either agree to work on it um within the following months or agree to set up time to figure out how to work on it.

Um that kind of you want to be able to leave with uh tangible actionable items.

Okay.

Mr.

Chairman, yes.

And as always, um the goal is to create some policy.

So again, having a policy that kind of starts with the youth and then it goes through CED or public safety or whatever, then ultimately um becomes policy for the city.

That would be the the grand goal of a good youth more of a civic engagement.

Yeah, but I can't wait for that, because in turn they'll feel empowered, so like they've developed a law for the city of Milwaukee.

A lot of people don't know.

Alderman White, our job is to write laws, like policy.

We're in a community and all of that, but we're here to make sure things are fair and there's justice and uh to improve things that need to be improved.

So I'm looking forward to especially when we need some assistance from the young people.

So I'm looking forward to implementing one, two, three, or four, whatever laws they can come up with.

So yeah, let them know.

Yeah, definitely.

All right, uh, let's see, do we have any questions for Project Kendrit and yeah, anybody?

All right, y'all, excellent.

Thank you for the update.

We're looking forward to the next two events.

Um I know a couple of all are gonna sign up for tonight, but I'll sign up for the uh the 16th.

And once you have a description of that day, please send it to me and I can invite as many auditors as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, all right.

Uh, next we have the EAC committee update.

Who's providing the update?

Is that your bet?

So we have um Gabe Velez, co-chair of the um data and research committee that's gonna give us an update.

Awesome.

All right, good morning, everyone.

Um, how are you all doing today?

We're doing all right, what about you?

Good, good.

Thank you for having me again.

It's always good to share and present.

Um, so as an update, you know, I think last time I shared a bit about the research we've been doing with some of the organizations receiving the community development block grant funding.

We've sort of finalized that part of the report.

We're moving ahead to planning uh the October 15th event that and what we're looking for there is to invite folks from other organizations in, and we're gonna kind of pair a bit of some um kind of a workshop and some developmental opportunities for those organizations along with the kind of conversations about how they use data, what types of data they use, what kind of supports they could use.

And so the idea being taking what we've learned from the community development block grant folks and then um funded folks, and then these folks and kind of bring it together um for our next step, which is figuring out what we're gonna develop just to provide support, what kind of recommendations we're gonna make.

Um something else that came up in our last conversation was um also trying to start to collect a bit systematically the types of technical assistance um that are out there for for youth serving organizations.

You know, kind of came up in our conversation that we don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel around that, but it might actually be valuable and useful to create a coordinated list so that a youth serving organization, if they're looking for a type of support around how do we collect data or research if there's things that exist or even tied to funding opportunities, um, that there's an easy sort of centralized place for that.

Um, one other uh point that I want to mention is about uh two grant opportunities that we are looking to um pursue and develop, and so we wanted to share here with this organization because we thought it would help sort of um further the work that we're doing, but we want to make sure that it is in line with the um with the sort of expectations and hope.

The first is from the William T.

Grant Foundation, and they have a research grant on improving the use of research evidence.

And so this is a grant that we'd be maybe looking to do, um, and it's specifically tailored around um evidence that they are sort of focusing with young people from five to twenty-five, um, and working with uh research evidence for use by policymakers, public agency leaders, organizational managers, community organizations, so kind of exactly the work that we're sort of doing, and so it'd be an opportunity to expand our resources, um, and so we're working with our committee to possibly develop our proposal for that grant opportunity.

Um, and there's a second um that is being part of a learning community that's so it's a national learning community and it's run out of um an organization called AISP, um, which I'm currently blanking on it's the actual intelligence for social policy.

It's a bit of a mouthful.

Um, but it's basically um focused around city, county, or regional integrated data systems, um, and so it's focused around strong data governance, data use.

And so again, that would be an opportunity for for folks from our committee to sort of be part of a larger conversation around how can data be leveraged um in this way.

And so those are two opportunities, you know, neither one will be guaranteed, but we wanted to share that we might um be pursuing in order to further the work that we're doing, which I was kind of describing at the first part.

Okay, are you actively applying right now?

Because uh we can take a support of vote, or did you need some support from us to make it?

Well, we we were ready to sort of move forward with it.

We wanted to make sure though that there weren't any concerns or issues with either of those.

The first one, um, because it's the William T.

Grant Foundation.

They do tend to fund more like directly um higher education institutions, like Marquette would probably be the lead, but it would be for the community work.

The second one directly asks that you have as a co-lead a um a government agency or a government entity, and so for that one we would actually be asking uh you all to be sort of a co-lead.

What uh what are we applying for?

How much money?

Um the first one has two options, and we've been talking about this with our group.

There's a shorter one, which is one to two years and 50,000, and so that would find sort of the work that we're we're doing as a committee, like it would be able to really replace that.

There's a larger one for 100,000 to a million over two to four years, um, and so we're sort of considering that, but that has to be a much larger scope.

I don't know if we're ready for for that with where we're going.

