Safe & Sound gets $100K from Potawatomi for Milwaukee community youth projects

Being able to feel safe outside the neighborhood candy or convenience store. Not having to see vacant, dilapidated houses while outside playing with friends. And putting a stop to reckless driving.

Those are some of the hopes the nonprofit group Safe & Sound has heard from Milwaukee young people during discussions about their vision for the city.

Now, Safe & Sound plans to launch as many as a dozen youth projects with the help of a $100,000 grant from Potawatomi Hotel & Casino.

The group — which tries to improve public safety through its work with youth development, community organizing and law enforcement — was named Potawatomi Hotel & Casino's Heart of Canal Street 2017 charity of choice.

"Safe & Sound has been an integral part of building correlations, providing a sense of ownership for residents in their neighborhoods, and engaging youth in productive activities to improve those same neighborhoods," said Rodney Ferguson, Potawatomi's chief operating officer.

Safe & Sound plans to use the Potawatomi grant to launch eight to 12 community projects throughout the group's 10 priority neighborhoods in the city. The projects will depend on young people in those neighborhoods and what they feel is a priority in each of them.

"We know that neighborhoods achieve better outcomes when youth are engaged and their voices are heard," said Katie Sanders, the group's executive director. 

Ferguson made the announcement Friday at Witkowiak Park during a groundbreaking ceremony for a playground being rebuilt by MKE Plays.

MKE Plays, a program led by Ald. Michael Murphy that works to restore aging playgrounds around the city, was the 2016 Potawatomi charity of choice.