“The First Summer of the Rest Of Your Life”: Part Two | Latavia Patterson

Listen: Latavia Patterson recently moved to a new and larger house, where her mom is going to start a daycare. This change in her last summer before college hasn’t phased her at all. Latavia spends a good deal of her time in the Pearls For Teen Girls Office doing administrative work, and when she is at [...]

“The First Summer of the Rest Of Your Life”: Part Two | Shequeda Jenkins

Listen: Part two! This month, we’re finding what our six 09′ grads are doing over the summer and there’s no better way to start than Shequeda Jenkins (you may remember  her as “The Crime Scene Investigator” from part one). Think teenagers are lazy? Shequeda is the exception. In this piece, Shequeda takes us with her through [...]

“The First Summer of the Rest Of Your Life”: Part One | Latavia Patterson, The Pearls Girl

Listen: Latavia and I met in the Pearls For Teen Girls office in the Brewer’s Hill neighborhood, where she felt incredibly at home. Understandably so — prior to becoming an alumnae of Pearls, she was the longest tenured Pearls Girl, having been with the program from 6th grade through the end of high school. What’s [...]

“The First Summer of the Rest Of Your Life”: Part One | Shequeda Jenkins, The Crime Scene Investigator

Listen: I pulled up to Shequeda Jenkins’ block and reached towards my back pocket to check her exact address. But, as I glanced down the street, I knew exactly which house it was: streamers on the porch, signs on the lawn and in the garden, a big marquee across the front windows, all shouting out loud [...]

“The First Summer of the Rest of Your Life”: An Introduction

There are a couple different ways to think about Summer in Milwaukee.  As the celebratory City of Festivals … and as a city, like so many other American cities, that spends the Summer months dealing with an increase in violent crime and the consequences of high school drop-out rates and lack of employment opportunities, like [...]