Um the second one is non-directly financial funding, but it's more um like uh capacity building for the work that we're doing.

All right, so for the one you need us from, just send over the requirements and we'll get that going as soon as possible.

Is there a deadline you need you working with gay?

Um so the first one is I have these up here so I can double check.

Um I believe it's the end of July.

Okay.

That the more sort of research oriented one, the 50,000 one I was describing.

And then the other one they just put out the application to do August 17th.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, thank you very much.

I'm seeing questions.

Any questions from the committee?

No.

All right, any questions on the board?

Thank you, Greg.

Excellent information, and you have our support on applying for those grants.

Uh you guys have to go back to number seven.

We have some funding to approve uh number one, five hundred dollars for the lunch for the scavenger hunt.

Um, can I get a motion?

Oh, we're and can I get a second?

Second, thank you.

We lost one, no.

Uh, Steve is on the board.

What we lost uh Steve Go.

He's there, we've lost Brian.

We lost Brian?

Yeah, we lost Brian.

One, two, three, four, five.

I mean, it is eleven twenty.

Uh okay.

How can I can I just approve this?

I'm contingent on something.

Yeah, yeah, we can then we'll just roll over to the next meeting.

Yeah, I'm going to approve uh move approval contingent on having quorum next cycle, but in the interest of getting the money needed, um, we can get that ball rolling.

Um also we have a presentation by our board member about the strive together June policy summit.

Miss Amber Dayus, would you like to present?

Yes, I prepared a very lengthy presentation.

You did appreciate that.

You did or you did not.

Oh thank you.

Um so I just wanted to talk um to you guys about my experience in DC with um Vincent Lyles through Milwaukee Succeeds.

Uh we went and attended the city accelerator.

Um and Bevan's pulling up the uh handout, but for you, Alderman Stamper.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um it was a bunch of different like youth serving organizations that came together under um Strive Um Strive Together.

And uh we can be in for the city accelerator.

You can see on the first page, it kind of talks about like um what the purpose of this was.

Um so basically it's just groups that are coming together.

They call them PB PBP's place base partnerships, um, and government partners, which is why I was there, um, to talk about cradle care to career outcomes.

Um, and then on this slide number two that you have in front of you, it kind of just talks about um uh those shared goals.

So, you know, identifying some priorities that uh we wanted to focus on, establishing like co-governance models, which just means like youth organizations are working with um government to inform their policies, um, and then just trying to find ways to leverage um funding to support those efforts.

Um number three, and on your page, uh it just talks about um the little groups that we were in, the sessions that we did.

The one that um myself and Vincent did was um the cohort conversations, and we just kind of talked about some of the barriers that folks were facing in um education in the education space and trying to work with um government and uh we had a long conversation about how um it's more difficult working within the realms of politics uh at the local level to get things done.

Um and so we shared some best practices and some things that we um we found to to work um which was a really great conversation and I also got to brag on knowing Dr.

Fuller.

Everyone knows him and I'm like, I love him and he also loves me.

Thank you.

Um so that was fun and then uh the fourth slide here just talks about um how we could clarify like one of the priorities that we want to work on um and then try to find a way to reach that goal um get through uh the ask and like the the action item that we left with was just trying to come up with a 90-day plan um for us as a city but this body generally um to identify uh a problem and then kind of work towards solving or at least work toward the progress of solving um that identified issue um in 90 days and it gives us some suggested metrics that you can see on uh that eighth slide there um you know whether the city is listening and responding etc um but uh so yeah I think uh we can decide as a body if we want to uh or how we would like to help support in that 90 day effort um so that Vincent um and I or us can report back to the city accelerator um to continue to do it to advance the work that they're doing there.

Yeah so okay put that on the agenda to discuss a 90 day action plan even hopefully it'll fall within budget time.

Oh that's a good that's a good point.

Maybe we can get we we got July August yeah we got enough time.

Are we meeting in August?

Pardon are we meeting or not meeting in August?

Okay.

Okay so when's the next yeah 716 is the next one which one July 16th okay cool and I was just gonna say Mr.

Chairman uh to board member Daniel's point possibly we can take if some of the things that come out of the root cause can be maybe a solve a problem yeah so again using the partnerships to to continue to connect the dots and then ultimately maybe these are the policy decisions that that make it to this point and then we try to elevate them.

I think that's a yeah are you still there yeah yeah hey uh did you hear that why don't we just combine the two I love it now we got extra uh emphasis on putting something for the city and you can report it back and it'll be a lot of all in one a lot of the we're already doing a lot of the work so it's just kind of putting pen to paper so a hundred percent okay all right thank you uh we uh we need a motion to approve funding for this um events for reimbursement uh oh can I get a motion I don't think you can vote on this one Amber can you still need the quorum as long as the yeah okay uh motion to approve uh the cost for the events and hotel uh contingent on having a quorum uh right now it's approved hearing no objections to order thank you Amber and uh Vincent next we have announcements and public comments would anybody like to make an announcement to the public would anybody like to make any comments to the public.

