Community Relations - Social Development Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome you to the emerging youth achievement advisory council. I am alderman Jose Perez. It is Thursday, April 23 at approximately 08:37AM. Joined by staff do the floor. Floor. I'm

ahead

Mister president, Alderman Perez.

Present.

In welcoming vice chair, Alderman Stamper.

Good morning. You're here?

I am present.

Alright. Present. Good morning. Alright. Excellent. Thank you. We'll right into our agenda. We appreciate everyone coming. We have a hard stop before 10AM today. So not to rush anyone, but we do wanna get through the agenda. Review item number three, review and approval of prior meeting minutes. Everyone's had a chance to see them. Any questions, any concerns? No sir. Hearing none, alder Stamper approves approval. Hearing no objection so ordered. Next up on our agenda, Mentor Greater Milwaukee presentation. How are doing, sir?

I'm great.

Great. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks for

having Looking forward to this. Looking forward to this, mister Ranger. Uh-oh. Thank you.

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

Absolutely. Wenell Ranger. Good morning. Executive director, mentor, greater Milwaukee. Sir. Yes, sir. Great. Good to see everybody.

Good to see you.

Hard stop, so let me get you going.

Just hit the We can talk on this committee. That's why.

Yeah. It's a lot to talk about. Okay. Okay.

So up. It's not showing up. Okay. Mhmm.

Let me go

ahead and start. Okay. So here's our mission. Our job is to really increase the mentoring capacity of mentoring organizations throughout the Milwaukee. And and we like to say, when I say mentoring programs, it's serving anybody ages 10 to 24. Just wanna be clear. So whether it's all in Milwaukee, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, Mentor Greater Milwaukee's job and role is to support those organizations to build their capacity. A little history fact, we were founded in 2019. And as a founding partner, you have the city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Bucks, and then, of course, Milwaukee Public Schools. Mhmm.

So in 2019, we were formed with those three organizations and entities coming together and bringing us here in Milwaukee. And I say bringing us because we are part of an affiliate structure. That affiliate is meant to work. We're in in Boston, Massachusetts now. Mhmm. There's 23 other affiliates throughout the country. The great thing about that I like to tell people and share is when it's time to get expertise or hear what's things are happening, whether it's in Baltimore, LA, Sacramento, Texas, we're able to see some best practices. And I don't like to use the word steal, but borrow those best practices when we bring them here in Milwaukee. I'll keep it pushing. So we have four priorities.

Our number one priority is providing technical assistance and professional development to organizations throughout Milwaukee and the surrounding areas. And that technical assistance and support can look different for each organization, whether big or small. Remember, part of what we talk about is we want to build capacity. So technical assistance could be basic mentoring principles, it could be supporting them through cultural humility training for their organizations or entities, Whatever those needs are, we provide to those organizations. The second one we're talking about we do is provide recruitment.

We have what we call a mentoring connector. Anyone who wanted to go to our website, milwaukeymetro.com, and when you go to our website, you can select become a mentor or find a mentor. The great thing about that is it's like a one stop shop when you think about families or when you think about mentors. So think about mentorship first. A lot of times mentors are recruited through word-of-mouth. Mhmm. So if I'm sitting with you all and I say I'm a mentor at x organization, you say, you know what? I'm a try that organization. If it doesn't work for you, you may not come back to the space of mentoring. What our Mentoring Connector do and allows is for you to go and look and research the programs yourself.

Right now, we have about a 102 program partners. Those are all in our connector. Again, the great thing is as a mentor, you're able to say, you know what? Let me do some research of different programs first before I select one. Then we are simply the middleman. When you reach out to that organization through our connector, it goes directly to the organization. So it doesn't come to us, we take a look at it. No. You get to kind of connect with those organizations first and foremost. The other way is for family, on the family side.

This is something that we are trying to promote even more. But if a mother or a father was looking or grandmother was looking for a mentor for their young person, they can go to that same website. They just select find a mentor, and it does the exact same thing. And we'll talk about this more now in the presentation, but for us, we're trying to get more programs in Milwaukee to be a part of the connector for that purpose and that purpose alone. When families are looking for mentors, it's easier for them to find it through our connector than parents having to look through or Google search it or Mhmm.

Word-of-mouth again. So, again, we're trying to increase the number of programs so families have better access. The third thing we do is advocacy. We do a lot of engagement around promoting mentorship. Many of you may have heard of, like, our mentoring symposium we do every January, which we celebrate National Mentoring Month.

We bring a number of speakers around mentorship to the table, and then we do workshops for anyone who wants to be provided. We also do things like celebrating mentors every home game or one home game a month, which now is over, unfortunately, with the Milwaukee Bucks, for example, we do a mentor of the game. And we basically honor a mentor from a program that has been nominated by that program. We also do a lot of things like going we go to Washington DC once a year and do Capitol Hill Day. And we actually speak to the local representative representatives for Wisconsin around mentorship and the importance of that.

And the third thing we do, and the third thing we use is is data. How do we use data to help support our young people through mentorship? A perfect example of that, some of my partners in the house from Employment Milwaukee several years ago when we were working with them, one of the things that they noted with their Earn Learn program is how were the kids being connected when they were on earn and learn. So we actually worked with them several years ago and trained their supervisors who were earn and learn supervisors around building a relationship with young people on the job. So those are certain ways that we use data to kind of promote, or build mentorship, or build capacity.

Trying to remember my slides, and what's next after all that. This is the disinformation around why mentoring is important. It's data. Right? We know mentoring works because every when a young person has a mentor, they're gonna do better. Do better in school, do better in life, in general, overall. One of the things we do love, and I talk about this is, when growing up, if somebody has a mentor in their life, chances are they're gonna become a mentor too when they grow up. Right? When you all probably think back when you were young, whether it was a coach, whether it was a teacher, whomever, you're probably gonna have a mentor, or you'll be a mentor when you come become older. So we talked about priorities.

Here are some of the trainings that I didn't get a chance to allude to. This is where our elements of effective mentoring practices. This is something that we require every program partner that we have to kinda be a part of and take this training. I do wanna be kind of clear and say this. We believe there's a science to mentoring. Mhmm.

A lot

of times people say, we do mentoring, but when you ask them, what does that mean? They don't even know. Right? They may say, well, I sat in front of that kid today, but they never saw that kid again. Or we'll ask a program, what kind of training do you do for your mentors? They don't have an answer for that. Right? Elements actually addresses a lot of that for them. Right? Here's some of other mentoring I talked about work shops that we do. This is a list of the different ones that we do have. Everything to basic what do they mentor, to culture humility in mentoring. We like mentoring mindsets, relationships in the schools. These are all of just a variety of trainings that we do have. We talked about some of this.

We talked about the recruitment tool. This is what it looks like, the Mentoring Connector online. Again, it's a very simple tool. You go onto our website, you find become a mentor or find a mentor, you answer these basic questions, and then basically, it gives you a list. And you get to reach out to those individuals. Again, very simple, something we're trying to promote and push even more. Alright?

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Got you, mister Perez. We're gonna get out of here on time. Here's just some some more insight. Also, remember, there's a variety of kind of mentoring programs. Right? There's one zero one. Some of the traditional ones we know, one is you and I connected. There's group mentoring, where you may have several youth attached to one adult in a sit down. Right? So there is a variety of programs that do different kind of mentoring. Like, when you look at this list, right, big brothers and big big Sisters, even though we all have heard of them, they still have a wait list. Right? So that's why it's important for us to continue to recruit mentors. Right? All in Milwaukee, they have a strong tool, but they use a group concept.

