Greater Life Community Church - Participants

So whenever you're ready.

Okay.

My name is Yvonne Somerville. I've been. I'm born and raised in Milwaukee. A fun fact about me is that I consider myself to be an active listener and try to be a good provider of information when I can get some.

Hi, my name is Olivet Crowder. I'm. I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. No, well, I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but I was raised in east St. Louis, Illinois. I moved to Brooklyn, got married at the age of 16, been married for 60 to 52 years, have four children, 14 grandchildren, and 14 great grandchildren.

And I love to bake. That's why I love to read.

Wow.

Okay. Wow. So it sounds like practically almost everyone right at some point has migrated to Milwaukee. So I kind of open up the question, and whoever wants to go at it first, but what was the reason and what was that experience like, kind of coming into Milwaukee and then growing up in Milwaukee at whatever state that was.

All right. It was a culture shock for me because I was in Gary, Indiana, it was predominantly black. So when I came to Wisconsin, it was an adjustment for me. And the reason I moved to Milwaukee is because I met my husband. We had three children.

I wouldn't say it was a shock or anything for me. I came. I was in 12th grade, so I came, went into school. So it was not. I didn't have a lot of other things going on. You go from one school to another school, and you just continue where you left off.

I graduated from Cahokia Senior High school and got married. My husband and I moved to Brooklyn, New York. We had two children there. And a culture shock was, I grew up in a rural area. Going to New York was total, was just crazy, because there was different nationalities that was centered in one spot, you know, the neighborhood that we lived in was Italians and Germans, West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Ricans, all in one block. And it was such a eye opening experience. I really learned a lot from all of those national. This one italian lady, she taught me how to make homemade italian spaghetti sauce and lasagna.

Mmm.

It was really good. But, yeah, it was interesting. I had a lot of fun.

My husband, we from Georgia. My husband came over looking for work, because in the south, we was coming out of the, picking up cotton and all that kind of stuff. So he want, at that time, he said he's not going to stay down here and do that. So he left and came up here. And I was in college down there, because I attended one of the black college of Forbel estate. So after that, I came up here with him. So I got a job here. And I think I came about the time when they start was hiring blacks.

They started hiring black teachers. So I was able to get a job here. So I worked here.

Well, okay, I'll add my two cent, too. So my mom relocated here. I was in the 11th grade, and she came here for a better job also, because she worked in the white people homes to care, cook, clean, took care of their children.

And I'm sure Milwaukee has changed over the years, and I'm sure you've seen a lot of positive and negative. Any reflections, reflections that you all have about the current state of our community. And in thinking about the black community in Milwaukee in particular, in the reflections.

When I first came to Milwaukee, I can't remember exactly what year it was, but Milwaukee was so clean. Every area that we visited was just spotless. But now you can see the deterioration of the communities, the board of the buildings, and there's just so much degradation going on in the communities now than it was back then.

So when I was coming up and certain things that my grandmother and my mother shared with us as kids about their history, I had to base things on their history, where they could live and couldn't live. And they told me across North Avenue, where no one could live, beyond North Avenue, blacks could own homes. And so the area that they stayed in was basically near downtown in those areas close to it, you see. And so, and then the schooling wise, as I was coming up, I remember least three school. That's not too far from here. It's right on. It's not too far from here. Well, anyway, the strange thing, and it still sticks with me, it was this light skinned boy that was in our room, you know, and very light skinned it.

And he had straight hair, and our teachers were black, and they catered to him. If he cried, they catered to him. And. But I picked up on that in kindergarten. I said, why are they doing that? I couldn't understand why they did, but they did, you know. And then there was these two girls that was in my class also. Now, this was in maybe first or second grade, and they were. And they used to talk a lot, you know, in the class, always asking the teachers, the teacher questions, two of them.

And I used to always sit back and say, why are they talking so much? Why are they asking all these questions to this teacher today? These two girls are doctors. And I thought, I said, hmm. I said, well, you know, so it must be in them. And with that light skinned guy, everyone was pampering him. He turned out to be a drug dealer, jailed, you know, and I said, well, would that stem from people pampering him based on his color, the color of his skin? And so that really stuck with me for a long time. You know, every so often, you know, I think of that guy, I said, hmm, look here. Drug dealer and make nothing else out of itself. You know, the system is pretty funny, the educational system, you know, if we don't have someone that looks like us, we don't get the information or we get information for our community.

