MILWAUKEE — In Milwaukee's Metcalfe Park neighborhood, vacant lots are turning into parks, community sheds are giving away free clothes, and rent-to-own homes are being leased to committed neighbors.
The homegrown leaders of Metcalfe Park have dedicated their lives to improving the community. Nothing can stop them from achieving their goal - not even their own home burning down.
“Nobody's going to put me out of my neighborhood especially not no temporary person who's using my community for drug location," Danell Cross said.
Leading the charge is a mother-daughter duo.
“In the beginning, it was really hard to separate the mother-daughter from work, right," Melody McCurtis said.
Melody is Danell's daughter. They are the Deputy and Executive Directors of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. It's the neighborhood organization helping revitalize the community.
Add an army of volunteers and not many neighborhoods have ever seen such a commitment to improvement.
“Like everybody really takes care of each other. When I say take care of each other, I mean really take care of each other," Kevin Autman said.
For the 29th My Block episode, I met with Melody McCurtis so she could show me the Metcalfe Park neighborhood through her eyes and experiences. Everywhere we went and who we talked to was all up to her. Welcome to Melody's neighborhood.
Melody McCurtis and Danell Cross
Melody grew up in Metcalfe Park. Her mom raised her family there.
"My community is very family-oriented. So if you don't know anyone the first day, I give it about three months. You're going to know your neighbors. You're going to know who's on your block. You're going to know a lot about them," Melody said.
Melody and her mom have been responsible for many of the changes the neighborhood is experiencing.
“Now, there's pocket parks, right? I remember not having any murals in the neighborhood. Now we got murals. When I was growing up, I remember not having a garden space. Now, we got a Black Joy Farm," Melody said. (More on the Black Joy Farm later in the article.)
Creating that change is a family affair. Melody and her mom Danell Cross have been running Metcalfe Park Community Bridges together for years. But it wasn't always easy starting out between the two.
“She didn't want to hire me. You know she’s like I’m not going to hire my daughter. But I’m like who else are you going to find that cares about the community the way that I care about the community?" Melody said.
For years, the two have been all-in and committed to the neighborhood despite experiencing a life-altering challenge.
Watch My Block: Metcalfe Park's homegrown leaders revitalizing the neighborhood
“Well in the course of me doing this work, I had reported some drug houses in the area in the neighborhood really close to me," Danell Cross said. "One right behind me. One right on the side of me and one night somebody threw a cocktail bomb through my window and the smoke damage, the damage was so bad that we couldn’t stay here anymore. And the city decided to tear it down.”
For someone who has given so much to her neighborhood, this could hurt. But Danell sees it in another light.
“No, I didn’t feel betrayed because this neighborhood is full of so many awesome people that I'm going to use a phrase that the police always use. One bad apple, right? One bad apple does not make a community."
She said this isn't indicative of her neighborhood. Melody feels the same way. Rather than harbor resentment, they both chose to forgive the people who did it.
“For me, I think that we know that our community is dealing with a lot of different things. So there’s a level of grace that you have to have with your people. Understand what they’re going through, right," Melody said.
Both Melody and Danell believe incidents like this wrongly give the neighborhood a bad name. There isn't enough attention given to the positive things happening. They are tired of trying to defend their community to people who don't live there.
“I think that people gravitate to negativity because they want to, and we really just don't have time to re-educate people that don't want to know better," Danell said. "We are moving forward. This community is moving forward with or without them. And it’s going to grow and it’s going to be reinvested in regardless of what people think. I don't want to tell them nothing."
Kevin Autman
Kevin Autman works with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. He has lived in the community for about 7 years.
“It’s like what they say, it takes a village to raise a child. That’s basically how it is, but it’s not with a child. It’s with the whole community," he said.
Everyone pitches in to make Metcalfe Park a better place. One of the initiatives neighbors have been working on is turning vacant lots into meaningful spaces.
At the corner of Meinecke and 33rd, the park that bares the neighborhoods namesake, was turned into a multi-purpose space. They built a grill, a sitting area, and a permanent chessboard. In fact, free chess lessons are given in this park throughout the summer. The park also hosts health resource fairs, job fairs, a mobile food pantry, and birthday parties. It was all thanks to the neighbor's suggestions.
