I am rolling.
Can you first just introduce
yourself and say what your title
is at the school district and
otherwise?
My name is Tracy Verwenk.
I am the CLC coordinator for
the Nacuse School District, and
I am Senior Director of Child Care
and Community Programs for the
Southwood County YMCA.
And I just rolled my eyes a lot.
And that's okay.
Let's start that over because I also
forgot to ask I think it to move
right here. Oh, okay.
So let's do that.
Tuck it in so we can see all your
earrings.
All my earrings.
Oh, Jesus, she just made it brighter
in here.
Okay, I'm still rolling,
so let's start that again.
Can you please introduce yourself
and share what your role is?
Sure, my name is Tracy Verwink.
I'm the Southwood County YMCA Senior
Director of Child Care and Community
Programs.
And then on the CLC coordinator,
which is the grant coordinator for
the Nacusa School District.
And just to start, can you give us
a little bit of background about the
town of Nacusa?
The population is, and
I have to check my notes, sorry.
The population's 2,409.
The United Way of
Southwood County and Adams has
done an ALICE report last
year, and at risk
of entering poverty or living in
poverty in this community of Nacusa
is 57%.
So it's just, it's
really important that we are here to
help the families.
Child care, just
with everything.
Yeah, because what kind of
people are they?
What do they do for work, for
example?
So a lot of people that live in
Nacusa work at the mill, so they
should work shift work.
Or they work in this
community, or they live like in
Port Edwards, in Wisconsin Rapids.
But if you work in Wisconsin rapids,
your kids go to school here.
So you can't like come home,
pick them up, go back to work,
you know, find child care.
It's just so convenient that the
kids are already in school, they
come from their classrooms, they go
here to the club, they
do activities, they all the fun
things with Joe.
And then parents get done with work,
they come pick their kids up and
then they go home, do dinner,
whatever.
Can we pass?
Theresa, could you just fix your
necklace? Just center it a little
bit.
It moves when I move.
Sorry.
Better?
Yep, that looks good.
And then I think if you want to cut
your hair again.
And you oversee the 21st Century
Community Learning Center grant,
which supports this Boys and Girls
Club of Nacusa program.
Can you talk about what that support
looks like in terms of what services
you offer?
Yeah, so after school,
actually it's before and after
school. So we open at 6.30 in the
morning until school starts.
We do enrichment activities.
We feed the kids, sometimes
breakfast, depending.
A lot of kids come to school hungry.
After school, they come, we do
activities. They go outside, they go
to the gym.
Help me here.
We do homework help, we do career
launch, we do snack
and again there's a lot of
these kids that come in here and
have snack and then they don't eat
again until they come back in the
morning so which is
very unfortunate but we have
you know food to provide them
and we help
support the backpack program where
the kids get to take home food for
the week weekend so that they have
food to eat when they're
not in
And how many kids or families
do you think you serve?
200 and almost 260.
Two hundred and six.
60 children are.
Served by the Boys and Girls Club in
Nacusa.
And how would those communities be,
how would these families be impacted
if the Community Learning Center
grant was taken away?
So, quite honestly.
I wrote some notes down for that.
A lot of our families rely on us to
cover the cost of child care
because the Boys and Girls Club, we
can't charge a fee here because of
the grant, so that's free child
care, which is saving families
anywhere between $150 to $200 a
week just for care for one child.
It would make it difficult
for parents to maintain a work
in social life.
Take that back.
Cut that out. It would make it
difficult for parents to maintain.
A work and home life because they'd
have to be home to watch their kids
instead of having them come to the
program.
We provide safe and supportive
place for the kids to
gather.
Some studies suggest that after
school programs help reduce crime
rates, which is probably a
good chance of that happening here.
Losing the
afterschool programs would exasperate
existing inequalities in
access to education opportunities
particularly for these kids because
ninety nine percent of them are
low-income it
would reduce community engagement
the kids come here and they just
hang out if they had to go home
after school by themselves they
would probably be getting into
trouble uh...
Playing video games
You know, when they're here, we know
they're safe.
We keep them out of trouble.
They learn a lot of things.
They have a great time with our site
coordinator, Joe.
He does a fantastic job with the
kids.
And it sucks that he's leaving on
Friday.
You don't have to put that in there.
I just wanted to yell at him.
Just because there was a lot of
starting and stopping in that, can
we try it one more time?