Last, just like, as I was coming up, we got books that came from other counties, torn up books, you know, ripped pages, and some pages weren't there. So the same, I'm assuming same thing is happening now. We don't get information. We don't get the newer books, you know, and the teachers, the black teachers, I don't know. It must be a very low percentage of them. Now, the majority of them are retired now, been retired. And so our black teachers, the ones that's here, that they're stressed out. And then the black male teachers, there's not many of them to direct.

Some of the black young men, I don't know.

So a couple of things you brought up, Miss Renee, and I kind of want to point into that, because I think it connects to this and the reason why we're here pretty well. So I think one thinking about the boundaries, right. That direct was connected to redlining and segregation. We know that Milwaukee is still one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Unfortunately, what we also know is that that means a lot of access to education, resources, programming. It tends to reflect more underserved, more overlooked. Right. In areas where more black people live.

And in thinking about the opportunities that are available, like programs like this. Right. It's not always the case that is that publicly known information or that accessible. And one of our goals is to. It's a small approach, but it is something that if you can duplicate it enough, then more people can get more attention and more people are aware of things like this. But in thinking about the program that you all are a part of and stepping on class, right. Because that's the class that you all signed up for.

How.

How did you all come to the point of even knowing about something like this? And what was your motivation for enrolling in something like this? Because it's not. It's not often that you hear about the resources, especially if you live on the north side of Milwaukee, about things that can be beneficial. Just given what the history is. So how did you all come to hear about it? And what was your motivation for enrolling?

Well, I got a letter in the mail, and my motivation was I need to. I wanted to do something, you know, with COVID so much, things just kind of shut down and then getting back out into things. I even. I retired during COVID You know, I was blessed enough to be able to work. My last year, I was a school nurse from home. So I was the person that if an employee got Covid, then I was the person to call them. How you doing? What's your numbers? All that. And I was able to do that from home.

So I decided I wanted to get out and do something. So my motivation for coming was not first to learn, not to fall. I just figured, I'm going to be around people. I'm going to learn something from someone else. It's going to be motivating to me. So that's why I initially took the class to get out.

I initially took the class because the class was, I was trying to figure out what it was about stepping on. I said, what is stepping on? So I took the class. But after I took the class, I found out that it brought a lot of enlightenment, brought a lot of enlightened me a lot on things that I didn't know. And getting older, it's a lot of things that we don't know, but yet we have to try to function without even knowing. So this was really an enlightenment on some of the things that we should observe for. And they talked about. They brought things that we should talk about to our doctor about. They talked about the glare that they had.

A doctor, not a doctor, but a resource person here that talked about our eyes, and our eyes change. And some of that stuff when you go to the doctor and stuff, they just tell you, oh, your eyes this, but they don't even explain to you that your eyes are changing, you know? And here sometimes we sitting in the house, and if you don't get out and find these resources for yourself, they not bringing them there, you know what I'm saying? And if they on tv, we are. I'm an older person. I know how to turn it on and turn it off. But all these different programs they got on tv where you could be educated, we don't have that to bring, you know, so here we sit at home sometimes and we don't have all the resources that there. But we don't. We're not available. We don't, you know, we not technology whiz enough to get it off, you know, so it's a lot of handicaps that we have being an older person.

And then I came way back. I came up here in 72. I'm 80 now. Can you imagine an 80 year old person trying to figure out a. Figure out through stuff? That's something. So we have handicaps. I know I do, and I figure other people do, too. And sometimes people don't talk about it.

But I had an opportunity to be with these people I feel comfortable with enough to talk, and they showed me so much love, so I really. They had love, and I enjoyed the class.

You know, I think settings like this here brings more of a safe place where we can discuss things. Sometimes not so too often, but we may get off track a little bit, but, you know, we always have somebody to bring us back because we feel that it's a safe place. And things I can ask, things that I did not know about, you know, as a senior now, you know that. You all brought information to me. I said, oh, boy, I could have gotten that free. I didn't know, you know, things about the ramps, you know, slipping, falling, even with the ramp because of how it's made or the slipperiness of it. And so a lot of things, we get our information by word of mouth, you know, who's doing what. You know, how much do they charge? Are they good people? You know, things of that sort.

But this is where we get in these small settings, even though we're talking about that, stepping on or stepping up, you know, but we get other information from each other who's doing what, you know?

How else did you all find out about the class?

I got an email, and I don't understand why that happened, but I received an email, and I'm always interested in learning, so that's why I wanted to take the class. And I knew I liked the population that they were offering the class, too. I said, I'm gonna be around some mature, intelligent people. So that sort of geared me to do this.

