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• Wisconsin Watch spoke to three small business owners who put their businesses on hold to serve the community after the July 27 tornado. 
• Destiny Antuna of Fox Valley Meal Prep, Lora Glasel of the Recyclist Bicycle Co. and Shane Rosenow of Rosenow Customs talked about the support they found throughout the Fox Cities. 
• They also shared how they will continue to support relief efforts even as they turn their attention back to their businesses.

For a few weeks, countless donations piled up on Destiny Antuna’s shop floor. 

Stacks of canned food, water bottles, Band-Aids, toilet paper, paper plates, work gloves, dog food and boxes of diapers made it almost impossible to walk through the store. Her business in Kaukauna, Fox Valley Meal Prep, usually sells handmade meal kits. But last month, it became a hub for delivering care packages to neighboring Appleton, Neenah and Menasha. 

Ever since the July 27 tornado that damaged homes and businesses in the Fox Cities, community support has poured in. Classified as an EF3, the tornado caused an estimated $8.2 million in damages to over 2,300 structures. With 84 structures destroyed and 412 majorly damaged, many residents were left without shelter, transportation or basic needs.   

Emersyn Banda, a 20-year-old Menasha resident, described the experience of the tornado as life-altering.

“I remember instantly just crying when I had seen it, because I mean, houses were completely down. All of our trees are down. All of the power lines, people looking lost,” she said. “It looked like a nuke had hit our town. It was just in shambles. Everyone was on the phone trying to contact people.” 

In the chaos, community members’ overwhelming desire to help often came without knowing where to direct their efforts. That’s where small business leaders stepped in, putting their daily operations on hold and organizing large-scale efforts to direct volunteers and donation requests. Now, they’re navigating how to continue helping while keeping their businesses afloat. 

Meeting the needs of tornado victims in real time

Antuna was in Menasha during the tornado, completing renovations on a new location she had planned a grand opening for in the next week. She had to shelter in place during the storm.

“Luckily, we’re kind of tucked into a corner, so there wasn’t any major damage,” Antuna said. “It was just a lot of debris hitting that corner, but renovations were, for the most part, done there Monday while we were there, and we were hoping to do a soft opening that Sunday.” 

About an hour later, she immediately drove home to Kaukauna and made a post on Instagram letting people know she was accepting donations to distribute. A loyal customer in Menasha let Antuna turn his lawn into a hot food station and take requests for donations. 

“It was very shell-shocking to walk around and see some houses be totally fine and some others where it’s just their personal belongings just everywhere,” Antuna said. “Like, I have a little kid, that could have easily been like all of my kids’ toys.” 

Antuna and other business owners started going door to door with wagons, which she said was vital in getting the most up-to-date requests from affected residents. 

“I felt like everybody on the outside, in terms of help, was almost a day or two behind,” she said. “So by the time you would get people water, the next day there’s businesses trying to drop off pallets of water, but everybody already has enough water.” 

Lora Glasel, co-owner of Recyclist Bicycle Co. in Kaukauna, went door to door delivering food with Antuna. She soon realized that fixing up and donating used bikes would be helpful for people whose transportation had been destroyed.

“After the requests started rolling in for either people whose cars or bicycles or their kids’ bicycles were destroyed, we did not have enough bikes to accommodate the need,” Glasel said. “So we put a little bit of a call out to our community, and we’ve gotten a good amount of donations that over the next couple weeks we’ll be able to tune up and safety-check, and subsequently then deliver back to the affected area.” 

She delivered over 70 bikes to residents who needed a reliable way to work or even just to relax after a stressful day. Glasel hopes to turn it into a long-term program to help families in need, regardless of whether they were affected by the tornado. 

“To bring, maybe for some families, just a little semblance of normalcy of just being able to take their family on a bike ride in a time where their life is not normal at all is also pretty impactful,” she said. 

In addition to fulfilling specific donation requests for families, Antuna began using the Kaukauna store as a home base to create general care packages with essential household items and food. She used social media to call out for drivers to fill up their cars with 20-plus bags and drop them off one by one on people’s porches in the hardest-hit areas. 

“I will say, it definitely took over my life for the first week after (the tornado) … I do think the store got kind of neglected for the first week, so now we’re slowly trying to get back to a little bit of normalcy,” she said. 

