Adopt a Community Program

A few years ago TRUE Skool attended E*Vision, a Youth Sustainability Conference organized by EarthCare in Santa Fe, NM. We discussed what role Hip Hop plays in the community when it comes to sustainability. TRUE Skool conducted a workshop two years in a row at this conference on Hip Hop as a Social Movement and worked with New Mexican teens to create action plans for change. For more info on EarthCare visit www.earthcare.org. This inspired us to become more environmentally aware and to inspire change in our communities here in Milwaukee.

As an organization, it is important for us to understand and infuse environmental awareness, sustainability, urban food production, and community gardens into our programs and services. Instead of always relying on dwindling community and government resources, we need to learn how to be self sufficient. We are learning how to grow our own food, create our own jobs and resources, beautify through public art and community clean-ups, and engage with and respect other cultures. "It takes a Viilage to Raise a Child" and we must work together to build and maintain our villages.

Program Details

TRUE Skool takes a unique approach to strengthen and beautify communities through grassroots community-based social, environmental, and artistic initiatives. The Adopt a Community Program provides community service and volunteer opportunities through the following activities; clean-ups/illegal graffiti removal, community gardens/yard beautification/storm drain marking, and public art/community murals. All of these activities are offered to businesses and residents in the adopted areas at no cost. Our goal is to provide neighborhood beautification and community service opportunities from July-September each year. Expected outcomes are to create more green space and safer pedestrian walkways, create public art to help deter vandalism, teach youth and community residents about urban food production though community gardens and to provide over 200 hours of community service to youth and adult volunteers from June to September. We track all of the data and activity related information using Google Mapping and create a end of program report that is distributed to all program partners.

 

 

TRUE Skool believes that nonprofit organizations will only create real change by working together. We thrive on partnerships and it is our philosophy that we simply can do more when we work together. In 2011 TRUE Skool partnered with 4 organizations and over 50 volunteers to complete 6 community clean ups from July to August in the Cesar Chavez and Sherman Park/Midtown neighborhoods. Volunteers completed 120 hours during the clean ups, completed the Youth Empowerment Center mural, removed illegal graffiti, marked storm drains for Friends of Milwaukee Rivers and planted a vegetable garden at the Youth Empowerment Center.

 

 

In 2010, through our Adopt a Community Program, we partnered with over 80 volunteers between the ages of 9-53 years old from 13 different community based organizations, local businesses and the Walker’s Point Association (a 150 member neighborhood association) to adopt a 5 block area in the Historic Walker’s Point Neighborhood. These volunteers put in over 40 hours of community service from July to September. From June to September, TRUE Skool also held 3 community meetings, removed over 40 incidents of illegal graffiti removal, marked 70 storm drains on behalf of Friends of Milwaukee Rivers, and conducted 6 community clean-ups in the adopted area at no charge to the businesses and residents. We also painted a community mural that reflects the history of the Historic Walker’s Point Neighborhood, as part of our effort to transform and beautify the neighborhood through public art.