So some of you kind of spoke to being enlightened. Right. And certain benefits, and I want to talk about that a little bit more. What are some of the things or reasons that have kept you in this class? Because this is like a seven or eight week program, right. And, you know, that retention, the process of keeping someone on, that's not an easy task. So what motivated each of you to continue to show up to the point.

Of completing, I think, gaining the knowledge that we acquired? Every week, we look for something different, and every week, it was something different that enlightened each of us as a whole, I think. And just being the togetherness, you know, the fellowship that we had here and the knowledge that we gained, it kept us coming. What kept me coming.

And I think they brought in different resources. And then the resource person would explain stuff that we felt like we needed to know. Like the doctor, you know, what question you asked the fire department was here today. We got to ask questions that we might have, you know, might wouldn't have not asked, because I think we all had, you know, some good question by smoke detectors and different stuff. So it's not just we getting one thing from it. We're getting a variety of stuff from stepping on, because they told us how to be safe. They told us when a stuff fire started, you know, always keep your bedroom door closed. You know, I leave it open, but I know I'm closing now, you know.

So it just was the little thing I felt that kept, you know. Cause my husband passed away, and I haven't buried him yet. But I wanted to be here today. I wanted to be here today. I said, what is going on? I want. Last week I missed, but I wanted to be here today. And somebody called me, you called me. Somebody did.

And they said, you gonna be there? Will you call me? Somebody called me. You called me. I know somebody. And they said, you gonna be there? I said, yeah, I wanted to be here today. So many resources we got, you know, so it was. I really enjoyed it.

Well, one, I appreciate you being here, and my condolences. I also have a family member, we, Barry and my grand aunt, my great aunt this week. So I appreciate you being here and showing up and sending you a lot of love your way as well. I think. I think you're bringing up something else.

Right.

This. This space, you all kind of brought it up. It brings a sense of community and relationships, and that's not always something that you may get. And as you're aging, certain relationships, for whatever reason, go away. And so I think. I think based on what I'm hearing, that that's also a really strong benefit. But is there anything else that you all personally have felt since being a part of this class or being a part of this program?

Well, I've fallen so many times in my life, and when Mary Jordan told me about the class, I was like, I need to see, why am I falling so much? You know, how I could prevent falls in the future? So, you know, like, one big thing was picking up my feet on carpet, you know? You know, making an effort to pick my feet up, or like she was saying about the glare, your eyes, you know, going. Getting those shades, you know, to prevent glare while I'm driving my car in the sun so I could see better. So just the knowledge, little things that I think is going to benefit me.

Now, I have to make an observation, which I admit, I love to see it as black women, but I'm only seeing black women in this class. So, with that, what do you think would be an opportunity to have for black men to show up and almost, why do you think there isn't a black man that's in this class right now?

I think it's norm almost to get, I'm sorry, black men in settings like this. And so I think that. I'm not sure what it would do to get them in the class, but as women that are in the class, we can make sure that we share all the information that we gain with niece, nephews, you know, cousins, whatever, with them, because I don't think. Not just this class to the doctor, you know, to the whatever. It's hard to get them into that. So I just resolved that I have to just make sure all the information I get to make sure they know it in most of these classes are. The presenters are women.

And so white women.

White women. And so that's not a. I don't want to say not a. I don't know what the word I want to use, but that's not very inviting, you know, I think, and especially in the age group that this class is servicing.

So to call out about representation, if there was more black male representation from a facilitator standpoint, maybe more black men would join.

I think maybe black women, because it's a male. It's. I'm just saying it's different, you know? Oh, you know, that's how we're programmed, you know, we tend to go towards where that flow is going, you know? And usually, sometimes, if it's a black male, he dressed nice. We look at his shoes, we're going to come. It doesn't matter how old we are, even with canes, we're going to come. We're going to look at those shoes, you see? So I don't know. I guess that's how I think, though, too.

Well, we will look at the shoes.

Yeah, we will look at those shoes.

This age group, we're going to look at the shoes.

Well, I. I'm in the. I'm like a family of seven, two girls and five men. And it seems to me to get the men more motivated is that you had to have some kind of, not just some kind of sports figure or, I don't care, bowling, basketball, soccer. If you had someone who's going to be around in presenter, that's going to attract them to come that way, that seems to be the way to get them to come out and do something that says, okay, men, we know you're the weaker sex, that maybe you need to come on out and see how we can be stronger in doing some things. We can always that, okay, we have weaknesses. And being men, we don't want people know that we're weak. We need to be able to say stuff that's gonna make you say, come on, we gonna get stronger, but we gonna let them know that we out here getting stronger and they need that kind of encouragement.