Right, where their students who are involved have multiple young people assigned to one mentor. So, again, our job is to work with all programs and to help them kind of get stronger. This is just some more details. 86 of the programs are right now are actively accepting new mentors and mentees. Right? So our youth interest we do a youth voice summit every year. It's in August. We actually hire 12 to 15 interns who work for us. And then what they do is they come up with an issue that young people are facing in Milwaukee, and then they need to come up with solutions. Right?

And then they present those solutions at our Youth Voice Summit to other young people. So there's a full fledged conversation. Some of the things we've heard though at our Youth Voice Summit from young people. So challenges are limited time available for mentor. And let's be clear, like, that's one of the drawbacks when people say they don't want to be a mentor, the time, capacity. But there are programs that are literally only an hour and a half a month to serve. Right? Then there's programs, yes, that it may be two hours a week. Right? We tell mentors, you need to find the program that best fits you, but those are some of the issues.

That's why training is important because the other thing we see here is mentor commitment. Too many time adults step in and then step out all in the same breath, which then leaves that young person hanging. Right? So we really believe that you have to align with the program that works for you so you can stay committed. Okay? Right. And then location barriers. When you do have community based mentoring, where are they taking young people? Where are they going? Some of like, when you think about Andre Lee Ellis in the cage, you know, he's in the garden. Right? And he also has the firehouse next to them. Are there places like that where mentors can be with their young people? And though there can be some of the barriers. Right?

Yeah. I don't know if you all have ever heard of the study done by the Wisconsin Mental Youth Mental Health. They did a ten year study in 2024. One of the things they showed over ten years that there was a decrease of 37% of a sense of belonging for young people. Right? There was also something they showed that in k to 12 schools, African American students in particular, I think there was forty five percent of those students did not have someone in the building they felt like they can go to. Right? I want you to correlate some of the numbers when you think about the graduation rates, in particular in our district. Right? It's about sixty seven to seventy two percent around that number, I think.

70 something. Like I said, when you got a 33% or 37% lack of belonging, it's a correlation. Right? When you have a 45% students who feel like they don't have someone they can go to in the school, is a correlation. So we have to process how do we make sure young people have a a caring adult everywhere they are. Right? So just some of the things to think about and talk to. Some gaps that we have. This is something that Devin asked me to bring out. Of course, we know the the divestment in DEI initiatives.

Right? We serve, for example, Milwaukee Public Schools, black and Latino male achievement department, where they, you know, constantly under attack. Right? We can't say we're funding for certain things or ask for funding for certain things. Even though our program, Mentor, Greater Milwaukee serves all youth, you know, we're not limited, but there is, again, some gaps in funding. There's even transformation in funding for youth programs. If you're not doing work development, for example example, some people are funders are pulling out. Like, you can't just say we do just this. No. You gotta have it connected to and or something else like workforce development.

And then lack lack of access to resources and information. One of the things that's important for us in having our national office is that there's a a slew of resources that any mentoring program can go to. So even if you don't go through our website and go to mentoring.org, there is access to free resources, but a lot of people don't realize they exist. Right? So we try to make sure we put those out of those. Out of school program for board challenges, staffing issues. Right? If you talk to boys and girls Boys and Girls Club right now, they'll tell you they have a staffing gap. Right? They have issues with the after school program, housing instability for families, issues within our families, mental health issues, poverty still be needs to be something that needs to be addressed for our young people as well.

So these are just some of the barriers and things that we're seeing the impact. Data sharing. And president Perez and I talked about this. Getting organizations to share their data. Right? There's fear in that. We don't want data to smack people in the hands. We just want to give accurate data when it comes to mentorship. If you say you do it, how are your kids assigned? Are they matched to one on one? Are you grouped? That helps us understand the landscape better so we can better serve communities. So we're trying to work to make sure that any program that says they're doing mentorship, we can have some kind of shared data so we're able to assess the kind of the landscape throughout the Milwaukee. Program limitations. You have capacity issues.

I mentioned earlier, like Big Brother Big Sisters, 200 plus kids on the wait list. Right? They're not the only ones. Running rebels, the same way. Right? So we have a lot of programs who are running into capacity. And we're and we're getting a lot of calls for younger kids to be mentored. You know, you have parents came, like, I have a seven year old. You have a program that we have very limited programs that we know do seven year olds. A lot of them actually start at 10 years old. Right? So when you think about a brother or sister, if you have a 13 year old, a 10 year old, and a seven year old, and an eight year old, you got two children who do not have a mentor based on programs. Right? Other things we talked about is the definition and the use of the word mentorship. Again, we say there's a science.

You hear a lot of programs say they do it, but then when you dig deep, it's just, oh, we did a panel discussion with kids. That's not mentorship. That's exposure. Right? So us making sure that people understand the true definition time spent. We were having a conversation with our data people for mentor, and the the dialogue was about, again, if you do an hour and a half a month of mentoring for a minimum of six months consistently, you can move the needle on that young person's life. Right? Again, consistently. If I meet with one kid for four hours on one day and don't see that kid again, I'm not as effective. Right?

So those are things that we try to help with definitions, so programs know how to be consistent. Structure, again, formal versus informal. Right? In some cases, like a boys and girls club where I spent thirteen years, I may have seen a kid periodically throughout my tenure there. I can informally mentor that kid because he's coming every day. We don't have a schedule though. Right? Versus a schedule program like we had in Milwaukee Public Schools with BLMA, where we had every first Thursday, we spent an hour and a half with young people. Right? So that's kinda a quick definition of that.

And then evidence based frameworks. Again, we use the elements to which we know is evidence based. All of the training tools that we use is evidence based to make sure that it works. We know it works. If if David Muhammad was here, he had talked about credible messengers. They have a mentoring program, but if we look at what their success rates are, I think they had, like, a 90 plus percent non recidivism rate for those young people who were in the program, who had an assigned mentor. So those are things that we know work. We just wanna increase it. We have a we have a goal that young people are surrounded with at least three mentors when they go to to school, when they're in their communities, and when they're in the work workforce. They should have an adult that they're seen as a mentor.

And I want to be very clear. Use the word mentor. Use it because then when you say that, hopefully, they know what comes with that. Right? They know that that young that mentor is there to be dedicated and supportive of them. So, I rushed through that for the sake of time, but I do want to share that we do work with companies too. So this is some examples. We've worked with Northwestern Mutual. We've worked with Goodwill. We've worked with the Milwaukee Bucks. And what that looks like is a little different. We've helped Goodwill, for example, build out a program. We actually helped them create something for their staff 18 to 26. Right? We work with the Northwestern Mutual.

They have integrated mentoring programs where we train their staff or their employees on what it means to be a mentor. And then with the Milwaukee Bucks, we did a little bit of everything, mentor recruitment, program development, and program training as well. So what do partnerships look like? Mhmm. We can do more mentor fairs. Many of you, I think, know we did a couple here now in the Rotunda where we brought program partners to the table, and they hosted here. We're trying to do more of those. One is to put the word out about mentoring and what it means, what it looks like, how to be involved, how to be engaged. Also, training. We did some training with city employees.

Part of our our work with you all is to help city employees know what it means to be a mentor, and we've done a host of those different things. Finally, contact information. If anybody needs me, you can reach me, and I'll take questions. Sorry. I'm trying to hustle through that. A lot of information. Alright.

You ready?

Yeah. Hold on, mister Stanford.

Thank you, Renaud Rain. Excellent presentation. Presentation. We We wanted wanted to to get get the structure of the program. So a couple of thoughts.