Yeah, sorry. So.
One more thing, Tracy, talk about
the partnership you guys have with
us with Jacob and then teaching
the kids healthy lifestyles.
See, this is why Joel should do
this.
We have a lot of stuff going on in
this place. That's OK.
Well, I mean, you guys do a lot for
us, so that's a good thing.
I think healthy lifestyles are huge
and the partnership
for life skills, you know.
That was the thing I couldn't
remember, those life skills.
Okay.
Let's try once more.
If the 21st Century Community
Learning Center grant was taken
away, what would that mean for
your program?
It would
See, I just can't now because,
sorry, this is really hard for me.
That's okay.
We'll reset.
Go ahead, one more time.
If the 21st Century Community
Learning Center grant was taken
away, what would that mean for your
program?
Probably have to scale
it back immensely because the
funding for this program is what
helps the kids and if we
don't have that funding we'd have to
find the funding from somewhere else
or the Boys and Girls Club would
have to run it themselves and I
don't believe we would be able to
run a morning program at that point
it would be strictly afternoon
all the things that they do would be
cut back because we wouldn't have
the funding to do that so
it would just it would make a huge
difference we might be able that you
can take less kids and that would be
an enormous shock for them
And how about for the families?
How would that impact them if their
kids don't have a safe place to
go after school?
They'd probably end up having to go
home, they'd probably end up getting
in trouble running around on the
streets doing God knows
what, where if they're here, they're
safe. We have so
many different activities that they
do here. We collaborate with the
YMCA, we collaborate with the Boys
and Girls Club in Rapids.
We do healthy living programs here,
we do so many different things
and without the kids being here,
they can't do that, they wouldn't
have access to it.
They'd be probably getting in
trouble, the crime rate would go up.
Is there anything else you want to
add on the CCLC?
Well, yeah, I made a few things.
That I would just like to,
the after school programs in any
district are community
hubs that provide safe and
supportive places for the youth and
families together.
We do family nights which
I think a lot of times are the
only time that families get together
is when they have to come to school
with their kids.
We like an art show, we do
a youth and teen of the year, we
recognize kids that do great things
throughout the year and we invite
the families here and if we didn't
do that I think the only time they
would get to see their families is
dinner and then they do homework and
then again they go to bed.
So it's really important to have all
the kids together to have
that togetherness and feel like they
belong to something important.
Anything else on that?
So you also oversee the
AmeriCorps program.
Excuse me.
Let me start over. That's OK.
You also oversee The
AmeriCorp program,
which helps this community in
Nacusa get food on their table.
Can you talk about that program
and how it came about?
Yeah, so we were contacted
by the Wisconsin Partnership
Program, which is a WPP grant.
And they offered for
us to write a grant to get an
AmeriCorps staff here in
our district.
So we did that.
We got Nikki.
She came in and it's
all about like the food
insecurities. We started a
food...
Niki started a food pantry,
so we went from servicing three
families, we're up to 21 families
now. We have a couple of churches
who do some...
Fundraisers and they donate money so
that we can buy groceries to donate
to the families uh...
When americorps was cut out by the
federal government cutting the
funding we had to
stop doing that we had nobody to
do it well then we found a different
way to go around it.
Nikki's now employed by the YMCA and
she is able to run the food pantry
through the Nacusa School District
because we are a partner with the
district so she's still able to
you know, service those families.
And what did that mean for that
week where Nikki was no
longer your employee and that pantry
didn't... I had to do it for her.
So, I mean, she has everything set
up. She contacts everybody.
They know when they're coming.
So it was just a matter of
coordinating, being able to get
with those families to get them what
they needed.
So we were able to run it.
It was just, she volunteered
that week, basically, just so that
we could keep the families eating.
Because without the food pantry...
Uh...
Those families be experiencing?
They would have to find the means
to get to Wisconsin Rapids to the
food pantries there.
A lot of them don't have a
means to get there.
We don't a bus system here.
It's generally if they can get a
ride or something like that because
we don't have public transportation
here.
Let's see.
So earlier this year,
the AmeriCorps funding was cut by
President Trump's Department of
Government Efficiency.
Just a few days ago, a federal
court actually reinstated
the programming.
Does that give you any relief?
Because Nikki's already employed by
the YMCA, so she's gonna stay that
way now. We're not gonna go
backtrack.