Otherwise, you ain't getting them to do much of anything.

I think as women, though, too, we need to really look at our male partners or husbands, what have you, and, you know, when we see things kind of off, we need to let them know and say, hey, listen, I'll go with you. I don't want you to go with me, but, you know, we have to push, you know, as my husband, I'll tell you just briefly, there were some things that were showing up in him and I said, something's not right, you know, but because he was a provider, so he was so busy, I said, you need to get this checked out. So time he did get to the doctor, and the doctor told me he's real sick. That was it. You see, so things that I missed, because when you were bound with somebody so long, you know, you miss things, you know. So we as women to our partners, we need to really pay attention to things in their mental health, all the health, and pick it up, say, listen, you need to see a doctor, you.

Know, now to that in thinking about, and we're going to prepare to wrap up pretty soon, I promise. You guys have answered a lot of the questions that I've had, which is why I haven't been looking down. But in thinking about how to improve the program, one of the first questions I want to keep on this track of getting people in, but a part of it is knowing where to go. So based on what your experience is and who, you know really has been represented or it hasn't been contacted in the way that they should, where should the county be looking? Who should they be reaching out to? How should they be approaching, making sure people who would really benefit from having the knowledge and the access to the resources getting them into these spaces and into these classes, how should they, from your opinion, how should they really redirect the way they approached it?

And if someone, you know, if people are in the church, they have a contact person in the church doesn't have necessarily the pastor, because that contact person will say, hey, this is what's going on out there. Can we do something? You know, and then if it's feasible and everything is written out, the pastor will say, yeah, let's have it right here because we're central located and let's go around to each house that's around the church. We don't have to go beyond, but right around the church and tell them, come in, make sure that it's a good time, especially if it's directed towards the seniors, make sure they get whatever transportation. But even though it's right around the church, have someone to go to their house, say, hey, listen, this is what we got going. Let's walk down there. If it's for the youth, it's the same thing, you know, who's that main contact?

I was just going to say, I think if they would reach out to an age group beneath our age group because not a nau or the age group of our children, they're caretakers. So not a lot of citizens maybe can get out senior citizens. But if you're saying to that 40 year old, is your mama falling? Is your grandma doing this? Have sessions where they can learn how to help us. And that may even bring us even into it more because they're the one that's now being our caretakers. So I think if the generation that's younger than us and teach them and make it available to them, know your.

Neighbors, know the neighborhood, not just on your block. Walk around the block and see who's who in the neighborhood, you know, is there the elderly, the elder person is taking care of the grandkids or what information that you got to give to them to help them.

I was thinking more of stores. You know, people go shopping, so if something can be posted there in stores, you know, at eye level, however, so people can know and, you know, buses, they also advertise. So I was thinking about maybe you can have something on a bus now.

In thinking about how promotion can work and getting more people in, you don't want to, you know, create something that's not as exciting for them or, you know, to the point of keeping people invested throughout, we want to make sure it's not stale, it's not boring. We're bringing, we're asking people to come out of their homes and dedicate some time. So now, as some graduates, it sounds like, of the class, what are suggestions that you all have for how to improve it? So now that you've gone through it this time, if you were to do it again, but it was your first time, what are some things that you would like to see differently or more of, maybe to really enrich that experience?

I think eight weeks is a long.

Time.

So I think if it could be maybe four weeks, that's a long commitment. You know, like they were saying, people start the class, but they don't complete the class, and that's a long time to commit to something. So even with the exercise, which they were good, but it was used each week to help, I must say, help feel that time. But if it was shorter, get the information in there, I think more people would commit to it, because that is a long commitment. Basically two months.

I agree with her saying that time was quite lengthy, and that's one of the things I would say, you know, when I looked at it, I thought, wow, you know, but I was interested in it, so I started it, and matter of fact, I started. My husband signed them up, but I kept wondering if he gonna go, you know? Cause he'll tell me, yeah, he gonna do. But then when time comes, he won't show up. And I began to think, I don't know. But he never came, which means he got kind of sick at the beginning of the thing, find out different things were happening in his body, but he didn't come. But then after I thought about it, with all these women here, he probably wouldn't have. If he had came one time, he.

Wouldn'T have came back.

