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Remember those summers when you were too young for a job but too old to just hang around the house all day? What did you do to pass the time? Pre-teen Simmi Urbanek’s mom had an interesting solution: she dropped her two daughters off at their local United Way and said “find something to do!” These days, Simmi is the Director of Marketing at Plunkett Raysich and is the United Way Employee Giving Campaign Co-chair.

At the age of 21, Dawn Helmrich experienced a brutal sexual assault. This life-altering event had many negative outcomes for Dawn, including rampant victim blaming and lack of support during a traumatic experience on the witness stand. As a result of these experiences, Dawn has become one of Milwaukee’s most vocal advocates for victims of Sexual Assault through her leadership of the annual Denim Day. Each April, Denim Day brings awareness to sexual violence and helps end victim blaming.

Trigger Warning: This blog post and podcast contain recollections of and information about sexual assault.

At the age of 21, Dawn Helmrich experienced a brutal sexual assault. This life-altering event had many negative outcomes for Dawn, including rampant victim blaming and lack of support during a traumatic experience on the witness stand. As a result of these experiences, Dawn has become one of Milwaukee’s most vocal advocates for victims of Sexual Assault through her leadership of the annual Denim Day. Each April, Denim Day brings awareness to sexual violence and helps end victim blaming.

“It came up casually in conversation. He died. What? No one thought that would be something I would have liked to know? It happened years ago, but to me it was like yesterday, every day. I relived the abuse daily. It affected so many facets of my life.” These are the words that Rebecca Schimke used to open the doors on a story she shared for Sexual Assault Awareness Month last April, 2016. We sat down with Rebecca, at the time a United Way employee, for this podcast interview last April. Rebecca shared her experience with sexual assault as a child, what it felt like to tell her story, and what happened after.

What would happen if we threw our rules out the window and started from scratch?

This is the question Audra O’Connell asked her staff at Walker’s Point Youth and Family Center’s Emergency Shelter when she began her tenure as Executive Director in 2016. The shelter, which serves teens, had a list of rules governing everything from behavior to dress, but Audra did not see how these rules were helping impact the broader issue of youth homelessness in Milwaukee. In fact, 6 months after trying to run the shelter without rules such as “no baseball caps in the house,” Audra and her team found themselves serving more youth than ever before.

“Dare to fail differently” is the model that Audra O’Connell lives by. Today on the podcast, she shares how a degree in Comparative Religion has helped her in surprising ways during her career working in housing and homeless services, the advice she has for young nonprofit professionals, and what she still hopes to achieve in her work. Says Audra, “In ten years, I don’t want to be in the shelter business…I want to be in the prevention business.”

Problems. The ones most people don’t have the stomach for. The ones nobody talks about at cocktail parties. The ones that can’t be solved overnight. We go looking for them.

These are the words in United Way’s new credo for 2017, and they perfectly describe the issue of Infant Mortality. Milwaukee has one of the highest rates in the country, with Black babies dying at nearly three times the rate of White babies.

In 2014, United Way became the backbone agency for the Milwaukee Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families Collaborative (LIHF), a community-wide effort working to eliminate racial disparities in birth outcomes and ensure more babies reach their first birthdays.

With a career and life dedicated to serving the community, Wanda Montgomery became the co-chair for the Milwaukee Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families in March of 2016, alongside Mayor Tom Barrett. Wanda was recently awarded the Gwen T. Jackson Community Service Award at United Way’s Annual Meeting. We talk today about her path leading to this important role in fighting infant mortality, and the successes and challenges she has faced in this work.

There are many ways to affect change in our community. Here at United Way, we raise funds and mobilize volunteers around our communities most difficult issues. In Madison at the Wisconsin State Legislature, Representative David Crowley works with his peers on both sides of the aisle to advocate for issues affecting an area of Milwaukee that is close to his heart: the near-North West side. Representative Crowley intimately understands this neighborhood – it is where he grew up playing on the playground near his Grandma and Uncle’s house, and where he now resides with his family.

Between engagements, Rep. Crowley stopped by to chat about the issues he advocates for in the Legislature – quality early childhood education and reducing black male incarceration - and why these are important to him. He also shares the quotes he lives by (hint: Yoda is involved), as well as his aspirations for our community. Finally, he shares how a local organization, Urban Underground, “saved his life” as a teen growing up in Milwaukee.

What kind of Community do you want? What is keeping us from making progress? Who do you trust to take action? These are some of the questions that the 330+ participants in United Way’s Community Conversations project answered in 2016. Participants from 70 zip codes, diverse in race and income level, and ranging in age from 12 to 95, shared their candid thoughts on what they see in their community when they walk out their front door every day. The four biggest themes across all conversations were, in no particular order, a violence-free community, equity and inclusivity, a clean and green community, and community connectedness.

Here at United Way, we recently said goodbye to Living Local co-producer Rebecca Schimke, who moved on to an excellent position with Palermo’s Pizza. In her honor, let’s revisit one of her favorite interviews from 2016.

This week we talk to Shaquita and Adrienne, two women who spend a majority of their time on the streets. They aren’t homeless but spend their time helping youth who may be experiencing homelessness, young people who need help finding resources, or maybe just need a friend. They are outreach specialists on the Milwaukee Street Beat team through Pathfinders and the Walker’s Point Youth & Family Center.

Who is the CEO of your bank? Do you know their name? Better yet, do you follow them on social media or see a commercial featuring them when you pay your bills?

The presidents and CEOs of major corporations tend to stay behind the scenes, running their business and not worrying about having one-on-one chats with customers through Twitter or goofing around in a commercial to promote giving to a good cause.

Greg Marcus, CEO of The Marcus Corporation, is different. Greg runs his own Twitter and Snapchat accounts (just follow @GregLovesMovies) and stars in the beloved annual United Way trailers, which play before each and every movie at Marcus Theaters during our fall campaign. You can even meet Greg and hear him play piano at Blu at The Pfister most Tuesdays!

For Greg, being CEO of The Marcus Corporation comes with a responsibility to his community. However, Greg says that it’s not just altruism that drives this charitable spirit… doing good is good for business. We chat about how he incentivizes Marcus employees to get involved during their annual United Way campaign, why supporting health and human services and the arts is so important, and the one moment in his philanthropic life that he will never forget.