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

It it it varies. Some of them is just training. Right? They wanna say how do they help their staff be better. Others need program development. We have some smaller organizations who are new to it, but we gotta hold their hands on what it means to be a mentoring program. And that's everything from how they recruit mentors, how they train the mentors, what age group should they work with, things like that.

So it does vary from program to program. Okay. Okay. And the waiting list, is there a correlation be between one mentor and the ability to have more than one mentee?

There is. Like, again, we've seen programs think about Big Brother Big Sisters. Right? Traditionally, they have been a one to one mentoring program. They have now kind of rebranded and now do a host of group mentoring as well as school based mentoring. So they've even morphed to meet the need to support families better. So depending on the organization and their capacity, they can select what they wanna do or do a variety of them. Right? We even say there's some that still do kind of e mentoring or virtual mentoring, right, where they're able to jump online with young people on a on a consistent basis to provide support there too. So it really does depend on the organization itself and its capacity, and we can help them decide on what

that can look like. So remember when we used to work together a new contract?

Yes, sir.

And right after you left, Junior Perry acquired the contract for the mentoring connection. Mhmm. It was $3,000,000 a year, and that had a ninety percent success rate, but they had a budget to give to the mentors.

They paid the mentors.

Yes. Base?

Yes. Yes.

Is there a difference between the paid mentor programs and the not paid mentor programs?

Just the money. Right? Like, to your point, like because those mentors are still trained and independent where they where they are. Right? So let's go back to, like, credible messengers. Those mentors are paid. Right? But they still are assignmentees and trained to be a mentor. So the the training is still the same. The only thing that's different is they get paid, and then they have to kind of track it on a more consistent basis because if you're getting paid, you gotta show I spent x amount of hour with this young person, and this is what that looks like. So it varies from that standpoint only.

Alright. And I assume this, but the the the mentees are the majority of the households fatherless?

I wouldn't say that because, again, for us, we don't get that data. Right? We we know how many programs we got. We don't necessarily necessarily know what's all involved in all of their data. So some of that, we wouldn't necessarily have

Okay.

On our end. But that's things that we wanna know. Right. So as we continue to build programs out, we can say, oh, we need more men because of this issue, but we don't have that kind of data, unfortunately.

Any programs, do they focus on putting fathers back into the

Something when you think of father making progress, who does mentoring, like, they they they have a focus there. When you have, like, a running rebel who has multiple kind of programs that they assign mentors to, They have some things like that. So, again, it could be very program specific. Right? So

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

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

Yeah. So how successful is that? Because that needs to

be We again, that's internally tracked, but we come as trained. We do the training. So we just tell supervisors or managers that they want their staff to be trained to let us know, and we'll come set up trainings.

Okay. Okay. Alright. Excellent. That's that's pretty much

So I have a question. Yes. In the space of mentoring, who actually funds it?

It it's a variety. So for us, from Integrated Milwaukee, we we get money from foundations. We do contracts like something like Northwestern Mutual will probably be a contract to support them. We've gotten some national funding from different foundations, CDBG funding. We were under ARPA at one point in time, but we know that's now gone away. So there's we have a kind of a a variety of funding that we receive.

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

But they they get other funding too. So, for example, some get state funding. We think about boys and girls clubs. Some get foundational funding, like, from some of our local foundations. But they get money, but not from us. Ultimately, there are some affiliates throughout the country who do fund programs directly, but they receive state money to do that.

So do someone could get state money for funding for mentoring and then tap into you, and then you also provide even more support. Yes. So then should their mentoring be double the outcome then or here's where I'm getting with that because I think I don't know if all the youth serving agencies are considered mentors. I don't know

if Yeah.

Every line item in their budget says, you know, in our youth work, we are dedicating Mhmm. Time and resources and staff to mentoring or are the boards of directors of those organizations concentrating on one thing and saying, oh, we got you to go do the mentoring for us.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's a good point. No. I I'll say it this way. We if an organization calls us and say we need support, we help regardless. Oh, I got it. Yeah. I do think to your point, Yeah. Though

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

Right.

And you're getting funding for doing it. If the organization is getting money on top of that, then I wouldn't expect that they'd be even at the top of the list

for mentoring.

But I think that's where I would go back and say this is where the science of mentoring is getting misunderstood. Because people may say they're doing it, and then they think just because I opened my doors and kids come in and throw a ball on the floor, I'm doing a mentoring Right. Response. That's where we're trying to get people to understand to kinda shore that up. Right? Like, if you say you do mentoring, here's how that looks, and here's what you should be doing to to support that young person under mentoring. So I think ill intended, but, yeah, we we see it where people think they

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

If someone said they do mentoring, I think one of the things to help or and even help you all feel more comfortable, ask them if they are partnering with us. Can we do evaluations of programs? Right? We will say, okay, Let's do this evaluation. Let's see if you're hitting these things here to kinda help support you then. Right? Again, it's not a I got you. It's to say, you say you're doing a face to face one on one, but you only got three mentors and 37 kids. That's a group. Right? Like, so we can help shore that up and help them kind of better define what they say they are doing so they're better equipped to be successful. That's one way. I think and and and and we it's called something called the National Quality Mentoring Services. Betty is I wish she was here. She could explain it better.

But nonetheless, it's an evaluation that we can do to be more supportive. So yeah.

Yeah. I I I wanna be clear that if we could a do better job or we can help, I mean, I want to start at home before we Yeah.

Absolutely. Go on community wise.

Yeah.

Any other questions? I do

have a question.

Yes, sir. I do have

a question around your program partners. Like, how a system is in place to assess their programs before you partner with them to ensure that they're providing quality mentoring? I know you provide trainings, but is there an assessment that you do beforehand to ensure that it's Mhmm.

Quality over quantity?

I'm asking that in two ways. So if someone reaches out to us and say, hey, I wanna be a program partner, basically, what we do is we do sit down and have an interview with them. Right? Because they're not required to share data or or share everything, what we do is say, we need to know one one, you have to be trained in the elements. Right? That's a requirement to be a part of our Mentoring Connector. The second thing is you have to at least do background checks for every one of your mentors. Right? That's very limiting because, again, they can come to our training, they can do the backgrounds, but we don't see the program or see the results of that. So that's where we get handcuffed.

So going back to data sharing, if there was a way for us to create a tool so let's for an example, say somebody gets money from CDBG. Say requirement. Mhmm. Part of the requirement is you have to do this Mhmm. And then do the NQMS, which is a basically an evaluation of your program, and then we're able to help then support that program become stronger and build capacity. So, again, we don't grade them, unfortunately. Well, unfortunately, I don't we're not the the public master when it comes to this. We just want to be a thought partner and supporter at the end of the day.

Thank you.

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

No. No. Not at all.

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

And I think for us, we wanna be, again, building capacity. Yeah. So for you, you might say, hey, Lanell, how do they come in? We may say, well, they need to learn do these three things differently to be, I think, stronger. And then you can say, okay. X program, let's work on these three things, partner with M Integrator and Milwaukee too. They can help you do that. Right? And that's where we can build capacity for them to do that. So

Well, I don't think it's fair they reach out to you, check a couple boxes, and say we're part of the mentoring program. Yeah. And it's really not making a difference.

And those are the things where, again that's why we host a lot of like, workshops, like, like, free. Like, come learn how to do this. Or we're doing the elements section one, two, three again so you can become stronger in that. So we're trying to do, again, things outside of just, hey. You check that box, but we're gonna make sure you have consistent kind of support along the every year when we're doing the support services.