Antuna, who also runs Bad Batch Fitness in Little Chute, struggled to find a sustainable way to run her businesses long term while coordinating the influx of donations coming in, requests from affected residents and volunteer schedules. 

“Once we started to gather a lot of volunteers and have people reach out, it made it a lot easier to delegate things and be able to give a little bit more focus to the businesses,” she said. “It’s definitely been a hard push and pull because if I could have everything run as normal and also be there, I absolutely would.” 

As Antuna moves into the next phase, Fox Valley Meal Prep is no longer accepting donations other than gift cards for gas and groceries. Her plan for the remainder of the year is to have a “meal match week” every month, donating a meal to families in need for every one purchased in-store.

Contractors volunteer to clear tons of debris, protect houses

Cleaning up the widespread destruction from July’s tornado took a legion of volunteers working tirelessly to clear streets and repair homes. Shane Rosenow, owner of the exterior remodeling company Rosenow Customs in Neenah, became an unofficial leader of the cleanup efforts. 

Rosenow said it all started with a post he made on Facebook with the office phone number and an offer to help with yard cleanup, tarping and assessing damage. 

“My phone just started ringing,” Rosenow said. “I had a band of I want to say 12 to 18 contractors that reached out and said, ‘Hey, let’s help. Let’s do this.’ And it was everything from people in the same trade that I do right now to people with heavy machinery, landscapers (and) home mold remediation people.” 

For the next two weeks, he devoted all of his time to the efforts, sleeping only a few hours each night and putting normal business operations on the back burner. He estimates they protected up to 200 homes by clearing fallen trees and setting up tarps. His team of contractors loaded and dumped over 190 tons of debris. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it before. Pictures don’t even do it justice,” he said. “I get emotional on this because Neenah’s my hometown, and Menasha’s like a sister town to us, and it’s going to take years, years (to rebuild).” 

Restoring the St. Mary Catholic Cemetery sticks out to him as the biggest miracle. He started with a small group on the Friday after the tornado, but soon, a bus drove by with about 50 volunteers from the faith-based group Risen Men. After a few hours of careful work, the cemetery curator came by.

“He goes, ‘You guys, in three hours, have done more work here than five of us in the church have done all week. What made you come here?’” Rosenow said. “And I said, ‘God, you know, he just told us, go.’”  

He also had a colleague create two Facebook groups, one for volunteers and one for donations, so Rosenow wouldn’t have to keep fielding texts and emails himself. That way, people could make a post with what they needed — for example, two or three people to help clean up their yard — and other community members could message them directly to coordinate help. 

“The goal behind that was to kind of divide and conquer and allow us to still go back to work, but still do some good in the community,” Rosenow said. “And it’s worked.”

Progress after such a large disaster isn’t always linear. Rosenow’s efforts were set back by a recent storm that blew the tarps off people’s roofs, meaning some homeowners had to start from scratch. The other contractors also needed to get back to work after the first two weeks, he said.

“Some of these guys, it’s just them,” Rosenow said. “And they’re like, ‘We don’t have any money, and we’re spending hundreds of dollars a day on fuel and maintenance on our vehicles and our equipment.’ So I said, ‘Get back to work. We will regroup.’”  

Even though he’s started being recognized as a local celebrity, he rejects that label and says nothing would be possible without God and the other community members who devoted their time.

“It’s not me. If it wasn’t for the people that stepped up behind me, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now,” Rosenow said.

Fox Cities businesses balance tornado relief with keeping doors open is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsinites have called or texted the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline more than 345,000 times since it launched in July 2022. 
• States including Illinois and Minnesota have implemented telecommunications fees on phone bills that fund 988 in their states.  
• Other states have allocated long-term funding through budget appropriations or by introducing legislation to fine AI companies when their chatbots fail to refer people in crisis to mental health resources. 
• Wisconsin officials say the line’s growth surpassed all projections they had, and the organization that coordinates the service is continuously recruiting counselors. 
• Despite bipartisan support for the lifeline, lawmakers have failed to enact a permanent long-term funding mechanism for it. 

