MILWAUKEE (WITI) — There will soon be food growing in the heart of Milwaukee, all thanks to teens. A block party was held to kick of the gardening season on Saturday, May 23rd.
‘We Got This’ and ‘Public Allies Milwaukee’ are partnering for a second year to clean up and plant gardens in the neighborhood surrounding 9th and Ring.
The program is open to boys 12 to 16 years old.
Teens are taught responsibility, social skills and self-respect.
The group grows their own food and asks the community for donations to support the boys’ hard work.
“The young men work for 4 hours, $5 hour — that’s $20 each boy, and we ask the community to come out and bring the money and we did 20 weeks last year and we never had a Saturday where we didn’t raise the money. By August we had as much as 100 boys every Saturday,” said Founder and Director of We Got This, Andre Lee Ellis.
Last summer, the ‘We Got This’ program helped provide mentorship and opportunities to more than 100 young black men in Milwaukee.
