Our Community Partners
Sweet Water Foundation
About Sweet Water Foundation
"The Sweet Water Foundation engages with a host of educational institutions, community groups and affiliated organizations to develop academic and community enrichment programming based upon concepts of community, equity, transformation and resilience. Our work has evolved as a direct response to fundamentally unsustainable models of food production and consumption. Focusing on the potential of urban agriculture as a vehicle for community development, Sweet Water Foundation’s outreach initiatives are grounded upon the central theme of turning waste into community resource."
ReciproCITY
About ReciproCITY
"ReciproCITY is a mobile cultural center that focuses on community activism, social justice, and urban agricultural issues in Milwaukee and beyond. It is collectively run by Mike Carriere (history professor, Milwaukee School of Engineering), Nicolas Lampert (printmaking faculty, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative), and Paul Kjelland (Visual artist, Riverwest 24 and Night School at the Riverwest Public House Cooperative).ReciproCITY was first launched in early 2012 as an experimental cultural space located inside the Sweet Water urban aquaponic farm in Milwaukee as a means of fostering collaboration between urban farmers, artists, activists, and the greater community. After Sweet Water closed in June of 2013, ReciproCITY went mobile and now works on various projects and partnerships with community groups and organizations, primarily on Milwaukee’s North Side. Central to ReciproCITY is collaboration and community engagement."
First Stage Children's Theatre
The First Stage Vision
"First Stage strives to be the national leader and driving force behind the creation of the best and most innovative plays for family audiences, theater training programs for young people, and education initiatives for our schools and our community. These three interwoven programming pillars are accessible to, and reflective of, our increasingly diverse community. Through our exceptional leadership, dedicated team, and commitment to financial sustainability, First Stage will broaden the reach and impact of our transformational programs, thus enabling dreams to be fulfilled, hope to be fostered, and families to enjoy the lasting legacy of a profound shared experience."
The Grohmann Museum
About the Collection
"The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection “Man at Work” comprises more than 900 paintings and sculptures from 1580 to the present. They reflect a variety of artistic styles and subjects that document the evolution of organized work. From farming and mining to trades as glassblowing and seaweed gathering. Later, it is machines and men embodying the paradoxes of industrialism– dark factory interiors with glowing molten metal juxtaposed with workers."
The rooftop sculpture garden is an inspiration for the community garden space we wish to create on 1st and Center St. "A dozen large, bronze sculptures – men toiling in the field and foundry, heaving hammers or pinching molten metal with hot tongs – perch on the roofline of the Grohmann Museum. These fellows, each about 9 feet tall and weighing in at a thousand pounds a piece, have a commanding view of a city that was built on the hard work they depict."