St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care is honored to be among the winners of the 2016 Nonprofit Excellence Awards. The center was recognized in the category of Nonprofit Collaboration of the Year for the construction and opening of its new Bucyrus Campus at 2450 W. North Avenue.
“From the beginning, the goal of St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus has been to build the community from within,” said Sr. Edna Lonergan, OSF, president of St. Ann Center, talking about its collaboration with neighborhood residents, churches, government officials and other local nonprofits. The Bucyrus Campus opened in September of 2015 to serve residents of the 53206 and 53205 ZIP codes. It replicates services provided at the original Stein Campus on the city’s south side, providing health and educational day services to children, the frail elderly and adults with disabilities, all under one caring roof.
The Nonprofit Excellence Awards, a program of BizTimes Milwaukee, honors reader-nominated citizens and nonprofit organizations for their work and ongoing commitment to making Milwaukee a better place to live, work and play. Accepting the award at a special breakfast held Thursday, November 3, Casey Rozanski, vice president of Fund Development and Marketing at St. Ann Center said, “We would like to thank all of the partners and collaborators who have helped to make St. Ann Center a success. This award is not only for St. Ann Center but all of those amazing people and organizations that exemplify we are stronger together.”
St. Ann Center thanks our collaborators:
- Parklawn Assembly of God is spearheading fundraising for a 350-seat band shell to be built on the Bucyrus Campus, with projected groundbreaking in 2017. The Indaba Band Shell Advisory Committee also includes representatives from: Blessed Deliverance Missionary Baptist Church, Athena Communications, Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, The Alternative, Inc. and WGLB Radio 1560 AM.
- North Avenue/Fond du Lac Marketplace Business Improvement District 32, also known as “BID 32,” has collaborated with St. Ann Center in efforts to revitalize the neighborhood, and to host events and provide financial and technical support to both established and start-up businesses that may locate on the vacant, abandoned, and underutilized properties.
- North Side Business Incubator In collaboration with Ald. Russell W. Stamper II and BID 32, St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus hosted the first-of-its-kind business incubator designed to help jumpstart locally owned businesses that can generate income for the 15th Aldermanic District. Twenty entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to present their business plan to a panel of investors, bankers, successful business owners and business coaches. The response was so positive, a second Business Incubator is set for December. Business mentors who teamed with St. Ann Center to present the incubator include the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Employ MKE, Milwaukee Jobs Work, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp, ResCare Workforce Services, Social Development Commission, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation, Zilber Foundation, Public Policy Form and African American Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin.
- Buddy Program-Bucyrus Campus In collaboration with the Milwaukee County Department on Aging and the Milwaukee Public School system, the Buddy Program is an intergenerational community-service learning program that engages youth ages 11 to 15 with seniors and adults with disabilities who receive services at St. Ann Center and other Milwaukee community centers and adult day programs. One hundred Buddies from the Bucyrus Campus neighborhood have participated in the 2015-16 program that combines volunteering with mentoring in financial/money management and interview skills, job experience and academic support. The Buddies are also adjunct members of Milwaukee County Commission on Aging’s Intergenerational Council. Program partners include the Clinton & Bernice Rose Senior Center, Kelly Senior Center, Washington Park Senior Center, Central City Cyber School, Fernwood Montessori School, Hope-Prima School and Milwaukee College Preparatory School.
- Nehemiah Project Literacy Program has moved to St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus, renting space in the Center for its tutoring program which teaches teens in its group homes who lack basic literacy skills how to read. With the move, the Project will expand its program to include St. Ann Center after-school children and potentially the larger community as identified by need through teachers, parents and other referral sources.
- ACTS Housing, known for their award-winning foreclosure reclamation work in Milwaukee, opened a new north side office at St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus in 2016 to better serve north side residents. First-time home owners come to the Bucyrus Campus ACTS office for help in buying and rehabbing vacant homes—a major step in the revitalization of the neighborhood.
- Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative has partnered with St. Ann Center by assigning a liaison to the Bucyrus Campus to work with neighborhood fathers—providing resources that will help them handle the responsibilities of fatherhood, including driver’s license recovery, child support and visitation, parenting and job skills training.
- Vision Forward Association provides a continuum of services, from birth through adulthood, to people with visual impairments, helping them achieve important developmental milestones as well as educational, personal and professional goals. St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus, true to its mission of celebrating people of all ages and abilities, is a job site for Vision Forward Association clients, recently hiring a CNA and receptionist through the organization’s education and training division.
- Milwaukee Job Corps trainees have found full-time positions in St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus Adult Day Services program.
- One Hope Made Strong (OHMS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing young people in Milwaukee’s inner city with the training and work ethic needed to gain meaningful employment in the trade industries. OHMS founder Ezzard White has been contracted for several major electrical projects at the Bucyrus Campus.
- Legacy Redevelopment Corporation, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), is focused on housing and commercial real estate in Milwaukee’s inner city. Legacy provided $3.8 million in New Market Tax Credits (NMTCs) used to fund Phase I of Bucyrus Campus construction and is working to help secure an additional $1 million in NMTCs for completion of the project.
- Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District supported the Bucyrus Campus (formerly a vacant lot left from an abandoned freeway project) in creating two bioswales that capture dirty water from area roads and parking lots, filtrating runoff into the ground and cleaning it naturally.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a grant to St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus to start work on soil remediation, removing pollutants and contaminants from part of the Campus’ acreage. In addition, St. Ann Center is working on securing a grant for similar soil remediation to help the neighborhood around the Bucyrus Campus become more green.
- Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) and its Dental Director advised and financially supported the construction of a unique dental clinic at the Bucyrus Campus, which opened in summer 2016. The Gardetto Family Community Clinic exclusively serves people from Milwaukee County with severe cognitive or physical disabilities that make it impossible for them to be treated at a traditional dental office.
- Medical College of Wisconsin is collaborating with the St. Ann Center Medical Clinic-Bucyrus Campus on plans to develop research programs on minorities and health disparities to benefit the community. This collaboration will promote more coordinated efforts that target health improvement in populations disproportionately affected by disease, injury and/or disability.
- Aurora Healthcare’s Better Together Fund awarded money needed to complete the St. Ann Center Medical Clinic-Bucyrus Campus.
- Walnut Way Conservation Corp. (Walnut Way) is a grassroots nonprofit neighborhood organization founded by area residents in 2000. An affiliate, Blue Skies Landscaping, trains and provides employment for neighborhood residents in sustainable landscaping and green construction. During Bucyrus Campus development, Blue Skies Landscaping provided landscaping services. Blue Skies will continue to provide landscaping services for Campus areas to be remediated using EPA funding. They will also perform planting and maintenance of fruit trees to be planted in the orchard.
- Victory Garden Initiative, through its annual Fruity Nutty 5 Contest, awarded St. Ann Center an orchard of 30 fruit and nut trees to be planted on the Bucyrus Campus and in the yards of nearby neighbors. The orchard is set to be planted in spring 2017 and will be enjoyed by the entire neighborhood, Sister Edna Lonergan says. “People will see the beauty of the trees and share in their bounty. It’s a living example of why it’s important to take care of our earth.”
- Milwaukee Water Commons is an organization formed in 2013 to broaden public participation in water policy issues affecting Milwaukee. They will work with St. Ann Center in developing swimming programs for a planned indoor swimming pool at the Bucyrus Campus, as part of efforts to make Milwaukee a global center for water-related business, technology and innovation.
- Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is the state’s largest food bank, working with a network of hunger relief partners to distribute more than 18.3 million meals annually in 36 eastern Wisconsin counties. They are working with the St. Ann Center to help address hunger in the neighborhood and will also provide support at public meetings and events.
- Generations United is an organization committed to improving the lives of children, youth and older people through intergenerational collaboration, public policies and programs for the enduring benefit of all. Currently, St. Ann Center is collaborating with Generations United in the planning of the 2017 biennial Global Intergenerational Conference, to be held in Milwaukee. A 1.5 day workshop will focus on how to create a Shared-site Intergenerational Care Center, using the Bucyrus Campus as an example of how it can be done successfully. More than 100 attendees are expected to take this knowledge home to their communities and hopefully spread the availability of intergenerational day services centers such as St. Ann Center.
- St. Matthew Christian Methodist Episcopal Church’s Rev. Richard Shaw is serving on a recently formed integration task force for the St. Ann Center, which was established to help St. Ann Center serve the needs of the community in a culturally sensitive manner.
- Dominican Center for Women (DCW) has supported St. Ann Center in the hiring of two women referred by DCW, who are being provided with free on-site child care.
- Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, Inc. (MAWIB) is the largest Workforce Investment Board in Wisconsin and has offices on the block located directly west of the Bucyrus Campus. MAWIB is helping St. Ann Center to recruit workers for the approximate 200 positions to be created at the Bucyrus Campus, and to maximize the extent to which workers are hired from the neighborhoods surrounding the Campus. In 2015, MAWIB hosted a job fair that attracted over 800 job seekers. MAWIB will continue to support St. Ann Center in recruitment of workers as the Campus expands services, as well as in providing training for workers who lack certain skills.
- Seaway Bank and Trust Company’s mission is to help minority professionals and entrepreneurs obtain the financial assistance they need and to be responsive to the credit needs of the community. A representative from the bank conducts financial literacy sessions at the Bucyrus Campus.
- Next Door Foundation collaborates with St. Ann Center by providing both Head Start and Early Head Start programs to a capacity of 140 children. At present, three Next Door social workers have offices at the Bucyrus Campus to assist families in accessing the program.
- SER Jobs for Progress clients volunteer in the Bucyrus Campus adult day care program, as a first step to employment. They work as greeters and activity aides assisting adult clients with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia and physical and developmental disabilities.
- Interfaith Senior Community Service Program brought a volunteer from its job training and preparation program who now runs a popular five-days-a-week art therapy program that involves both our adult clients and childcare youngsters in intergenerational creativity.
- Social Development Commission (SDC) companions in the SDC’s Senior Companion Program provide friendship and one-on-one attention to Adult Day Care clients at the Bucyrus Campus. In return, the companions receive tax-free income and the rewards of serving others.
- Bader Philanthropies and Zilber Foundation in June 2016, collaborated with St. Ann Center and the Zilber Foundation to host Generations United Executive Director Donna Butts as an expert speaker. More than 100 intergenerational leaders from across Southeast Wisconsin attended the presentation held at the Bucyrus Campus.
- Bucyrus Campus Board of Directors, part of St. Ann Center’s general Board of Directors, includes representatives from the Bucyrus Campus area (from within the business, nonprofit and religious communities) who share St. Ann Center’s commitment to neighborhood improvement, community empowerment and enhancing the lives of youth, older adults and families.
- LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus is a 2016 winner of the MANDIs (Milwaukee Awards for Neighborhood Development Innovation) in the State Farm Building Blocks Award, which recognizes a real estate project that advances the community.
St. Ann Center would also like to congratulate other finalists in the Nonprofit Collaboration category: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee and Thriving Waukesha County Alliance.