Uniquely Milwaukee

The Milwaukee VA Medical Center serves 24,000 veterans, a quarter of which, come to the VA for mental health crises. “This is their medical home, most of them have been coming here a long time,” said Ben Thelen, a former EMT and combat medic in Iraq, who now works for the VA. He’s behind a new program that is training EMTs to identifying and handling mental health crisis situations when responding to veterans’ 911 calls.

April Harris organized Milwaukee's first ever "Peace Through Pie" event, which celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of peace with pie, conversation, and charity.

Hedda Sharapan, producer and close personal friend of Fred Rogers, is heading to Milwaukee on Feb. 6 for a talk at the Jewish Community Center. Hear her thoughts on today's divisive political climate and how befriending the TV icon changed her life.

Hours Against Hate replaces hateful rhetoric by teaching tolerance

A vacant building was slated to become a massive liquor store at 21st and Hamptom. Hear how a Muslim owned and operated Milwaukee organization worked with city government to bring STEM education there instead.

After her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, Carla Echeveste was inspired to change the course of her life. She turned down an accounting job at her dream financial firm, and went back to school to study medicine. Today, she researches and advocates for equity on behalf of Milwaukee's Latino community.

Free AIRA service for the blind and low vision was made accessible at Milwaukee's airport a couple months ago. Now, the free service is expanding to include a number of Milwaukee County buildings.

The Benedict Center's SIsters Program conducts in-the-street outreach, case management and skill building for women who are in the sex-based trade. Their winter initiative, the warming room, is an overnight shelter where women who are on the streets can have access to a meal and a warm place to sleep at night.

When art programs began getting slashed across schools in Milwaukee, two hometown brothers decided to found a program for the many inner-city youth who were losing access to arts education. In 2012, Darren and Vedale Hill founded Jazale’s Art Studio.

For the last four years, a group of multitalented group of black Milwaukee artists have presented the musical 'Black Nativity' at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Director Malkia Stampley talks about how she adapted her production for a Milwaukee audience, and why she wants to be in the audience.

The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center (MYAC) is home to two legendary arts education programs - First Stage Children’s Theater and Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO). MYAC was built in 2002 so these two organizations could have access to professional rehearsal spaces. Together, they’ve both served the Milwaukee arts community for decades.

In this piece, we walk through the doors of Bloom Center for Art and Integrated Therapy in Bay View. Bloom teaches healing through art therapy.

The Latino Strings program has been a pillar of music and Latino culture at the United Community Center since it was founded in 2002 by musician Dinorah Marquez. In this community story, we hear from two of Dinorah's former students who started playing strings instruments in the second grade. Now at 21, they have returned as instructors for Latino youth.

This holiday season, we're tipping our hats to some of the great local organizations helping youth connect to the arts. In this story, we head to Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and meet 17 year old jazz guitarist Kwasi Stampley, aka KStamp.

Grace Weber’s Music Lab has hosted locally and nationally-known music acts like WebsterX and Jamila Woods for an immersive music education experience. Once a month, high school students from the Greater Milwaukee area are invited to Radio Milwaukee’s performance space to participate after school for free.

A partnership between Kohl’s Cares and the Milwaukee Art Museum is bringing families into the art museum five Sundays a year for interactive and educational art activities.

Since 2012, a Milwaukee nonprofit has been helping students on the autism spectrum develop social and language skills, using a unique blend of art and technology. Listen how Islands of Brilliance co-founders Margaret and Mark Fairbanks launched the nonprofit and how they're changing lives.

Natalie Doherty is one of 10 Milwaukee artists selected by the Salvation Army to redecorate their red donation kettles for the winter holidays.

Liv Partenfelder is a sophomore at Pathways High School - a new school near downtown Milwaukee. During her freshman year, Liv took an entrepreneurship class where she started a non-profit charitable business.

