McKenzie ’25, looks to shed light on a small and underfunded homeless shelter in Minocqua, Wisconsin.
Living in Chicago I see the problem of the homeless everywhere. However, the general public forgets that rural areas also contain a tragic amount of homeless people. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, “in the United States, the number of homeless people on a given night in January 2023 was more than 650,000”. While most of these homeless people reside on the streets of large cities, there are still 5,000 of them struggling in the state of Wisconsin.
Every summer I travel to a small, rural town, Minocqua Wisconsin, and realize the underrepresentation it receives in comparison to the homeless community in big cities. The local soup kitchen serves homeless people everyday so I started researching homeless shelters nearby. The closest homeless shelter to the town of Minocqua is 30 miles away, roughly 35 minutes by car. I realized that this distance is a huge inconvenience to the homeless people living in the rural towns of Wisconsin. Most of the homeless shelters are in the larger cities like Madison or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Therefore, many homeless shelters in these rural communities are extremely underfunded with little to no volunteers.
I planned to use my grant money to make individual care packages for the residents of Our Sisters House. I will drive to the shelter and hand deliver the packages to the residents and talk to the owner about volunteering. The care packages will include things like toiletries and socks to help the adults for job interviews. I also will make care packages for the babies that include summer clothes, toys, and food.
The problem I tried to solve was shedding light on a small and underfunded homeless shelter close to the town of Minocqua, WI. After talking to the owner Sheryl about how much of an impact care packages would make on helping the residents feel good about both themselves and preparing for finding jobs and housing I knew I wanted to help using my grant money.