Every year, millions of people in crisis dial three numbers — not 911, but 988, the national suicide and crisis lifeline. People like Cadence Van Beek, who used the lifeline as a sophomore at Melrose-Mindoro High School in Melrose.

During a mental health crisis, Van Beek worried she would be placed on a waitlist or hurried through the process. Instead, a  counselor patiently  helped her de-escalate her feelings. At the end, she informed Van Beek about local resources in Jackson County.

“It didn’t feel rushed … She took her time with me, and she was very kind – just a kind soul,” she said.

Van Beek’s conversation is one of over 345,000 texts or calls to the state lifeline since its launch in July 2022. A recent JAMA study found that in the first two and a half years, suicides among 15- to 34-year-olds were 11% lower than expected, corresponding to nearly 4,400 fewer deaths.

Yet despite the line’s proven success and increased demand, long-term funding remains uncertain. Unlike other states, Wisconsin has not passed legislation to permanently fund the service. And Wisconsin trails most states in the share of calls answered in-state.

In May, Van Beek visited the state Capitol and presented lawmakers with a solution: Fund 988 like 911.

Since 2009, Wisconsinites have paid a telecommunications fee on their phone bills for 911, currently 75 cents per month. Twelve states, including Illinois and Minnesota, have enacted a 988 fee to fund the service.

Illinois and Minnesota had in-state response rates of 90% in July — compared with Wisconsin’s 81%. The rest of the calls are routed to a national backup center, which can mean less knowledge of local resources and longer wait times.

When Van Beek visited Madison with the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health, she set up a posterboard with her research and told legislators her peers rely on 988. 

“988 has always kind of been a given,” she told Wisconsin Watch. “We always kind of assume that it’ll be there … The possibility that there might not be enough counselors on the line because of funding for 988 and funding for those counselors just makes me a little worried.” 

State struggles to keep up with increased demand

Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin operates Wisconsin’s 988 line. Senior Vice President Tana Koss said the crisis team planned for a moderate to high level of calls when the three-digit number was launched in 2022. 

“Still, Wisconsin has blown all numbers out of the water and continues to … The demand from Wisconsinites for this service has surpassed every model of projection that was available to us,” Koss said.

Family Services is still recruiting counselors to keep up with the need. Koss attributes the increase to lingering mental health effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and the lifeline’s accessibility. She celebrates more people using the service, which she views as a reflection of reduced stigma.

Wisconsin received over 11,200 calls in July alone – and responded to just over 9,000 of them in-state. Only eight states had the same or worse in-state response than Wisconsin.

“The longer a person waits on the line, the more likely they are to disengage … When you’re in queue, our primary center gets an opportunity to answer. If we’re not able to, then our backup center gets an opportunity to answer. And then, if they’re not able to, it goes to national backup,” Koss said. “So the sooner in that process you can have the staff available, the more likely you are to engage that caller.”

Still, the state has improved its answer rate over the past few months — growing from 74% in January to 81% in July as demand increased. 

“Purely from the administration of the service … we want (the answer rate) to get to 90%, and had the growth not gone up even a little bit more than anticipated, we would have been there.” Koss said.

So, should Wisconsin officials enact a 988 fee, a recurring appropriation or even consider legislation that Ohio and Illinois lawmakers have introduced to fine AI companies for failing to address suicidal ideation? Koss doesn’t care, as long as it means Wisconsin won’t have to depend on federal funding or the state’s biennial budget cycle.  

“I’m not personally attached to any route,” she said. “I think the request that I would have and advocate for is sustainability over the long haul because what we’re projecting is this growth hasn’t stopped.”

The case for state funding

Every two years, the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s Wisconsin chapter pushes for 988 funding in the state budget, said Julia Polk, the group’s advocacy coordinator. Last year, Gov. Tony Evers’ budget recommended $12.2 million for the lifeline, but lawmakers approved $7 million.

“What we would love to see is that we can educate our legislators on why 988 is so important and why it’s important to fund it long term, and get them in the next state budget to say, ‘we’re going to permanently fund this,” Polk said.

Polk also said delays from the Trump administration in making grants available are part of why advocates want to secure reliable state funding for the lifeline. 

“It’s a lot of us and other advocates, and the 988 Lifeline and the state government having to just trust and hope that those grants will become available,” she said.

