Seeds of Change in 53206 Area

The sun peered over the dew-coated trees one early Saturday morning as local educator and activist Alex Bruzan took out his trash, but shouting stopped him in his tracks. Less than a block from his house, almost 100 kids were being led in chants, shouting “we will not die young.”

The chant might seem shocking — it certainly stuck with Bruzan — but was just one moment in a long-fought battle in his neighborhood against gun-violence. Fortunately, community activists have put their heads together to try and solve this problem, planting one seed at a time.

We Got This is a community organization centered on Milwaukee’s North Side which has created community gardens run by students on summer break. The organization features community speakers, teaches kids skills like teamwork and conflict resolution, and donates harvested foods back into the community. It also pays the students $20 for their work each Saturday.

The group was founded by community organizer Andre Lee Ellis, but is now operated by a group of local activists like Bruzan. He has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and watched as an empty lot on 9th & Ring was transformed into a home for the gardens.

“They’re excited to come make the $20, but you’d be surprised about the number of kids that forget just because they’re excited and they genuinely enjoy the work that they’re doing,” Bruzan said.

Shawn Jenkins is also a leader in the organization. Known as “coach” to the kids, Jenkins grew up in the neighborhood and sees this as his way to give back. He now serves on the organization’s board and works as a youth advisor and mentor.

“I remember growing up and just how unified the community once was,” Jenkins said. “I’m just looking to try to do what I can to make my impact and bring it back to what it once was.”

Bruzan says this unity is vital for combatting these issues, in fact, this was Ellis’ mission for the group. He founded it after a shooting just three houses from his own convinced him that something needed to be done to combat the gun violence.

The neighborhood is part of the 53206 ZIP code, the poorest in Milwaukee. A 2023 study from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform reported the 53206 area had 12% of Milwaukee’s fatal shootings and 15% of nonfatal shootings, yet has only 4% of Milwaukee’s population.

But the gun violence is triggered by many other issues.  The residents of communities like the 53206 area have long been the victims of racial segregation, which has left the neighborhoods starved for investment money, quality housing, and good education. U.S. Census Bureau statistics show the neighborhood has an average household income of $28,995, compared to the state average of $75,670. Only 41.5% of neighborhood residents have a high school diploma, compared to the state average of 91.1%.

Bruzan, Jenkins and others hope that We Got This might continue to propel change in a community that has long needed it. “I do believe the thing that Andre’s famous for saying: ‘you get the kids’ hands in the soil and it keeps them off the trigger of a gun,’” Bruzan said.

Community organizations have done wonders in blossoming kids from this neighborhood into success. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley lived in the neighborhood as a kid and credits the Milwaukee youth organization Urban Underground for saving his life,” his bio notes. “That early intervention – the inclusion of mentors in my life who taught me to organize in my community. It sparked my love of public service and helped save me from entering the system,” Crowley has said.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson grew up in 53206 as well. According to his website, it was a community program, the YMCA’s “Sponsor-a-Scholar” program that “solidified his life commitment to community service and making Milwaukee better for future generations.”

We Got This hopes to inspire kids in the same way. Bruzan said last summer, the organization regularly turned away 25 to 30 kids per week, after averaging over 100 kids per week. The cutoff this summer has been raised to 125. He added the issue remains the funding, which is completely fueled by community donations, but he underscored the impact the program is having on the youth, especially economically.

“When I was growing up, I cut Mrs. Gallagher’s lawn like once a week, just this old lady who lived next to us and the opportunity to do that here doesn’t really exist, people have so little margin, no one’s paying the kid $20 to go cut the grass,” Bruzan said. “To be able to give a kid that doesn’t have that naturally coming to them some organized and structured work experience…that’s going to pay huge dividends out here in the future.”

For Jenkins, it’s the development of conflict resolution skills that has impressed him the most. “Especially with some of the kids that I know maybe had a troubled background and they were kind of teetering on the fence. and they say ‘oh coach I was about to do this to them but then I thought about the conversation we had and that brought me back,’” Jenkins said.

He said one particular memory stuck out to him, where a local man was driving recklessly and a kid who knew the man approached him and talked to him about the impact of this. The skills the youth had learned helped him solve the problem in a non-confrontational way.

For both Bruzan and Jenkins, the organization has inspired them into other pursuits of giving back to the community. Bruzan has taken the issue of affordable housing in the neighborhood by buying run-down houses, remodeling them, including replacing electrical systems and plumbing and then renting at below-market value to those in the neighborhood in need of housing.

Jenkins is currently in the planning phase of a youth basketball league which would include mandatory mentoring sessions which he’s thinking will include topics like conflict resolution, financial literacy, and navigating school. He’s used his resources within We Got This to help in the planning and research and hopes to build something similar to the program called Nigel Harvey‘s Cream Skills Basketball.

Bruzan, who is white living in the predominantly black and heavily stereotyped 53206 zip code, has said the public perception of the community helps perpetuate its struggles that arose from the deep-rooted segregation that still exists in Milwaukee today. He’s authored a book and hosts a podcast with his wife to try and change this narrative.

“Violence is a symptom of a lot of other problems,” Bruzan said. “When you get to know somebody, you like them more, you understand them and you start to learn about why [the neighborhood] is the way it is and think well maybe I can do something about it.”

He highlighted issues like housing, electrical fires, education and care of physical spaces as issues that need support both from within the community, but outside of it as well.

“I think every kid should be able to grow up in a clean neighborhood, and for whatever reason in our neighborhood, the kids are the ones responsible for cleaning it up,” Bruzan said.

Small changes that grow into big ones can help build the community and create a better tomorrow, Bruzan and Jenkins believe.

“It’s just kind of taking the concept back, the garden grows and we spread roots and we would like it to continue to spread throughout the city,” Jenkins said.

The website for We Got This can be found here.