How's corporate America supporting?

Yeah. Some are are are good, the Northwestern Mutual's, the Goodwill. Some don't see it because some they don't see us as a direct service. So some of them will say we will fund organizations who work with the kids directly to do the mentorship, not necessarily understanding our role and how it comes in that. We're trying to do a better job with that. We're working with Corrigo Biddle, MMAC, to get in front of them more to so they can learn more about what we do. So Okay. Any

other questions? No, Joe. Appreciate your

No. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

In touch. Alright. I'll be back to check-in again.

Yeah. It'll be Maybe

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

Well, our Youth Voice Summit is that first week in August, so we'll get an invite to you all because it is designed to have the youth have the voice around this. And again, their issue like, for example, issues last year were gun violence, homelessness for youth, culturally responsive teaching in schools. Uh-huh. And then they all are connected to mentorship because the young people then talk about how mentors can help each area of that. That might be something to come and talk to as well. You know Yeah.

You talked about that these issues are brought up by young people and they they provide solutions. You're looking back, is there something y'all worked on that then the kids you know, the youth came up with a solution and boom, something happened that they can look back and go, here here's a change because of us?

I won't say a change, but I can say how it was used. Last year, again, we used one on gun violence. The DA came down. He he listened. The young people wrote a white paper. He used that white paper to do a presentation in DC to talk about reducing gun violence. So one outcome in this was, it was used in a in a way to help kinda create a new solution. And so we're trying to build on that. We're trying to build on them more. Last year was the first year we had the young people do a white paper to kinda share their information. So we're trying to use that to to your point, get it out there so it can be used for somebody else to do something with. So

Okay. Well, this body, we're working on young people being represented here and we're gonna expand our our our our committee, but we're we're we're gonna welcome any and all Okay. Suggestions for some policy change that we can do internally. One of the things that might be a requirement for CDBG funded youth to tighten up this mentorship piece.

Well, I'm so appreciate it. You. Thank you all.

Good to

hear you. Thank you, man. Excellent. Alright.

Next on our agenda is employ Milwaukee. Come on down. Thank you. Welcome. Please introduce yourself for the record and the floor is yours.

Hi. Good morning. Cody Harding. I'm the performance and reporting analyst for Employ Milwaukee, but I wear a few different hats depending on what day of the week or time of the year. I also oversee kind of an elite project coordinator capacity to earn and learn program. It's our summer youth employment community work experience.

And I am Rommel Greer. I am the camp director for the Camp Rise program and the special projects manager at Employ Milwaukee. So

the earn and learn community work experience program is a basically a subsidized work experience program where Employ Milwaukee as the workforce board works with employers all throughout the city of Milwaukee and the county of Milwaukee. We work with faith based organizations, private organizations, community based organizations, really any organization that can provide a work based learning experience. Public sector as well. We work with the county, you know, municipalities to provide work experiences. It's a full first time work experience for teenagers ages 14 to 24.

We do the onboarding so they learn how to do an I-nine, they learn how to fill out a W-four, WT-four. That's a very critical and important part of this program that a lot of people don't really think about because a lot of adults can't fill out a lot of these forms accurately. So getting them at a young age, filling these out is incredibly important. There's a financial literacy piece to our training, our orientation training. We also provide an opportunity for all the participants to open a non custodial bank account for free through a partnership with Educators Credit Union.

We subsidize the wages 100% for all the participants in the program for twenty hours per week over seven weeks in the summer at a wage of $12.21 per hour. And basically the work sites are providing that supervision, reporting their time sheets on a weekly basis, providing that career exposure, career exploration and then guidance in the workplace. We really focus on that kind of work based learning experience for all participants. And then here's just a few of the work sites we've worked with. These are kind of some of our long time work sites.

Just focusing on last year in the top left here is a creative arts space in Bayshore Mall. The middle top there is Milwaukee County Parks program where they do community cleanups, some landscaping and things like that. Top right is Style Pop Cafe in Walkers Point. They take a few kids every year. And then the bottom left is a very longtime partner Morris Cathedral where those participants are working to support the food pantry there at Morris Cathedral.

One of our big partners on the South Side is United Community Center just kind of highlighting them as a you know, South Side probably needs a few more work sites for those participants but highlighting kind of best practices for a location on the South Side. UCC has had a long term program. Basically they provide pre college youth development for their participants and a lot of their previous earn and learn participants who've gone off to college come and help support that program. It's also just an important part of that, you know, neighborhood and community that participants in that area are the ones participating at the worksite doing a lot of good work.

Are the under learned participants with UCC their students?

Are they? Yes. Yeah. They're their students. They're their students but they also, UCC in particular will always take additional participants that are not necessarily their students. How many? How many? I can find out, but I believe last year 12 to 18 participants total, I think is a good number. I believe this year they're they requested 18 participants.

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

I mean, I can find out. I don't know right off the top of

my head.

That's helpful. Yeah. Sure.

But I guess does the earn and learn set aside a certain amount of positions? Sorry? I guess does that organization set us set along a certain amount of spots for earn to learn students?

How many I'm sorry? Do they? You know, so,

you know, Perez's question is based on them being students. Correct?

I guess I'm not understanding the question. Are you

I can answer the question.

Participants of the work site already before the program starts Are

they standard amount.

Like, you know, is are they do they set us you know, they're students or they set aside to on a learning program because I assume they only have a certain capacity.

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

Yeah. Yeah. And they and they're the same students.

Are they the same students?

My question is pretty clear. You you you got UCC up there as a big participant. Of the students that participate for UCC, are those participants, are they their students? And if they're not, if they're from the community, then I wanna know.

Yeah. Right. But in addition to that, those students, are they are those slotted spots for them through the earn to learn program?

Yes. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sometimes I'm so in the program that I it something seems like

No.

No. No. You're good. Yes. So and I'll talk a little bit more about that, and I can also talk about the actual work site process if you guys are interested. Absolutely.

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

Right.

You see

what I'm saying?

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

Dude, how many South sites participants participants are are like like UCC that have kind of a a set amount they always get you applications, they participate, I mean they're spread throughout the city that way correct? Yeah. Mhmm. Okay.

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

So style pops on the South Side. Yeah. Are there are are all their participants from the neighborhood?

Not necessarily.

So they could be citywide participating Yes. Mhmm. Depends on the participant. They recruit their own students in?

No. Participants? Yeah. StylePop I know they recruit like two participants every year and then they usually take one from the community as well.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. And and you really

And then those the way they pick them, they go through an application process but if StylePop says we want three slots and we got two already and then the third one is from the community, they get to pick those students.

Don't get to pick participants. They don't get to pick that additional one. They can pick the first two that they're referring to themselves obviously but a lot of our work sites actually recruit from the participants that come to our website to fill out an earn and learn application so it's not as if, you know, it's not the same type of students that might be coming to our website as normal earning learn participants. So they

do pick them from the website of applications or they they could direct them to the website too and then Yes.

Yeah. It can go both ways.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. But they still have to show some interest in that particular profession. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So Havenwood State Forest is another long term part long term partner. This one's highlighted particularly because this individual was a participant of the Camp Rise program for two years. They were placed at Havenwood State Park and they've been referred back several years in a row.

It's kind of like as a best practice. This is exactly what we look for going from Camp Rise as a pipeline into the earn and learn program and particularly for this individual I don't think they had a particular interest in this field but they found an interest by being placed there. So that's another kind of important component of the program. So this is kind of a standout experience and as the Camp Rise program goes longer and longer we're seeing more and more of these situations where it's kind of that direct pipeline, the participants are finding like a long term relationship with an employer or you know a community organization. Okay.