Waiting for confirmation on an anticipated federal grant last year left officials fearing the funds had disappeared. In response, state Rep. Ben Franklin, R-De Pere, and state Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, authored a bill that would have required the state to provide grants to agencies that administer the 988 Lifeline.

“988 has proven to be highly effective and used frequently amongst Wisconsinites and is a vital service we should be funding,” Franklin said during a committee hearing on the bill in June 2025.

However, the bill included no funding attached. It failed to pass in the Senate and did not come up for a vote in the Assembly.

The federal government announced a grant funding opportunity in January and provided Family Services about $4.5 million per year for the next three years, according to Koss. But that still leaves a gap, since the state needs $12.2 million per year to fund the service. 

Officials included  $7 million for the lifeline in the 2025-27 biennial budget, but Koss said Family Services needs the next budget to match that. She knows a $6.195 million deficit is coming in 2028.

“We didn’t slow down with recruitment, but administratively, it’s stressful when you have these delays on giant parts of the funding,” Koss said.

Franklin’s Democratic opponent in the November election, Brandy Tollefson, is a De Pere School Board member. The issue is personal to her, and not just because she hears about the youth mental health crisis from school social workers, counselors and teachers.

“I myself went through the experience of having my stepbrother die by suicide years ago, so I know what happens to a family when this happens and the impact it has on families,” Tollefson said. “I fully support working with any Democrat or Republican who wants to get this permanently funded.”

Tollefson echoed other Democrats’ criticisms that Assembly Bill 303 lacked the critical funding needed to ensure 988 would get financial support. Franklin did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication. 

“There was a lot missing from it to make it a bipartisan bill that people could get behind, because the details just weren’t there,” Tollefson said.  

Connecting with younger generations

Megan Zimmerman, NAMI Fox Valley’s outreach program director, educates local schools about mental health and promotes 988. She said many people hesitate to call 988 because they fear emergency services will get involved, but in reality, law enforcement or emergency services respond to only 0.4% of callers in Wisconsin. Counselors resolved the other 99.6% of calls by providing support, coping strategies and resources. 

“Even outside of 988, I think when someone expresses that they have suicidal ideation – like they’re having thoughts about it – I think that scares people,” Zimmerman said. “They almost immediately triage to like, ‘OK, this person needs to be hospitalized.’”

Zimmerman noted the person who calls 988 doesn’t have to be the one who is in crisis, as she often calls 988 with her clients.

“If I can get an individual to agree to have that conversation on the phone with someone, and I’m there to support them in whatever way they need, that is just as good of an outcome as telling them to go home and call it themselves, which they may or may not follow through on,” she said.

Van Beek, who always considered herself the “therapist friend,” often recommends 988 to peers who confide in her. Once, when a friend shared distressing details about her home life, Van Beek quickly realized she wasn’t equipped to handle the conversation. 

“I just realized I’m a high school kid, and I can’t take this on,” Van Beek said. “I don’t have the knowledge to help you get to where you need to be with the situation. So that’s an instance where I recommended calling or texting 988 and just going through with that. And she did.” 

The 24/7 chat feature, introduced in 2024, particularly appeals to her generation and was helpful when she had to use it.

“Gen Z in general, we’ve always been behind a screen,” Van Beek said. “988 gives youth the option to text it, and I always have liked that, because talking or maybe even going in person can be overwhelming for youth, and I can personally relate to that.” 

Amid increasing reports of generative AI enabling suicides, proposed legislation in Illinois would fine AI companies for not addressing suicidal ideation and deposit the money into a 988 trust fund. Companies under the legislation would face a penalty of up to $15,000 per day if they don’t refer users to crisis services like 988 when they express thoughts of self-harm. 

Zimmerman said the chat feature of 988 has led her to encourage students to message the lifeline instead of an AI companion. 

“Every suicide prevention presentation I give, especially in a school, I just always stress (that) I know it’s easy to bring up ChatGPT or your Claude or your Gemini or whatever it is, and start essentially texting or chatting that feature,” Zimmerman said. “But I always really encourage people to instead think about 988 … because then you’re getting a real live human being.”

Having graduated as president of her high school’s Raise Your Voice mental health advocacy club, Van Beek recently began studying psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she wants to continue raising awareness about mental health. 