You would have said, that's a woman thing. You know, they know how to get out of stuff. That's a woman thing. Ain't no man thing. He gonna go back and tell me, but we just got to figure it out, I guess, how to get them where they need to be.

Like, barriers or challenges. Are there any so time in the commitment?

Right.

I'm looking at this, and it's like, ooh, I don't know if I want to dedicate that much time. That might be a barrier for someone actually enrolling. Are there any other barriers or reasons why someone may not be able to or be interested in going through with the program? In your opinion.

How are they going to get there? Transportation, thank God. You know, we got cars and what have you. I know there's a transportation system that's out there, but you have to get yourself registered and get a card or something. And if the van doesn't show up on time. So, you know, those type of things are barriers. And if the place. Well, this place is pretty nice because it's just an even level coming through the door. Someone had to walk up steps and walk down steps and things of that sort, you see.

But we have to make sure that the facility, you know, we don't have to do a lot of climbing up and do they have an elevator and all that stuff, so. But it's basically the transportation issue.

You wonder if people are literate in the reading, you know, understanding the program and what it's saying. Some people can't read.

That's why I think it's always good to have people that look like us, you know, where they can break it down. Because I'm all. When I speak, sometimes I'm all over the place. And so if there's a person that looked like me, they say, okay, this is what she trying to say and put it in content that makes sense. You see.

One. Thank you, ladies. I took y'all over the time that I wanted. But I have one last question for you and then we'll wrap because again, you all have answered and I want to create this place for you all to share what you would like to. But after going through this program, what is a that you would recommend someone to take the program?

It's informative. I learned a lot.

Yes.

Any other reasons to recommend the program?

Educational.

It was so many different things. They talked, they covered, you know, your eyes, your walking, fire department, being here, you know, other things. It's like. I don't know. In my wildest dreams I wouldn't have thought that they would have covered so.

Many subjects and just kind of wish there was more people didn't. The facilitators didn't say there was like ten or twelve people that registered or more than that. Not for sure. Twelve. And look how many came that we were pretty much on time and, you know, consistent with coming. So the information for some reason did not get out. And so because we got a the information, so now we can share that information with someone else. You know, share it with someone else.

It's word of mouth. Everyone is not literate like you were saying. And so it's more of a show. Hey, this will happen.

I'm not real sure if these ladies is on the same I'm not real sure if these ladies is on the same communication system with freighter, but I'm not associated with freighter at all. And so my friend, because I felt last year, she thought it would be good for me to come to this class. And so that's why I'm here, because of her.

And I enjoyed how the facilitators allowed us to plan the eight weeks to make ourselves comfortable because they said, what are your goals? What do you want to see? You know? And we listed those things. So that was nice.

And it was nice that they started on time. They ended on time, pretty much. So that was a good thing, too.

Is there anything that you all would like to share as a general reflection about the program or the importance of the program? Is there anything you feel like you haven't shared that you would like to share?

I just wish there was more people that knew about the program. Maybe they had to step up and kind of figure out how do they reach people from different cultures, what have you. I'm just specifically, though, thinking of black, you know, in the community and be out more in the community. I think that Aurora is getting more out in the community or ascension. I don't know what they're calling themselves now, so I know they have a step up program, but I don't hear nothing about their step up program. And I think how they market freighter marketed. Didn't she say that? Something about the providers or something in zip codes or you have to have a provider at freighter? Did she say that?

She didn't say it was a requirement.

It was a requirement. But this is how they reached out to some of us. Some of us, because at some point we had somebody in freighter in. We lived in the 53206 area, and that's how some of us got. Some of us got emails or letters.

So they're having the same problem. But that was a tool that they used to try to reach more people. But I think, as we all know, word of mouth is really a great source.

It's more like commitment. You know, I let you know, yes, I'm coming. Then now there's that commitment, because word of mouth, I'm coming. And that was my letter.

That was my motivation. When I said that, when I signed up for it, I knew it was eight weeks. I knew I would do it eight weeks. Whereas not everybody think like that. So that's why people don't have completed, because not everyone thinks like that. But with my personality, had it not been what I needed, I would have pressed, okay, well, you said this. What about this? You know, I need more information than this. You know what? Not everybody's like that, but if I make that commitment and my time is valuable, I'm gonna ask you.

You're gonna have to come for what you said you were gonna do. So. And, you know, we just have to. If the money is available. They're putting the money out there. The programming is out there. We take advantage of it. And we have to make sure that they provide the information that we need.

Yeah. And we're not wasting our time.

All right. Any other final comments or thoughts?