It's a little scary, actually,
because this WPP grant is
good till the end of August,
and then we'll apply again for next
school year.
But if we weren't to get that,
we would have to try and get another
AmeriCorps staff.
But people are hesitant, because
Nikki lost her job in
the middle of her program, and who's
gonna wanna apply for a job that
they're not really sure if it's
gonna keep going or not?
You need to have an income, you need
to support your family.
Even though the AmeriCorps income is
small, it's
still something. And you can't just
not have that income.
What can you say about AmeriCorps
as an organization and how it
benefits Wisconsin?
Do you have a message for lawmakers?
Yeah, AmeriCorp is
I've been doing this grant for 10
years. I've had an AmeriCorps staff
every year at this school and
at the elementary school some years.
That staff is so beneficial
to helping the kids.
They help them with their homework.
They help with their reading.
They're like an extension of the
teacher's day because they're
there at the end of the school day.
And then they're working with them
on their homework They're so
beneficial. I just honestly think
that they're important for every
school to have.
AmeriCorps is where it needs to be.
And let's see,
are there any local efforts that you
know of in NACUSA to keep
these kinds of programs running if
AmeriCorps or CCLC are cut?
Not that I'm aware of.
Is there anything else on AmeriCorps
you want to add?
Just that I think it's terrible that
they cut the program.
And I think they need to have it
back and support it across the board
for anybody who has an AmeriCorps
staff.
And I want to jump back
up to the top.
Can you tell me about the community
of Nacusa?
Who are the people here?
And what kind of gaps do you
see in the community that you're
trying to address through
Boys and Girls Club and the
food pantry?
There's a lot of poverty here.
There's lot of misguided
children. There's lots of,
sorry, I can't think of a word.
What's the word when the kids go
home and they don't have anybody
there?
Yeah, but that's not the word.
Latchkey, latchkey, is that it?
I'm not sure.
Okay, I'm gonna use that word then.
So can we start that over?
Tell me about the
community of Nakusa, who are the
people here, and what kind of
gaps do you notice that you
try to address in your
grant writing and your services?
So there's high poverty here,
so there's a lot of kids that just
don't have the guidance from
their parents.
I don't want to say they don't know
the guidance, I want to say that
they need more guidance because
parents have to work and a lot of
parents can't be home until you know
after six at night.
So without this program those
kids are going to have nowhere to go
and they need somewhere to go and I
think our programs, all after school
programs, help those kids to
be able to feel like they're safe
and they're cared for.
They have food to eat, they're
learning, there's no learning
loss.
You know, there is like a summer
slide, it's unfortunate we don't
have a summer program,
but it's the same after school.
If they don't someone to help them,
they are not going to succeed and
every child deserves a chance to
do something.
Well as they can be.
I'm just going to take a look to see
if there's anything I want to
re-ask.
I am just sweating.
Are you looking up?
You
Okay, well, I'm going to redo
one of these.
So if the
Boys and Girls Club
of Nicosia went
away, what would that mean for the
families who bring their kids
here?
Be devastating for them.
It truly would.
They need to have something after
school for their children to go to.
If they have to pay for child care,
there are no child cares in Nacusa.
They'd have to go Wisconsin Rapids.
So they'd have leave their job, come
pick their kids up, take them to a
child care somewhere, and then go
back to work. And I honestly
don't know that employers would be
supportive of that.
There just would be nowhere for the
kids to go.
And we need somewhere for the kids
go so that they're not getting in
trouble.
In the 10 years that
you've been in this job, has it
always been so uncertain?
We've never had, I shouldn't say,
the uncertainty is when you write a
new grant, whether you're going
to get it or not, and if you don't,
what do we do next?
However, we've gotten the CLC grant
two five-year terms in a row
now, so
we've been fortunate that way,
but if this funding goes away, I
really honestly don't know
what we're going do.
Like I said, it'd probably be on a
smaller scale, but then we
probably won't be able to serve the
200 children that we serve now.
Because the funding just won't be
there to do that.
Is there anything else you want to
add?
I think that the Boys and Girls Club
have done a fantastic job running
this program in the middle school.
And I'm thankful every day that we
have had the staff in the funding to
do it. So I'm hoping that they can
figure something out.
Tracy Brewink, thank you very much.
Thank you very, much I appreciate
it.