Voices from the Valley: A podcast of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region

Building For Kids: Three Decades of Empowered Learning

The Building for Kids Children's Museum opened in downtown Appleton in 1992 at the site of the former Prange's building. Thirty years later, the Community Foundation is honored to celebrate being a part of "BFK's" history! Generous gifts from donors with funds within the Community Foundation have supported the museum over the years.

The museum receives around 120,000 visitors annually from all over the world, and is a cultural gem in the Fox Valley communities. Amy and Carolyn visit the museum to talk about what's happening now, and how the museum is embracing the future for generations to come.

Program notes and links at https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/building-for-kids-three-decades-of-empowered-learning/

Ending Period Poverty

"Period Poverty" is a startling reality in the Fox Valley. Did you know that a lack of access to menstrual health products can cause students with periods to miss or be late to class, or feel anxious about period care? Menstrual products are expensive in the U.S., which makes it difficult for people, especially teens, to afford period products. Instead, they may rely on what is supplied by school districts and stored within a school clinic or school nurse’s office.

The Monthlies Project is a new initiative in the Fox Valley aimed at providing menstrual health products to school-aged students and bringing awareness to the issue of period poverty and the educational inequity it creates.

Visit our website for all the resources and links mentioned in this program:

 https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/ending-period-poverty/ 

Our Diverse Workforce

Today we discuss the Fox Valley’s changing workforce and some new initiatives in the works to make sure we’re building and retaining a thriving and diverse workforce. There are lots of job openings, but we're learning that not everyone who wants to work is able to access the jobs we know are open right now.

Covid has impacted some things, like hybrid office schedules. How do we navigate those, while attracting new talent to our area and enticing young people to stick around and not be in a hurry to look outside our communities?

Check out all the links we talked about today here:  https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/our-diverse-workforce/

Northeast Wisconsin’s Maternal Health Disparity

Did you know that black women in our area are five times as likely to die in childbirth? That's according to the state's Department of Health and Human Services.

Factors that lead to these life-threatening disparities include the quality of health care, chronic conditions and structural racism and bias, according to the CDC. In Brown County, Black women receive the lowest rates of first-trimester health care and are most likely to have premature births. For women of color like Outagamie County resident Amy Woods, having her four babies was definitely not the storybook birthing experience we often see romantically portrayed in movies and television. 

In this episode we'll hear Amy's story and how these shocking statistics were recently reported by an award-winning journalist who helped bring this issue to light for Northeast Wisconsin, and hope for a healthier future for moms and their babies.

Learn more

• New News Lab - Supporting Local Journalism
• Black women are five times as likely to die in childbirth. Here’s what that looks like in Green Bay
• Maternal Disparity Reports:
  •  Center for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Department of Health Services
  • Aurora BayCare's 2018 Community Needs Assessment 
  • Black Maternal Health legislative package 

Community Links

•  Birth Queen
• Madison365 Earns Six Milwaukee Press Club Awards, Including 2 Gold And 4 Silver

More here: https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/northeast-wisconsins-maternal-health-disparity/ 

Helping Waupaca Thrive!

What makes Waupaca a special place to live, work and play? The answer can be found in its people, working together to bring this already thriving community to a whole new level of cultural attractiveness. In this episode, we hear from people making a big impact thanks to generous donors.

The Waupaca Area Community Foundation recently awarded grants totaling a record $170,822 to 18 area nonprofit organizations from the Waupaca Area Community Foundation Fund to help enhance the quality of life in the greater Waupaca area. The grants included two significant grants from its Community Enhancement Grant category:

The Waupaca Area Chamber Foundation received $25,000 to develop a marketing campaign highlighting Waupaca’s economic, cultural, and recreational assets with the goal of attracting newcomers to the greater Waupaca area.

And the Waupaca Community Arts Board received $25,000 to expand the Waupaca Community Arts Hub by building staff capacity, increasing outreach programs, and adding equipment. Research shows arts-rich communities stimulate innovative thinking, recruit and retain residents, drive tourism and create an economic engine.