A newer partner, I know we've worked with them in the past in different capacities but last year in particular UWM design a build program, the College of Architecture and Urban Planning hosted a program kind of around green infrastructure and architecture and things like that. This one really highlights the career exploration and training aspect of the program, you know, moving away from general labor and things like that into like a more specific training focused career exploration opportunities. So there's a quest for kind of the application details. I mentioned this a little bit before but our general eligibility items are there and then kind of the documents that we require to show those eligibility criteria from the participants. So main eligibility criteria ages 14 to 24 by 06/29/2026 that's the start date for the program this year.

Residing in Milwaukee County and then have to be eligible to work in The United States. Our participant application for this year is open for another week or so. Those employee referrals will also close at that time. We do a supervisor training in June for all the participants and then about ten days of orientation. That's not encompassing all of our orientation participants, families and our work sites all kind of, you know, have different schedules and some people can't make these orientations so we kind of do rolling orientations at our location wherever we need to to make sure everybody is ready to go on that June 29 start date.

This year the last day of earn and learn will be August 16. So I kind of just waited to get these numbers this morning because I know there's interest in the actual numbers. So the number of applicants this year, the application hasn't been open since the first of this month and we've received 2,276 applications as of last night and the top zip codes, the following zip codes, the top six account for about two thirds of those applications. That's 53209, 218, 216, 206, 210, and 212. The following account for the last third is 208225224205, and 223.

This year we've had 83 worksite organizations those applications are still open for another week and we're still interviewing them, reviewing applications, answering their questions. Even though it's 83 worksite organizations it's well over a 100 actual physical worksites throughout the Milwaukee County just because of, you know, some of the organizations we work with like Milwaukee Recreation or Boys and Girls Club have quite a few sites throughout the throughout the county.

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

I can take 15. And I did also want to point out to 64 of those locations are five zero one c through tax exempt organizations. So the total request of all those organizations is at this time ten sixty nine participants so that's how many they they could serve. So quite a large number there. And then the approximate number that we plan to serve this year so far, you know, as we, you know, sometimes we get extra funding boost as the months go on and weeks go on. Right now it looks like we're serving approximately 800 participants through the program.

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

Correct.

Is that in addition to Camp Rise or is it the same

Yeah.

Camp Rise is a separate program with a separate separate funding.

How much does that cost?

Camp Rise program?

No. Oh.

Oh. It depends on how they're paid. So some organizations pay a stipe and some pay a wage but right now I believe it's at like 1,100,000.

1,100,000 for 800.

For eight Yeah. I can get the exact number.

But that's What

what kind of What's that to the overall budget of employed Milwaukee? The 1.1.

I'm not sure.

But that is the number for the $12.21 per per Okay.

Mister chair.

Oh, all the way more. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

You may wanna you're not doctor Gupta. You may wanna get rid of that. Right. Sorry.

Just wanted to just really briefly, I know I sat in the back while while Lanell was presenting for greater mentor greater Milwaukee, so I'm glad that you all have these folks coming to the table. I've worked with earn and learn for many, many, many, many years. And so right now, as you all are hearing, the reason why I just wanted to come to the table is because we've also been working with them on figuring out how to also support opportunity youth. And those are young people aged 16 to 24 that are out of school, out of work, disconnected. Right?

Mhmm. And so I'm a I'm a table that for a second. I want you all to think about the numbers that you just heard Currently, now give me that number again, Cody. 2,000 as far as applicants that folks have signed up for, 2,000

two seventy six.

Twenty two seventy six. 2,276 applications. Now everybody won't fit you know, some of those folks will drop off and won't go through the process. But out of those applicants and if we go hard, we can get more young people. But the issue is there is only a capacity for 800. I want you all to understand that this is an absolute problem. We should employ Milwaukee has a infrastructure. We listen. We can get more as far as the the work sites. And, again, we have well over a 100 work sites and well and we can get more more folks to come into the mix.

The issue is we do not have the funding to be able to make sure that every young person that wants a summer job has the opportunity. People are calling me about Camp Rise. I'm I'm calling I'm calling Renell, and I'm just like Rommel, and I'm just like and he was just like, we do not have the funding

Mhmm.

To be able to work with the younger kids because it also creates a pipeline. What the again, they've done really well and the mayor supports Camp Rise, I love that he supports Camp Rise. But when we talk about earn and learn, we need more money. Point blank. We have to have more resources to employ more young people at the height of it, particularly during COVID. I think when dollars came in, I made 14 we what was that roughly? What was that number? 1,500.

Yeah. I've been do I've been in the program for a few years, and I think my first year was '23, and it was around 1,400.

And that was that was at the peak? On average, I think at that time, you know, even probably before that, we might have been around a thousand to eleven, twelve hundred young people. Mhmm. At the end of the day, y'all, we should be providing at least 2,000 jobs for young people. And that's and that's bare bones. We should be providing at least 2,000 summer earn and again, this is just we're just talking about summer, which is a time where young people are out. They're not engaged. We have to do a better job in advocating for more resources. We can get the partners. That's not an issue, but we have to get the dollars to employ more young people.

And with that, we also have to have a tier. So this $12.21, we can't pay a 19 year old or a 20 year old $12 or a 23 year old $12.21. This is where we work with the business partners, and we can subsidize some of some of those dollars. You know? Hey. We'll pay a little bit. You you come to the table so that these young you know, these older young people are getting 17, 16, 17, $18 an hour depending on what field they're going into. So I wanted to just, you know, sound the alarm because 800, it's it's good. It's better than last year. However, as a body, I wanna really push you all to figure out how we can literally triple this number because it's That's

the reason I asked what the 1.1 was of the overall budget for employee. Now looking at the list of all the there's even people on this on this board that are on the

employee But their budget, their net their organization budget doesn't have anything to necessarily do with summer earn and learn because these are outside dollars that they used to support this program. And they and, again, it's been refined over the years working with manpower. There's a a few different things that you all have done a little bit differently. I just want this body to understand that more, you know, more money can come in to help support other nonprofit organizations. Again, it's well over about 64, our five zero one c three.

We can pull more people in. We can pull more of our small business owners in to help them subsidize some of this cost to give young people some first time work experience, whatever it may be, but we need money. The the we we should we should be at least be having $3,000,000 for summer earn and learn to figure out what to do, a minimum.

Cody, I do have a question. What percentage of the 83 employers have or offer to subsidize some

of the costs for the earn and learn

have? Zero.

Yeah, most of them are nonprofits.

64, yeah.

Yeah, mean and it is critical for, you know, a handful of these nonprofits to support their summer programs. They're using these youth, these subsidized wages to support their critical programs in the community so and pretty much the entire budget goes directly to wages. We're not reimbursing employers, work sites, We're not paying training fees. It's just going to wages.

A halt of wages. Yeah.

No. I I it's part of the reason I think our data committee is digging into data to figure out even on the CDBG side how well are we collecting data. Up? Maybe it's a repurposing of funds to fill in some of these gaps. But yeah. I I hear you. I just I everyone looks at Employment Milwaukee as the employment arm. Right? So

Do you know how much

The state the state doesn't give you enough money?

They give us some. There's a they had Tony Evers summer youth employment program. We get a a decent amount, enough to serve about a 140 kids from my memory each year. But we won't know how long that will last. Mean there's no signs of that going away that we know of but every year we get that year.