Two years before her tragic shooting death, Milwaukee teenager Sandra Parks, 13, penned an award winning anti-violence essay. Listen local poet Dasha Kelly to read her piece -- Our Truth -- with a recording of Parks woven in.

Green Card Voices is telling immigrant stories the right way – with authenticity and allowing people to be in control of their stories. The organization visited Pulaski High School last week to document the stories of 15 immigrant students. The interviews were done on-camera and will be published online and in book format, where students will then become published authors.Listen to the audio piece to learn more about Green Card Voices’ trip to Pulaski High School.

Milwaukee is getting a new creative hub called the Saint Kate Arts Hotel. The hotel will serve as a place for people to spend the night in the city while also being exposed to Milwaukee's diverse art scene.

Thousands of children in Milwaukee are living below the poverty line, which means many will go without a proper coat this winter. But two Milwaukee organizations -- Operation Warm and Milwaukee Fire Department -- have teamed up to meet the need for 30,000 local families.

COA, an after school education organization, was recently awarded with a grant from Kohls to bring STEM education to students from low-income backgrounds.

Video Producer Vianca Fuster chats with Nate Imig about her video story exploring the growing sneaker culture among Milwaukee women.Watch the full video: https://youtu.be/_HsXFOFt2Ys

Marquette University Law School Professor Andrea Schneider reacts to the deadly shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA that claimed 11 lives on Oct. 27. As former board chair of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and an active member of the local Jewish community, she sheds light on how people are turning their grief into action.Read her open letter: https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2018/10/30/op-ed-heartbroken-in-pittsburgh/

BLOC, or Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, was a response to local and nationwide criticism of low voter turnouts in African-American communities. Executive Director Angela Lang breaks down BLOC's educational canvassing program and their free ride to the polls initiative, which she hopes will increase voter turnout and overall civic engagement in Milwaukee's Black community.

Last week, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church hosted dozens of Sherman Park residents for a Building Bridges listening circle. Community members, young and older, were invited to meet their local law enforcement officers and to share any hopes or concerns for improving the Sherman Park neighborhood and the relationship between officers and residents

Sky High skate shop celebrates 30 years of cultivating Milwaukee's skateboard scene. Meet the man behind the Bay View shop - Aaron Polaski.

Black Girl Training is about identity and bringing filmmakers of color together in Milwaukee

NCSL, or Neighborhood Children's Sports League, is making organized football easily accessible and affordable for inner-city children in Milwaukee.

There’s something special about Kavon Cortez Jones. The 22-year-old spoken word artist speaks softly, but eloquently, making every word count. He’s a lifelong Milwaukeean, a graduate of Riverside High School, and has spent his adult life pursuing his three major passions: mentoring kids, cycling and, above all, penning poetry.

“Little convicts.” That was the phrase recently used by a conservative blogger to describe students at Vincent High School. Hear how the Milwaukee Youth Council is responding.

Ever wondered what's inside? What exactly is a "recreation area?" How did it get the name "Bong?" 88Nine's Nate Imig went to Kansasville to find out.

On July 31, public housing across the nation went smoke free. The federal Housing and Urban Development issued a new rule banning tobacco use in and near public housing complexes, and Milwaukee is starting to witness its success. Meet Dorise, an older African-American woman who started smoking at a young age and just successfully quit smoking thanks to this new initiative to keep public housing residents tobacco free.

MS Run the US is a 3,100-mile long relay race from Los Angeles, California to New York. The run was started in Brookfield, Wisconsin in 2009 to raise awareness and research funds for Multiple Sclerosis. The organization also raises money to assist those currently living with MS. Ricardo Contreras, who studies Exercise Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, participated in last month’s run as a road crewmember. At just 22, he’s already an experienced distance runner and has run in a number of 5Ks. He shared his heartwarming and inspiring experience as a road crewmember in this audio story.

The City of Milwaukee recently partnered with America Works WI to provide suits -- at no cost -- to men looking for work. Hear from a homeless man who is working to turn his life around.

