Hello, everyone. It's been a while.
→ Since July, I've been hard at work on Hellocounty, a weekday morning broadcast focused not just on Wauwatosa, but on Milwaukee County as a whole and which we air from restaurants, coffeeshops, and diners throughout the area. This week we’ll be at the North Ave. Market at … 5900 W. North Ave. Stop by and say hello.
The show regularly features conversations with community members, business owners, government leaders, experts, activists, authors, and more. We've had cops and educators, priests, coffee-shop owners, former aldermen, coffee-shop owners who were also former aldermen, restaurant reviewers, cheese-makers, crafty grandmothers, musicians, and a journalist who’s main beat is attending Flat Earth conferences and following around the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee.
If the show amounts to nothing else, I've at least learned that a lot of people in Milwaukee are pretty nice, care about their community, lead interesting lives, and are willing to talk at about it all at length with the random people who email them.
I thank them for their generosity.
→ I also wanted to mention that on Friday, Nov. 10th, Hellocounty is hosting a Mental Health Fundraiser benefiting the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) Southeast Wisconsin and HeartHead, a new non-profit that helps people access affordable mental health care. It will be held at the Vendetta Coffee Bar at 524 S 2nd St. in Walker’s Point downtown, and you can watch it live at hellocounty.com.
The fundraiser will feature panel discussions that explore a range of topics related to mental health, including the experiences of veterans (in honor of Veterans Day on Nov 11th), the struggles of family members and caregivers, and the link between poverty and mental illness. Participants include Dennis McBride, Mayor of Wauwatosa, Dr. Bashir Easter, Assistant Director, UW All of Us Research Program, and several other local experts.
If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to support the cause, you can do so here on the Hellocounty website from November 6th – 14th. We’d very much appreciate your support.
→ Finally, I hope to start sending out newsletters again. I’m not sure what form it will take or at what frequency it will be, but stay tuned!