But a majority of our funding comes from, it's that, we get some of the CDBG money and there has been an effort on our planning team to try to build paid work experiences into all the grants that we apply for. So any grant we have we try to build in youth paid work experience so that we can help offset the cost and try to get more kids in earn learn that way. But those always come with a lot more restrictions because they're usually restricted by the type of work that's being done. So for example, if we have a hospitality related grant that supports paid work experience, we can only subsidize positions in paid work or in hospitality. We can't subsidize like a summer recreation experience with that money.

So it's that's very restrictive.

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

Tracking as far as outcomes?

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

Yeah, well I mean I know there have been efforts to try and track that. It can be incredibly difficult to track that but we what we really rely on is the actual work sites, particularly the community based ones to give us that information. But I can say just anecdotally that a lot of these participants are staying with their work sites from year to year. They're developing relationships over the summer. I know we do have kind of a new partnership with for Camp Rise to try and track some of this information more accurately, but as it stands right now, it is mostly anecdotal in that regard.

And can I just really say too really quick, mister mister

chair? Just to finish the No.

Go ahead.

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

Mhmm. Rise. Yeah. Other

than these two programs, what else do you have?

I mean our adult programs, sometimes there's a wait list for them but it's not nothing to this degree.

This is young people.

Oh, I understand that. Yeah.

Yeah. Nothing. And this is our these are our only youth well, not our only youth programs. We have some we owe a funded youth programs but and there are waitlists for those but yeah like there's nothing to this degree but that's also because of the history and the you know how much the community knows about earn and learn and they hear things about earn and learn and everyone wants to have a nice good summer experience and a safe place for the kids to go and yeah.

When I was 14, it was Serge Ops for Progress. Yeah. Mhmm. They were located on the South Side. They were like like a humorous kind of thing but it seemed like every nonprofit back in the day was employing people, young people. So okay.

I'll Mister chair, what years were those

When don't wanna know.

Don't wanna tell them. We're I can't

Go ahead.

No. No. My apologies.

No. No. Go ahead. Go ahead. Jump in.

When we're looking at that caps, I'm again, just looking from a business owner's perspective. When you get a demand of 2,200 Mhmm. How do we get to that cap of 800? Why do you get to that

money?

No, no, no. Understand. Okay. So let me look at it a different way. What's the cost per kit? If we got 800 some openings or 800 some positions, what's the what's the breakdown per

Yeah. I mean, like I said, it can depend because some again, some of our grants do require a little bit of a higher wage. Some are are doing stipend work and it it's not an exact number for every single different work experience.

Oh, sorry.

But in general, it's a little over $2,000 per participant for a seven week program.

Is the budget 1.1 or is the budget something different?

I'm speaking off the top of my head last time I looked at it and it's a little over a million dollars from

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm just doing again, just doing some quick quick math public school education. I mean, that's that's about 1,300 per

person. Yeah.

It should be it should be about it it it's actually should be about, you know, 23. I think if I'm not the the figures that we typically get during our advisory meeting, typically about 2,300 for a young person that includes the taxes and all that stuff. Yeah. It's about $2,300 per young person.

Then that will be a larger budget than why they

want that. Yeah. I I may have misspoke. I really need to actually see budget in front of me. I'm just saying last time I looked at it Okay. It's a little over 1,000,000.

Well And I mean

But it's yeah.

It's probably

more. Numbers numbers are important. I mean Sure. And especially when you're looking. So but let me let's flip it up on its head though.

The other thing is to and obviously the the money is important and so forth, but I guess twenty some years ago somebody told me, hey, the money doesn't matter. And and and the reason why I mentioned that is is to me that the other thing is the value proposition. And I hate to sound that blatant, but the value proposition from what you guys are doing is is large, not just on the economic, to the community, for the youth, and so forth. And when you have a demand, again, from a business perspective, a demand of 2,200, That's a value proposition to everyone involved. You mentioned UWM early, the College of Design and so forth.

Are we also working with M Cubed? Because again, you know, going to be broader, not just UW Milwaukee, but also Milwaukee Public Schools, a huge collaboration.

Yeah.

I look at what you're doing with a large value proposition to that entire ecosystem of public schools, not just UW Milwaukee, MATC, Milwaukee Public Schools, and so forth. But then also, as you mentioned, as the other woman mentioned, obviously, business community. You know, you've got a demand of 2,200

Yeah.

Youth. There should be other businesses that are leaning in and so forth. So to so to me, I I guess when you're looking at that demand, you know, of 2,200, to me, there there there's that's a huge value that that were that were coming in. And when you present, you know, the value to me, the the money will be there, you know. And and and so I so I guess, you know, so so to me, it's when you're looking at 2,200, that should I mean, you know, that how do we make that work?

And obviously understanding, you know, per person or per pupil or per participant, you know, what that what that number is because again, 1,300 is different than 2,300. So so for me in in business, you know, if we a if we had 2,000 some widgets planned, but also we got a demand for 5,000, guess what? We're making some way that other 3,000 is gonna happen because the demand is there. So so to me, it's but but first of we gotta understand what that per unit number is. Is it 1,300?

Because now we're talking, you know, so if you're talking for a business owner or UW Milwaukee or so forth to say, hey, we've got an additional 500 demand and that additional 500, that additional thousand, or that additional 1,500 is gonna cost us this delta, you know, per person. Now it's different. Okay. We we can take these 50 people for this amount of money. We can you know, so we we're kind of breaking that down, looking at the value proposition, and now it's a it's a easier bite if we understand what that per bite is, you know, and whether it's 1,300 or 2,300, that's that's a big shift.

But I but I think being able to speak about that per person and then looking at the value that you're bringing to that organization, I think you could find 10 organizations say, hey, I can take this amount. I can take this amount. I can take that amount, you know, and now that's, you know, that's and that's different, you know, as opposed to just talking about millions here, millions there, you know, I think it's a different conversation. Again again, that's just the way I'm wrapping my head Well, around

I mean, kind of speaking of what you're saying is is we have tried this new system of sponsorship where if they want more participants they could pay for those participants but still take some of our other ones. We can give them three or four and they can pay for the next five or six. So they're still getting some benefit of the 100% subsidized participants but they're paying for the rest. So kind of a, you know, but again so far there's not been many that have or any that have taken us up on that. And again to your point, more private organization support might lead to, you know, more partnerships that way.

I will say we do have some great partnerships. I know you talked about M Cubed. We do work with Milwaukee Public School in particular one that off the top of my head, you know, we're doing an ambassador program with Marcus where Marcus provides work experience, Milwaukee Public School does the recruitment to make sure it's interested, relevant participants and MATC is providing an additional like culinary training course. So it's kind of bringing everyone together and we want to do more of that and I would hope that more of those private partnerships might bring more of what you're talking about.

So I just I just looked online and it says financial statement for 2024. So support and revenue is believe, 15,000,000 in government and service contracts, contributions, which I don't know what I don't know if that's private, 770. Other revenue is 1,000,000. And then when it goes into expenses, it says 5,900,000 on youth, 8,800,000 on adults, another million not million. Yeah.

1,000,000 on dislocated workers, and then another 1.4 on management in general. So according to your own information it says you expend 5,000,000 5,900,000 on youth. So I'm assuming those are contracts you have for

There's more programs too. Yeah.

Yeah. One of 5.9, then 1.1 is

Yeah. And like I said, I it's likely more. Yeah. I'm just taking off my last look at it. Okay.

I had a quick one, mister chair. Sure. I appreciate that you guys don't have like all of the information we're asking and we're asking

We can get it. We can

get it.