Invisible Lines creators Laura Kezman, Vianca Fuster and Nate Imig discuss the next chapter for 88Nine's first feature-length documentary, debuting Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018 at 3:30 p.m. Trailer: InvisibleLinesMKE.com Tickets: mkefilm.org.

Arts @ Large partnered with the sweet folks at Burke Candy in Riverwest to design a Milwaukee-themed chocolate box. Summer interns for the non-profit arts organization collaborated with a local Milwaukee artist to design the art for the box of candy, which is now being sold at Burke Candy and the Arts @ Large Café in Walker’s Point.

Rosa Yeh is a New York-turned-Milwaukeean who has depended on public transportation her entire life. She came to Milwaukee to attend Marquette University, and when she graduated, the job market was rough. Though it took a lot of work and patience, Yeh found a job in MenomoneeFalls. For the last five years, she has relied on Milwaukee County Transit Services to get her from the South Side of Milwaukee to the village in Waukesha. Her commute will now face some changes has one of her bus routes will no longer be funded after December.

How often do you think about how your shopping and dining habits may have an impact on our planet? We’re being asked to consider it more as cities like Chicago have implemented plastic bag taxes to reduce use of plastic, but it’s also understandable that environmental impact is not an everyday thought for people. The Milwaukee VA Medical Center is striving to be a leader in the community when it comes to reducing environmental impact.

Every year for the last five years, Milwaukee Renaissance Theaterworks hosts the Br!NK Festival as a way to uplift the voices and stories of women playwrights in Milwaukee and around the Midwest. This year a young woman named Nabra Nelson was one of two resident playwrights for the Br!NK Festival, which gave her an opportunity to turn a story close to her heart into a full-length play.

The rare art of a handwritten letter, dare I say, in cursive, has become nearly extinct. Penpals, however, have managed to survive natural selection and make a comeback for the greater good. Listen in on a volunteer group of Milwaukee penpals, forming friendships with incarcerated LGBTQ people.

UW-Milwaukee's Enquest engineering camp was created eight years ago to give high school girls exposure to an education and career in engineering. This summer, the girls created solar panel USB phone charging stations to send to a village in Guatemala. Listen to the audio story to learn more about their project.

“It’s really a beautiful experience… to be surrounded by young minds in a beautiful garden, it’s a great experience,” said Jeff Brown, as we were surrounded by the same garden he mentioned. I met Brown at Alice’s Garden on a Thursday evening for “Brown Boys Bonding Thru Books,” a community program Brown inherited from the owner of the garden Venice Williams.

The bright neon lights of rollercoaster rides and carnival games light up I-94 every August – but have you ever wondered who it is that helps make the Wisconsin State Fair glow? Meet Shari Black, the woman filling your stomach with fried foods and nacho cheese then turning it upside down on rollercoasters at State Fair’s Spin City.

Kyle Denton is an herbalist. His expertise revolves around all that grows from the ground: plants, flowers, fruits and more. He also owns Tippecanoe Herbs & Apothecary, a Walker’s Point boutique-style store selling herbal medicines, trinkets, household items and more. Throughout the summer, Denton leads Milwaukeeans on herb walks where he teaches them about herbs and plants to forage around the city.

Christine Conley, whose grandparents are from Italy, has been a festivalgoer and volunteer from just about the beginning. She currently manages the Italian Heritage Photo Exhibit, which has a lifespan as long as the festival. It’s made up of religious artifacts and photos from Milwaukee’s Italian community dating back to the late 1800s.

Les Paul Foundation's Sue Baker talks about Paul's innovative work designing one of the most well known recording studios in the world, Capitol Records in Los Angeles.

Les Paul would have celebrated his 103rd birthday this year, and all these years later, the Wisconsin native's influence is still heard in virtually every genre of recorded music. Listen to my conversation with Sue Baker, program manager for the Les Paul foundation and close personal friend of Les', as she talks about his life of innovation.