“The events that I participate in, whether it’s through NAMI or NAMIWalks — the mental health walk that we do — it has never felt like a chore to me,” Van Beek said. “I’ve always felt like that’s my purpose.”

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Despite bipartisan support, 988 Crisis Lifeline faces funding shortage is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Bryn Schraven is no stranger to death. When Schraven was 19 years old, their dad died in a car accident in the middle of their small Wisconsin town. A mountain of paperwork soon piled up, and so did the comments from well-meaning community members.

“It was very tragic and very sudden … I had some issues feeling unheard by the funeral director and funeral company I went with,” Schraven said, “and I felt a little hurt by some of the things that people said to me at that time because people don’t know how to talk about death and dying.” 

Neighbors said things like, “At least he’s in a better place,” or asked if Schraven was wondering if he was in heaven. As Schraven sat down for breakfast on the morning before the funeral, a waitress shared her experience of seeing the accident happen in uncomfortable detail.  

“I decided at that time that I wanted to be part of the change … I have to be able to help somehow and turn this negative experience into something more positive for other people,” they said. 

Schraven started reading books about grief and death, researching what other options were out there. They discovered the term “death doula” – a trained companion who helps people through the processes of death, dying and grief. 

How it works

After spending years training with various death doulas, Schraven started a business this year called Silver Glass Deathcare to help others through the experience of loss and to change the conversation around death. They provide support in the form of death education, planning end-of-life rituals for people and their pets, and being with individuals in their final hours. 

“A lot of people seem to have this idea that talking about death is going to bring it on faster,” Schraven said. “That’s a big misconception that I see a lot, is that I’m morbid for wanting to talk about death and dying and grief, and it’s simply not true.” 

Similar to how a birth doula helps clients make a birth plan, Schraven and other death doulas will create a custom death plan for each person, allowing people to express their wants and needs for their last few hours. This could include dimming the lights, choosing what music to play and deciding who they want to take shifts at their bedside. 

Schraven, who is nonbinary, usually opts for a more gender-neutral term instead of doula: death companion or deathwalker. They created Silver Glass Deathcare with the goal of reaching out to members of the LGBTQ+ community, who can have a unique relationship to grief and death. For example, some might want a nonreligious approach to funerals or a bedside vigil that doesn’t involve a church. 

Others might not be married to their significant other, which means that legally, their family would decide what to do with their body, Schraven said. Filling out an Authorization for Final Disposition form allows people to designate someone to carry out their final wishes. 

“After you pass away, there’s a chain of custody that determines who is in charge of what happens to your body,” Schraven said. “Your spouse comes first, and if you’re not married, then it’s your family – your parents, your next of kin – and not everybody in the queer community has a great relationship with their next of kin.” 

‘It happens to all of us’

Schraven trained extensively by taking classes with death doulas across the country, including Erin Merelli’s Deathschool Evolved and La Mort’s School of Sacred Death. Merelli said Schraven stood out for their dedication to the queer community. 

“There’s always one or two students in each of the sessions that really stand out for their passion in this space, for the experience that they’ve already had in it and for the vision they have of where they want to take it and how they want to serve,” Merelli said. “And Bryn definitely showed up as that person.”

Merelli trains hundreds of death doulas throughout the country and said businesses like Silver Glass Deathcare are important to spread this type of work to different communities and regions.

“For any movement, for any type of culture shift we’re hoping to make, we need a broad range of diverse and dynamic voices,” she said. “It’s not my voice alone, and these ideas are not my ideas alone.” 

In Merelli’s classes, Schraven learned that death isn’t always a taboo subject. In some Muslim or Hindu traditions, for example, it’s common for the deceased’s family to wash and prepare the body to be buried or cremated. 

“There are a lot of cultures out there that are less shy about death than we are, and they hide it less,” Schraven said. “I think that that’s really important in as far as spending time with the person that you’ve lost after they’re gone.”

Schraven wants to let families know that this is an option and suggests a ritual that acknowledges each part of their loved one’s body, one at a time — their head, eyes, ears, hands and heart.

“It’s just a really beautiful way to say, ‘We honor your body and what you did for us while you were here, and we are giving you the opportunity to go and be at peace,’” Schraven said.