But just generally, could you help us to understand where the makeup of the funds are coming from? You had mentioned state, you had mentioned CDBG, grants. Is there any other is there philanthropy that funds Earn and Learn?

Yeah, we have a few. We've had some philanthropic support. I honestly can't speak to exactly where it comes from.

Yeah, no, that's okay.

But yeah, it's But like

if there's like a pie chart. Yes.

These are like the different It's not as significant as CDBG in the state, DWD money. But our other funding mainly comes from our internal grants. So right now the big ones are Serve, which is a hospitality grant, and our bio health grant, grant which those are also that's a very specific niche area where there is not a lot of call for youth work experiences in bio health because it's like biomedical manufacturing and stuff like and they're just not a lot of work for 14, 15 year old and even older kids. You know, it requires more education. So we're finding ways to make it work within the bounds of the grant, but those are our two other mains.

But the largest make ups are state and CDBG? Yeah.

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

Sure.

Chair Perez, just one quick question. Sure. I won't pepper you with muddy questions, I know you're tired of that right. More program questions or more observations. I work for Milwaukee Public Schools, been a long time rec employee before I took other positions.

Have you started to think about how to maybe make the training of our young people more year round because what we found is they're different? Like, not a bad way. It's just a different way they communicate, a different way they need to be communicated to. Attention spans are different and we're asking them to oversee other young people in some senses and things like that. So we see a lot of cell phone they can't let those cell phones down or those are sort of things that it takes a while to get Are your thoughts about like developing more training so they're really they don't take four weeks of their program and seven weeks to really get you know, they're taking a long time to kind of catch up speed. Any thoughts about that?

Yeah. I mean for me personally, it's something I would like to see. But then again from like a budget perspective, pretty much all the money that we have goes to the wages. Now we're trying to find staffing for those things and then that's where we really do rely on the work sites to say, hey, you need to build in some of this work based learning and we, you know, want you to form a relationship with these participants and keep up with them throughout the year. I mean the goal is, especially for our small businesses and things like that, is to hopefully move them from subsidized to unsubsidized work like over the school year.

Even if it's only a few hours a week, just to keep that relationship intact and you know help with some of the things that you're talking about. But yeah right now it's kind of like out of the scope a little bit you know. We want to provide a really good work experience and obviously what you're talking about is important, incredibly important for the rest of the year and for the next year and for every participant, but right now we it's not really part of the scope unfortunately.

It'd be

a great opportunity to partner with somebody like when they all came in to talk about Yeah. They can help with those sort of skills and Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm really sorry. We're running out of time, so I I wanna make sure you get

Thirty seconds? Well, a little more a little more than

thirty, but we we wanna hear from you.

Yes. Most definitely.

Well, my name is Rommel Greer. I am the director of the Camp Rise program. Camp Rise is a program that has been going now since 2022. We service 350 kids from Milwaukee Public Schools ages 10 through 13. We also give them stipends for their participation in the This is a work based program, and we do a lot of life skill enrichment where we try to get young people prepared for what is to come. We try to give them a lot of exposure throughout the city of Milwaukee, things that we don't that they don't usually see. Last year, something just as very simple, we took them to the port. 98% of those young people never seen a boat before.

That's it.

So being able to see the Port Of Milwaukee was something that was refreshing to those young people, but also was something that was able to intrigue a different aspect

of them. We can go

to the next one. Our camp runs this year from June 22 until August 7. We will have a week off between June 26 through July 6 with MPS doing some cleaning, things of the sort. So the camp will be closed for a week. We have we are working with Milwaukee Public Schools. All students come from Milwaukee Public Schools. We are giving a building by North we are giving North division for the summer, and we work with those young people there. So that's kinda like the central city. We provide free bus and free lunch. We also provide field trips, stipends throughout the summer as well too.

So they'll receive one large stipend for completing the summer as well too. Okay. As we stated, it started out in 2022 with 200 just 200 boys. It's flat out with 200 boys. And our biggest complaint was that, what about the young ladies? The young ladies need some mentorship as well too. No.

We've Absolutely. Got

So this year, we are expanding ourselves to 350. We will have 250 girls this year and 300 boys. So we are excited about that. And to me, this sounds a little bit more biased, but the girls are always so much easier to work with. After we get through that first little week, we're absolutely fine. So the boys, we got

that number again? Oh, The total is three fifty.

The total is three fifty. Yes.

Give me the number again boys and girls?

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

a minute.

That's five fifty. Yeah. No. It's 200 boys and a 150 girls. I'm sorry.

No. No. No.

That's good. There we go. I'm sorry.

There we go. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. How many

200 boys.

200 boys and a 150 girls.

Okay. Perfect. Three fifty. Okay.

So we'll be serving three fifty. But back to

that ratio, three fifty out of how many apps?

We have right now ours opened up in May fir I mean, April 1 and it closes on May 1, and we have 500 applications. And we have 245 slots available.

Okay.

So we made sure that this year we want we knew we're gonna gonna try to go a little bit bigger this year, so we're gradually trying to increase. What we were able to do was we were able to get in more 13 year old 12 and 13 year olds last year, so we will have more positions that will become available. So now our 10 and 11 year olds are 12 and 13 year olds, and then we have a lot of positions available for those 10 and 11 year olds and some 12 and 13 as well too just to try to keep them coming through the pipeline.

I'm I'm confused. So we don't have 350 spots?

We do not have 350 spots.

So out

of those 250 people, only 245. Correct. Mhmm. So that was the 50 was last year?

We'll we'll have 350 participants, but we do not have 350 slots available. No. We do not. Okay. Yeah. The returning participants that we have from last year, that's why we have because we have we have to keep in the participants. We keep in the participants who already participated. So we have a 100 and I think it's a 114, a 115 slots that are available for that are that are returning campers.

In addition to the two forty five? Yes. Okay. Yes. So that's how you get to the almost to three fifty? Yes. Got it. But you got 550 apps. Yes. I guess back to the other original question. What

is

the cost per Yeah. Per student?

I could get the cost of it. I can get the cost of it. I don't have the cost at hand. Gotcha. So here are some of our zip codes in which we service throughout the years. We try to make a major emphasis to make sure that we hit a lot of those unspoken for districts, the 5322 Fives, you know, the South Side. We try to make sure that we do a lot of working with the guidance counselors, working with school counselors, being able to try to get flyers, try to get information over there as well too, job fairs, different things of the sort. We try to get all of that stuff over there on

available? Yeah. We we make sure that

And you didn't mention Cody, you didn't mention how many internships or slots are available that the city provides. What is Milwaukee city Milwaukee?

I believe

Now we got the port. We said the port

It's not the city. Well, we have some CDBG funding. Is that what you mean?

No. Because this is just like internship opportunities. Working with the city.

EPW, you said.

Well, the city actually goes has their own earn and learn program. So it's it's a little bit different, and we don't do it. No. That's ours is the CWE. That's the community work experience. It's a little bit different.

But they go through the city, not through you? Correct. Okay.

But here's some information that we just spoke about about the camp information, how it'll be ran. We do have them separated in different groups by age. Family members are not together, so we do not have brothers and sisters to be able to be together so we can have them kind of branch out on their own, build their own relationships, things of the sort. We will go this year from eight to 2PM 8AM to 2PM. The boys start at 8AM. The girls go from 9AM to 2PM, and the boys go from 8AM to 1PM.

Oh, they don't mix?

They do not mix. We don't mix. We don't have them mingling. That that creates a whole another problem and No. No, sir.