Mr.

Wright are you here to make any comments or just bringing the young people down to experience government City Hall.

You gotta come on up brother you gotta come on up Mr.

Mr.

Wright you gotta come to the table.

Yeah you're slower than you used to do.

It's good to see you Mr.

Wright please tell us about the young people that you brought down here and how we can support them.

Well I do want to come in a good mic yes you're good but I do want to keep a three minute limit.

Put the put the three minute please start it right now.

So I do we do have some young people from the uh the bid that's part of the um bid thirty-two in Lindsay Heights.

And they have got some wonderful or have attained or been exposed to some wonderful experiences.

But it would be really wonderful if they would share their experience.

Alright, young man, it's just yourself for the record and tell us about your experience.

Uh my name is Eli Morris.

My experience here with the bid um 32 has been a great one so far.

Okay.

We, you know, start off to get to know each other so we could just get to know the community and stuff like that.

So we walked around the community, cleaned it up, and we've actually been getting noticed a lot from just like cleaning around the community.

Businesses want to talk to us.

We talk to business owners to like, you know, see if they can help us out in the community to make it a thriving community again, like you used to be back in the day.

Excellent, man.

Good work.

Good work.

What about you, young man?

Hello everybody, my name is Aiden Fox, and I'm also part of uh Marketpla uh Marketplace Bed 32 along with these people.

Um being part of this organization has really like, you know, taught me a lot about like you know what it takes to like you know, work as a team, as well as being a team player, and just like you said, um as we were cleaning up, like you know, our community, we started to like, you know, get noticed by a lot of people for our work as well as our self-motivation and self-determination, and I'm proud to say that you know, I'm in a position to where you know I could be like, you know, known all around the area for like you know my motivation and my strive, and not to mention we also been like, you know, going around local businesses and supporting everybody.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Great job.

So uh I got a question for you.

Oh hey.

Hi.

Uh hello, my name is Celeste Lawrence Moore.

Uh one thing I really enjoyed about the bid is I really always been into designing, whether that be like areas and stuff, and one thing I'm really looking forward to is actually activating different spaces around our bid district.

So we have a lot of parks and stuff that was supposed to be used in a positive way, but instead kind of negatively impacted the area.

So I'm looking forward to redesigning it, actually making them like we have a lot of spaces that can be utilized as community gardens, which could give back to the community and give them a safe space for their children to be at, learn about how to take care of the area and take care of the earth.

I am a tree hugger.

So I'm really excited for that.

Then I'm also really excited to actually be able to help plan out the designs and actually go out there.

Excellent, excellent, excellent.

So the most important thing in the community is how you feel about it and how you feel about it is through making sure it's clean.

Can't get a business to come to a neighborhood if it's not clean.

You don't feel as respected in a neighborhood if it's not clean.

So clean community, cleaning up your community is probably most important that you can do for your neighborhood.

So while you were cleaning up out there, what did you want to see improve most to enhance our North Avenue?

Uh we probably want to see like garbage cans and recycling cans.

More garbage cans.

Yeah, we notice like on the side of the road, models tend to like, you know, just go over there.

And usually it's not even because of the people, it's just because like, you know, Mother Nature doing its thing, you know, blowing stuff over.

But we do need like more garbage cans, and you know, some places that's a little more cleaner.

There was garbage cans, but in the places that were dirty, there was like no nothing to be found.

So guess what's what, man?

You you just knew that just by cleaning up the let me just give you some politics.

You knew that by just cleaning up North Island, right?

Yeah.

They pay this big two years ago, they paid this consultant two hundred and some thousand dollars.

And guess what he came back and said?

After it's pretty guess what he came back and said.

We need garbage hands.

Is that crazy?

So I think about the young man some money then.

So I got the big clean, and the big clean part of the big clean was uh over a thousand, over five hundred garbage cans.

So you just let me know how many you want, and I'd tell that to all the ordinary.

We place them around the city based on the city's pickup and route ability.

So you just let me know how many you need and how many you want, and we got them down at the DPW building.

But the the number one need uh what the people need in the community is are garbage cans, so they can throw it away.

Exactly.

So the city owe you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

But thank you all for coming down and doing that and sharing that with us.

We uh look forward to working with you because that is in my district and uh hopefully we can spread it.

One thing we noticed is that even when people do use the garbage cans, they'll start piling stuff on top because the city doesn't come and get it in time.

So sometimes they'll be like overflowing into the streets.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, so um, that's an issue, and they just gotta get there quicker and improve their routes because that's what you want to see people actually using the garbage cans properly.

Alright, thank you guys.

I'm proud of you.

We're looking forward to working with you guys.

Excellent um presentations.

Thank you, Tracy.

All right, with that, that concludes our EAC meeting today.

The next one will be July 16th, the big one.

We will provide lunch and the meeting will be at one uh discussion on how to improve Milwaukee and implementing some laws to