More links here at  https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/helping-waupaca-thrive/

How the growth of our Hispanic population impacts the Fox Valley

This summer’s Fox Cities LIFE Study finds one of the largest shifts in the Census data is in our local Hispanic population. In fact Hispanics make up the largest minority group in northeast Wisconsin.  Hispanic and Latino residents of communities along the Interstate 41 corridor between Oshkosh and Green Bay increased by 46% between 2010 and 2020. 

 The growing number of Hispanic and Latino people in northeast Wisconsin outpaced Hispanic growth nationwide in the last 10 years, but lags the multigenerational growth that has built large Hispanic communities in other parts of the country, we’re going to link up all the Census numbers in our program notes today which you can find on our website.  

In this episode we revisit a conversation we had with Lissette Cruz-Jimenez, a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion coordinator for Latinx middle school students for the Appleton Area School District. Lissette’s is one of five DEI positions in the district, all working to help students feel a little more included in the fabric of the community.   
Links for this episode here:
 https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/how-the-growth-of-our-hispanic-population-impacts-the-fox-valley/

The Changing Face of the Fox Valley

The most recent data from the new Fox Cities Leading Indicators for Excellence (LIFE) Study  and the U.S. Census Bureau shows us what we all can see: Racial and ethnic diversity in northeast Wisconsin is increasing. The number of Black, Asian, Native American, multiracial and Hispanic people increased 57% over the past decade. And it is wonderful to see!

But much more important than the numbers are the people behind them and their stories. In this episode we revisit the voices of Timber Smith, the City of Appleton's diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator. We also sit down with Natalie Eilbert from the Green Bay Press-Gazette, and Duke Behnke from The Post-Crescent in Appleton about their series of reports, Home is Here: Stories Behind the Census. The series is part of a Journalism initiative called the New News Lab, a group of news organizations dedicated to preserving in-depth local reporting.

More resources and links can be found in our program notes here:
https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/the-changing-face-of-the-fox-valley/ 

Trail update: Connecting Communities

What should we be thinking about when it comes to making improvements so that more people can enjoy all that our communities have to offer? The Fox Valley region is full of walking and biking trails that connect our communities. But who uses them and are they accessible to all?  How do we begin talking about terms like, "Environmental Justice," and "Transportation Equity?" In this Voices from the Valley episode, we update you on several projects in the Valley, including exciting news about the creation of a recreation pedestrian and bicycle trail connecting the Fox Valley to High Cliff State Park.

There are so many ways people are getting involved in these projects, from generous donors who are supporting these projects financially, to local leaders and environmental specialists who are rolling up their sleeves to talk about the best way to improve trails in the Fox Valley. Last year, a Fox Cities Trail Summit  organized by the nonprofit Fox Cities Greenways and the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, was funded by a grant from the Bright Idea Fund within the Community Foundation.

Show notes for this episode:   https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/trail-update-connecting-communities/ 

Gresham’s Hope

In this episode we revisit the fascinating story of how one small town in our area, Gresham Wisconsin, is making dreams come true for its youth. In a town of fewer than 600 people, that means a lot. For the past 21 years, young people graduating from Gresham High School have been given an opportunity to pursue their dreams. And it’s all because people in Gresham and its surrounding neighbors have decided that its young people are worth investing in.  Listen to how an incredible community initiative has come about, giving Gresham residents a chance to build a treasure for their next generations.

Check out the show links here: https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/greshams-hope/

E-CPR: Help for Emotional Crisis

We’ve probably all faced an emotional crisis. Something that rocks our world and sends us into a feeling of despair. Just in the last two years alone, people have experienced increased feelings of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty. It's that collective trauma of living in a world that is no longer predictable.

The growing need for emotional support is urgent. In this episode we’re going to talk about a program in the Fox Valley called e-CPR, and, like CPR, it can be a lifesaver. E-CPR is a community education workshop that teaches people how to support another person experiencing an emotional crisis.

 

Program resources, links, and more at  https://www.cffoxvalley.org/podcast/e-cpr-help-for-emotional-crisis/