Matt Pizur, 38, talks about why he decided to stop speaking with his father only years before he passed.

Matt Pizur on cutting ties with his father

Anthony Olden, 24, talks about the effect an old friend’s job has had on their friendship.

Anthony Olden on how money changed a childhood friend

Tony, 57, talks about how his father’s death affected the man he would become.

Tony Tyra on losing his father

Mrs. Williams, 58, talks about how her view on love, and herself, evolved.

Patricia Williams on love, children and strength

Keiarra talks about the joys and challenges of trying to balance family, work and school.

Keiarra Travis on life, work and “maintaining”

Martha Freeman talks about the love she missed as a child, how it affected her and what changed later in her life.

Momma Freeman on Being Loved

Steve talks about being in prison, his experience with faith and under what circumstances he would go back.

Steve Hampton on how he was changed

Denzel Jacob talks about how he sets a good example for his niece and nephew.

Denzel Jacobs on being a role model

Vaun Mayes, a community activist and founder of Program the Parks, talks about growing up in The South, the importance of empathy and the forces — including racism, profiteering and crime — at work in Milwaukee. Mayes, who had a difficult childhood — from abuse to brushes with the law — speaks about why people must find community and learn to share again.

Podcast: Vaun Mayes

Vaun Mayes talks about growing up with his uncle in The South, the complex relationship he has with family and what returning to Milwaukee revealed.

“I just accept a lot of things — I don’t really dwell on them,” says Mayes. “Things just happen; things just are. I think that spending a lot of time dwelling on those things can be toxic.”

Podcast: Vaun Mayes (Part 1)

Vaun Mayes shares more about his upbringing, and how that experience allows him to understand the youth he works with.

“We (at Program the Parks) know what we went through … so we understand and we empathize to the highest degree as to what these children, and what these youth, go through.”

Podcast: Vaun Mayes (Part 2)

Vaun Mayes talks about the It Takes A Village (ITAV) center and how, in his view, we can return to a time when people cared for each other.

“To employ people is to address crime; to provide hungry people with a way to provide meals for themselves is addressing crime; to educate and empower people addresses crime,” he says. “That’s just, to me, human decency — it’s just decency, period, but we don’t think like that, as a society.”

“We have to develop a formula for something different.”

Podcast: Vaun Mayes (Part 3)

The real stories of real people. Telling the story of our city one person at a time.

Milwaukee Stories

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