Photo credit: Jill Sanchez / All photography was taken pre-COVID
The year 1970 marked a turning point for Latinx Americans. César Chávez’s United Farm Workers marched for the rights of migrant workers, and the Chicano Moratorium, which brought 30,000 protestors to the streets of Los Angeles, focused national attention on discrimination. In Milwaukee, Latinx students occupied the office of UW-Milwaukee’s chancellor. More quietly, on the city’s South Side, a neighborhood center called The Spot provided a haven where teens could gather. A year later, The Spot took the more authoritative name of United Community Center (UCC) and began a process that shows how great things can grow from humble beginnings.
Although The Spot originated as a religious outreach program in the 1960s and the United Community Center took its name in 1971, the UCC’s board of directors chose 2020 as its 50th anniversary date and prepared for the celebration. “We had an amazing gala planned out at Northwestern Mutual, a very fancy event—and then COVID hit,” says Executive Director Laura Gutiérrez. “We rescheduled for fall, and as COVID continued, we decided we won’t be able to make it happen.” Instead, UCC streamed a video. “To try to cram all that we do into a 45-minute video was tough, but our team is creative. We went from a large expensive venue to a low-budget movie,” she continues.
In a way, it was back to UCC’s modest roots, even as those roots continue to support new branches. For Gutiérrez, who started as executive director on May 1, her new job was also a homecoming. She attended the Guadeloupe School before Milwaukee’s Roman Catholic archdiocese transferred it to UCC. Through her teen years, she took part in the center’s programs, including exercise classes with her mom, and she became assistant principal at one of UCC’s schools. After a stint in state government, Gutiérrez returned as UCC’s associate executive director under her predecessor, Ricardo Diaz. Along with adjusting operations in the face of a pandemic, she supervised the construction of a new UCC facility, the Early Learning Academy at 22nd and Beecher streets, scheduled to open in April 2021.
Photo credit: Jill Sanchez / All photography was taken pre-COVID
“A Greater Milwaukee Foundation study found no one in that zip code, 53215, with a college degree—and 5,000 kids under the age of five,” she says. “Educating impoverished families is part of our mission.”
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The heart of UCC is its sprawling campus, occupying entire blocks running east-west from South Sixth through South Ninth streets and north-south from West Mineral to West Washington. From a nucleus at 1028 S. Ninth Street, the UCC expanded over the decades like an old growth tree, purchasing properties to make way for a village with preschools, primary and middle schools, a senior center and elder housing, residential treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, an arts center, a restaurant and more.
The Meaning of Community
Asked to define the “community” in the United Community Center, Gutiérrez answers, “It means family. It means coming together even in challenging times to figure out how to render services and support our families. We ask: ‘What do you need, and how can we assist you?’”
Ninety-seven percent of people served by UCC are Latinx, says Gutiérrez, and 75% are low income. According to VISIT Milwaukee, Latinx make up 10% of metro Milwaukee’s population, which by 2014 numbered 160,000 (compared to only 50,000 in 1970). Forty-one percent of Latinx live in areas of concentrated poverty, Gutiérrez adds. UCC board member José Olivieri explains that, despite the decline in industrial jobs, Milwaukee remains a magnet for immigrants. “It has the advantage of a big city of manageable size. It has the reputation as a good city where you can raise a family,” he says.
“We serve over 2,000 people a day, from six weeks old to 106,” Gutiérrez continues, from children enrolled in early learning to seniors benefitting from the Latino Geriatric Center’s menu of health and grooming services, meals and memory disorder clinic. More than 50 seniors live in apartments on the UCC campus, some in conjunction with the City of Milwaukee Housing Authority. Around 1,700 students are enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade at the campus’ three schools.
The list of UCC’s activities stretches page after page and includes the Neighborhood Development Initiative to encourage homeownership, a health and fitness center, college preparatory programs and more. The Latino Arts series has hosted performers and mounted exhibitions in an auditorium and gallery on Ninth Street. “The vision goes back to Walter Sava,” Gutiérrez says, referring to UCC’s executive director from 1989 through 2002. “He wanted to make sure that culture was embedded in UCC. Part of our job is to foster creativity!”
“What don’t you do?” I finally asked Gutiérrez. She laughs. UCC doesn’t operate a hospital but offers dental and health screenings and on-site care for elders, students and their families. Olivieri adds that job training is being done by other local organizations and that UCC has focused on academic education with the goal of seeing greater numbers of Latinx graduate from college.
Building Bridges
One explanation for UCC’s ascent from storefront to major stakeholder in the community was the willingness to collaborate with other community organizations on an agenda that transcends the conservative-liberal divide. Aside from support from United Way, UCC works on targeted programs with Carrol University, the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, the Medical College of Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Marquette University, US Bank and many more. Badger Mutual Insurance sponsors a Wall of Fame honoring UCC’s youth for achievements in academics and leadership.
“In a social services landscape littered with well-meaning failures, UCC has succeeded because of its sound and stable leadership, its fundraising expertise and its commitment to a comprehensive vision,” says Milwaukee historian John Gurda. Olivieri agrees. “Ricardo Diaz and Walter Sava did an outstanding job of leading and managing. Also, the population has grown so quickly, and the need for services has grown with it.”
“We are 100% generated by the needs of the people we serve,” Gutiérrez says. “Let’s see where people are walking before we build the path. With every idea, we ask ourselves, ‘Does it mesh with our mission to improve lives in our community and help people fulfill their potential?’”
With education as one of its core values, UCC works with parents to help them pay their children’s tuition at UCC’s schools. Says Gutiérrez, “We educate parents as to assistance that might be available based on their income and situation. We also work to alleviate health disparities. Our nurse practitioners educate parents on immunization. We try to remove barriers for families and help parents be part of their children’s success.”
Pandemic Pivot
“Many of our families are essential workers,” Gutiérrez says, commenting on COVID’s impact on low-income families unable to work from home. As much as possible, UCC retained staff and found new tasks for them. Although Café el Sol remains closed to the public, its kitchen is open to staff and residents, and although the adult day care center had to close, the drivers who brought seniors to the facility deliver meals to them instead.
Education continues. Currently, some students are attending classes in distanced settings on campus, and others are learning remotely. Hasn’t remote learning been most adverse for children from low-income families? “We invested in technology,” Gutiérrez says, buying Chromebooks for students and organizing “hot spots” where small groups of kids can gather and study. “We had the dedication and drive to call every family member and ask, ‘What do you need?’ Every child who needed a safe hot spot got a hot spot.”
Recently, the UCC remodeled a facility in the Ninth Street basement named The Spot in honor of its roots. It’s a study center with Wi-Fi and access to counselors for answering questions on college admissions, scholarships and more. “Everything started small, but our board had the vision of UCC as a pillar of the Hispanic community,” Gutiérrez concludes. “I’m sure there was trial and error, but they were always about the results—to serve the most needy and transform lives.”
David Luhrssen is Managing Editor of the Shepherd Express and taught History of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
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