With poverty rates among the highest in the nation, low educational achievement scores and high incarceration rates for African Americans, Milwaukee has more than its share of problems. Though those problems might seem daunting, they did not stop thousands of Milwaukeeans last fall from sitting down to eat a meal with strangers to discuss local and regional problems and ways to fix them.
More than 5,400 people gathered at 200 locations throughout the four-county region. The attendees at On the Table came from 73 zip codes; 58% of the participants were white, 23% were African American and 13% were Latino—according to Voices from the Tables, a community report summarizing the event issued recently by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. The participants discussed more than 150 topics including food security, financial literacy, immigration, criminal justice reform, workforce development, parks and public spaces, poverty, affordable housing, violence prevention, homelessness, policing practices and equity and inclusion.
The report defined three resounding themes from these discussions: connecting and collaborating; education; and race, equity and inclusion, and some 81% of the tables had conversations where race and equity topics were discussed; 96% of the participants said that they were more motivated to work with others after the event. Milwaukee’s On the Table event was modeled on similar events that have taken place in Chicago and Columbus, Ohio.
Katina Fuller-Scott, senior director of strategy, measurement and analysis at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, attended the event, which took place in Milwaukee’s Downtown City Hall. “The biggest thing we walked away with was that we have a wealth of resources in the city,” Fuller-Scott says. “Milwaukee is a great place. I felt very encouraged that I can celebrate the fact that there is good work going on in the city, that people were courageous enough to come to the table, and that there is more that we’re united in than that we are divided in. We are change agents wherever we are.”
Safe Space for Conversation
“I really believe that, when you start having conversations about what’s going on—putting things literally on the table and addressing those issues—is when we see change in the City of Milwaukee,” Fuller-Scott added. “I love the idea of bringing a diverse group of people together, people who wouldn’t necessarily interact and creating safe spaces for them to voice their concerns.”
|
|
Aurora Health Care hosted nine tables at the Heil Center near the Aurora St. Luke Medical Center. Aurora invited stakeholders from the community to attend and ended up with 100 community members and 20 Aurora employees at its tables. Vivian King, vice president of community relations at Aurora Health Care, says employment was a focal point for many of the On the Table discussions at Aurora’s tables. “People really wanted to have a job to go to and support their families, and then some of the other issues like access to healthcare and affordable housing” would fall into place. “It all really begins with people getting jobs. We fell back on that.” On the Table sparked new initiatives, and the conversations started at the event have continued in many places.
After the event, Aurora developed a program that exposes potential talent to job opportunities in Aurora’s labs. “That was kicked off directly from On the Table,” King says. Also following the event, King says, “One of our biggest initiatives was to create a toolkit for our local leaders throughout our system to host these kinds of community-style discussions throughout our footprint.” The Aurora network extends north to Marinette, Wis., and south into northern Illinois. “Because this worked for greater Milwaukee, we think it will work for the other communities and markets in our system as well,” she says.
The Dialogue Continues
Marcus White, vice president of civic engagement and project manager for On the Table, says he is hearing many stories of work continuing from the event. He says that Next Door—which hosted breakfast and lunch On the Table groups—has continued to reconvene those groups for breakfast conversations about early childhood education and, more specifically, connecting more children to early childhood education. Likewise, the Milwaukee Bucks’ participation led them to partner with coaches who work with children who have experienced trauma. Also, White says he heard that the Interfaith Conference is having a monthly series called “Operationalizing Our On the Table Conversation,” which continues to convene people after the event.
Fuller-Scott says she would like to see more young people at next year’s event so that they will bring their perspective on the issues that affect young people and so others can find out about what they really think. “Down at City Hall, I would love to have had a youth voice present at the table where a lot of decisions are being made,” says Fuller-Scott. “Sometimes in our efforts to do better, we isolate the people we are here to serve. We never fully engage our young people who need to engage their own path of reform.”
“Milwaukee is on the move,” Fuller-Scott says. “I think we are very concerned about the issues happening in our city, but we have to do a better job of connecting the resources and connecting the people who are doing the same work.” The next On the Table will take place in October with an exact date yet to be determined.