Boys early, get them out the way.

Yeah. That's

right. That's right. Get them

right out the way.

Get them right out the way. That was

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

Right. Right. Right. Right.

Alright. Our staff is it includes the majority of our staff people that we have that are working throughout the summer are NPS employees, whether it's recreation, teachers, guidance counselors who may not have worked throughout the summer. We just try to make sure that they come in, help us out, and and, you know, you get paid a decent wage, they're able to kinda help us out throughout the summer. We have a one to eight ratio, and I'm on-site at all times at North Division to handle any situations that are going on with parents, children, things of the sort of just trying to be the mediator in between and try to make it an easy summer for them as well too. We also have NPS security on-site, North Division.

Milwaukee Public Schools does an amazing job with being able to help us out and being able to direct us in the right ways and the right directions of handling situations. We the train only time that the kids are alone are on the yellow bus, and we have a contract with the same bus companies that MPS is using, and they are they are fabulous. We have not have knock on wood, I have not lost a child yet, so that's a positive thing. But we we we do free pickup. So it's corner pick up. Even 10 year olds is their first time ever getting on the bus, and we just make sure that they get there and get home safely. Bus drivers are amazing. Our attendance rate is better this year. We have a five day policy, a five day grace policy of which kids can be absent. Last year, we had a three day.

Three day was a little bit too strict for some of the young people because they will be terminated if they didn't come for three days or three days consecutively. So now we've moved it to five days in order to have more of those participants be able to complete the program as well too. So

that is it.

So we can go, yeah, the field trips

and everything. I know we got a hard stop, so I'll just cut it there and just answer any questions that may be available.

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

We would like to. I reached

out to Orderman Stamper

and Yes. If it's more of reach out to your offices. I'm there. I'm I'm pulling in rust.

Yes. Pulling in.

Pulling in. Romaine, appreciate it. Thank you, man. Not a problem. I would love to. I'll check the details. Absolutely.

Is it coming up? Absolutely.

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Organized. Alright. Cool.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Any questions? No,

man. I guess if we wanted to come on-site and visualize it, what would we do? Just contact you?

Just contact me. Just let us know. We will. And I it won't be all of the fluff. You can get right in you can get right in the mix. And, you know, we have this year, just to kind of speak about it, we quickly we have a pre apprenticeship program that I created for them. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna have them we have so many young kids that are going into or wanna learn about apprenticeships or going to high schools that have and offer apprenticeships but don't know the language or the lingo. So what we did was this year, we created four lanes in which we want to try and work with these young people on. So our 12 and 13 year olds will be working in a field of health care, manufacturing, STEM, and public service. So what they'll be able to do is they'll be able to get an event where they'll do like a big project altogether and kind of learn a little bit about it.

So with health care, they'll be doing CPR certification, first aid certification, how to close-up a wound, manufacturing. They'll learn what happens at Pepsi. You know, we've had some great partners with public service. We would love for them to be able to come to here and be able to talk to the older person and learn what their older people do. Absolutely.

Learn what goes on down the city hall, how do they get involved, what is something they could learn to do in the public sector, and all of those things. And then with STEM, we're working with MSOE, and they're gonna have a week long camp as well too. So they'll be able to go there, kinda do some prosthetic dog legs, things like that, learn how robotics makes the world go round. So this is something that we're working on with our 12 and 13 year olds, and we're taking our 11 and 12 year olds or our 10 and 11 year olds, getting them to kinda look at them as the big brother and kinda envy what they're doing and say, I can't wait to do that next year. Wow. And that'll kinda keep the rotation going.

That's good. Mister chair. Thank you. Mister chair. One more.

I just wanted to say, you know, just with the work of Camp Rise, we could easily have a program on the North Side and the South Side.

Absolutely.

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

Mhmm.

When I when I talk to parents and I'm just asking them, well, what is your kid doing for the summer? They're like, nothing. And I'm just like, oh, lord. We gotta get you doing some you gotta do something. Right? You gotta get engaged in something. But the number of young people that apply, the majority of these young people aren't going to get placed. There's a which tells us there's a great need

Your role

for this sort of program. And remember, they pay the young people a little stipend. They don't get an hourly rage, but they get a little stipend just as this you know, you know, when you get a few dollars in your pocket, you feel good as a kid. Oh my gosh. Right? So thinking through, you know, future tense, how we build out because you have to have staff, you know, the the funds that they have for food, you know, there are certain dollars that can't be used, you know, for food. So it's a matter of figuring out how do we build out. Again, this is for we're only talking about summer y'all. How do we build out something a little bit more robust all the way from our 10 year olds all the way to our 24 year olds? And we got a lot of work to do in that category. But thank you all so much for your work.

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

Mean Oh, I agree. That's why I do the all in all youth resources.

All the applications pretty friendly? Yes. Yes. It's a

two page application. One the second page is just a questionnaire. Just asking you questions, but it's just we don't collect major information, not Social Security numbers, just date of birth, school, and SID number from NPS. Okay. And that lets us know that they're an NPS student if they have that SID number. Excellent.

Well, you mentioned we're here to help, man.

Yes. Thank you. My apologies. When you mentioned the trades and manufacturing, you did mention some corporation involvement partnerships. Correct. Mentioned Coca Cola, think, or something.

Well, we're working with Pep. We have Pepsi. Okay. Pepsi for the manufacturing, Aurora and Freighter for health care, MSOE for STEM, and you guys for public service. What about when

you say trades? I mean, construction, you talk about do you have any of the carpentry? I mean, I mean, the list goes on. But I mean, trades, obviously, there's there's a lot of firms that might be able to lean into that. Absolutely. I

had to I had to be strategic about it because I couldn't give them free labor because they're 10 years old.

It does. Yeah.

But I tried to just have a learning a learning a learning experience. These fields here were fields that relationships that we had, and it was a short term and it was it was a short turnaround. So it was about a thirty day turnaround. And I was able to reach out with these individuals or places that we've already been in the past and was just like, hey. Why don't we try these things? But going forward, we are looking to expand those as well and make it a full fledged apprenticeship as well.

Thank you. I'll just say I don't know. We got limited time there.

We we gotta go. Sorry.

Lot of these major firms, though, they're not my opic. So they are leaning in. They are trying to build that interest at an early age in these trades. So it's not always about labor, though. So so and I and I could point you out

to Absolutely. I would love to.

And I

Thank for time. Appreciate it. I've asked MPS to come back because we ran out of time for the career and technical education and the NPS coin. So those have been held Reassigned. To the call of chair to the next meeting. I I believe that alderman Stanford had an update on Milwaukee Succeeds partnership.

Yeah. I do. You know, we are aware of Vincent Miles came and did an excellent presentation regarding Milwaukee Succeeds. So we wanted to bring the concept to our board. So he discussed preparing youth via their civic engagement model to do a better prepared to serve our various city boards. So we just wanna partner with them and see how we can support their program, basically.

Okay. Yeah. They've been up here before and presented.

So Yeah. So to appreciate

the update.

Yeah. We just wanna make sure we move forward with more because it sees

Okay. And then our next

It's a

much more

of a longer discussion. We you I can't we don't have no time.

Yeah. That's right. Okay. And then our next meeting is is 05/14/2026. Appreciate you all being here.

Thank

you. Please stay in touch. We really appreciate the work you do and appreciate any follow-up after that.

And just for the record, the reason why we gotta rush, they're it's a alarm. It's like a school alarm we have

to go through.

But there being no further business, we are adjourned.

No longer being recorded.