“Once we get the community input, how can we go wrong? It’s really love, unity, just love it," Autman said.
These types of improvement projects inspired by the neighbors are happening across Metcalfe Park. In one vacant lot on the 2600 block of North 34th Street, there's a community shed that gives out free diapers, clothes, hygiene products, furniture, and more. It's all free, no questions asked, and open Fridays in the spring and summer.
“Every Friday folks can get stuff they need," Melody said.
Neighbors helped turn another vacant lot into another park on the 2600 block of North 36th Street. Previously, there was a home there where a domestic violence dispute occurred. Now, it's a grass lot with a nice walking path. It's turned into a community healing space.
“So a place that folks can come and rest and restore or reflect and just commune in a healthy way right," Melody said.
Just a few homes down, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges is planting committed neighbors into the area. The organization is buying homes, rehabbing them, and doing a rent-to-own program with dedicated neighbors. The goal is to give people who wouldn't otherwise have the ability to own a home, the chance to have their own property. Metcalfe Park Community Bridges selects dedicated neighbors and inter-generational families who will be neighborhood ambassadors. So far, they have purchased three homes and have one about ready to be moved into.
“We don’t want them to be giving all their income to a landlord, a slumlord, or a developer when they can be investing those funds into their future," Melody said. “We have to be the change that we demand and desire. And we actually can invest in each other to create what these alternatives look like.”
Ms. Patrice
One of the people moving into those rent-to-own homes is Ms. Patrice.
“I moved over here about six years ago," she said. “Cause I heard they had some very good things going on in here. They did a lot of functions. I heard about it, and I wanted to get in on it.”
Ms. Patrice helped turn the vacant land across from her senior living community into what they are now calling the Black Joy Farm. It's located at 2819 W. Wright St.
“We designed it so wheelchairs can go up the concrete, or if you can walk up the stairs you can go up the stairs," Ms. Patrice said.
The park has rain barrels, flower beds, sitting areas, and a large heart carved into the ground.
For all the work that Ms. Patrice did, the community honored her by naming one of the trees planted after her.
"And they named one of them after me cause we actually dug the holes, put the trees in the ground, helped design that park over there.”
Metcalfe Park Community Bridges Headquarters
The last place that Melody took me to was the organizations headquarters at 3624 W. North Ave.
Inside the center is where volunteers and employees plan ways to revitalize the neighborhood. At the headquarters, they also assemble hygiene kits, organize clothing donations, and host community activities. There is an art room for painting, sewing, music lessons, dancing and more.
One Final Question
As is tradition, the last word is always given to the tour guide of the My Block story. In this episode that's Vinitia Strong-McDonald.
Before that happens, though, here is how you can be part of the award winning series. Reach out to me, James Groh, to nominate your neighborhood or a neighbor to be featured in the next story. You can fill out this submission form or contact me at james.groh@tmj4.com or call/text at (414) 254-8145. The series covers all types of neighborhoods and communities. Previous examples include stories on life in the Sherman Park neighborhood, a rural town that emphasizes hiring people with disabilities, how one woman is keeping a watchful eye on her neighborhood, how Hmong culture in Wisconsin is changing, how Latino immigrants adapt to life in Milwaukee, and many more. Watch more My Block stories here.
Now, back to the person who showed us Metcalfe Park, Melody McCurtis.
"Is there anything else you'd like to say about your neighborhood?" I asked.
“Metcalfe Park is on the rise. We are committed to making sure our community decides what they want to happen in their neighborhood. And we’re doing that block by block. I think that, you know, our community they’re geniuses. They have come together to create a lot of solutions to a lot of you know deep rooted issues that have been plaguing our community for a very very very long time. So I would just implore other folks in other parts of Milwaukee to be led by the people, right? Work with the people to create some change, some long-lasting and sustainable change that is a reflection of people that currently live here. So if there's a huge push to grow Milwaukee, we are (also) pushing to grow Metcalfe Park from the inside out," Melody said.
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