Schraven is also starting a death and grief book club at Author Apothecary & Bookstore in Oshkosh, which will meet the last Thursday of the month starting Sept. 24. The goal is to normalize the conversation around death and dying through discussing books like “Lost Souls Meet Under A Full Moon” by Mizuki Tsujimura.

“I don’t advocate for censoring death,” Schraven said. “It happens to all of us, and the more openly and freely we can talk about it, the better prepared we are for when that eventuality happens.” 

This story is part of Meet a Neighbor, an ongoing feature series focused on the people who make a difference in northeastern Wisconsin. Know someone we should spotlight? Nominate them here.

Oshkosh death companion helps LGBTQ+ community navigate death, grief is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Nebraska and Montana implemented the new work requirement rules for Medicaid recipients earlier this year. 
• In Nebraska, officials say there’s been confusion about basic eligibility, with some people who should have received exemptions being denied coverage due to procedural errors. 
• Montana leaders stressed the importance of communication, particularly to Native American tribes, who should be exempt from the new rules. 
• Officials in Wisconsin say they’re implementing ways to automatically determine whether someone is working or if they’re required to follow the new rules. 
• Federal officials also narrowed the definition of medical frailty, meaning that people who have Medicaid because they are too medically frail to work will be required to prove their condition and the fact that it prevents them from working.

Starting in January, some Wisconsinites must prove they meet federal work requirements to enroll in Medicaid. Around 63,000 people are at risk of losing coverage, state officials say. It’s part of an effort by the Trump administration to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse” in the program and reduce federal spending by $326 billion over 10 years. 

As Wisconsin prepares to implement the measures detailed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states like Nebraska and Montana have already put work requirements into effect. How the process is unfolding offers key lessons for states like Wisconsin facing a Jan. 1 deadline. 

Who needs to meet work requirements?

The new Medicaid requirements apply to states like Nebraska and Montana that voted to expand Medicaid to families living at 138% of the poverty level — with the exception of a few states that submitted a waiver to partially expand Medicaid, like Wisconsin. 

That program, called BadgerCare Plus, applies to individuals who live at or below the federal poverty level — $33,000 annually for a family of four — as compared to the $45,540 income limit for expansion states.

Only childless adults aged 19 to 64 under the BadgerCare Plus program must meet work requirements — about 200,000 people, according to state officials. That means parents of dependent children under age 19 and people with coverage other than BadgerCare Plus, such as SSI Medicaid or home- and community-based service programs, are exempt.

Other exempt groups include Native Americans, pregnant or postpartum people, caregivers of young children or disabled individuals, veterans with a total disability rating, participants in addiction or rehab programs, and those too medically frail to work. 

Starting Jan. 1, 2027, new BadgerCare Plus applicants must show they worked, volunteered or attended school for at least 80 hours in the previous month, or prove they were exempt for that month. 

Current BadgerCare Plus members will face the requirements beginning in March 2027. They  must show they met the work requirement in any one month of the last 12, or that they are exempt. They can show they received at least $580 in income in a single month or completed combined activities adding up to 80 hours. 

In July, Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Kirsten Johnson told reporters officials aim to automate the process as much as possible.

Those system changes will cost an estimated $10 million in the first year, Wisconsin Medicaid Director Amanda Dreyer confirmed, which will be split between the state and federal government. 

Nebraska’s early lesson

Nebraska became the first state to implement the new requirements on May 1. 

Officials began to disenroll Nebraskans who didn’t meet the requirements on Aug. 1. Nebraska Medicaid Director Drew Gonshorowski told Tradeoffs in July roughly 200 people could lose coverage on that day. The state Department of Health and Human Services has not released official numbers. 

The state sent more than 75,000 letters, 38,000 text messages and 10,000 emails to notify people of the change. Amy Behnke, CEO of the Health Center Association of Nebraska, told Wisconsin Watch some residents still had basic eligibility questions. 

“There’s some confusion over who the work requirements apply to and who they don’t apply to,”  Behnke said. “The communication that went out from the state was pretty lengthy. It was about four pages long and at a collegiate reading level, and so it was a lot for somebody to digest.” 

It’s also hard to know whether someone is part of the Medicaid expansion without contacting the state directly. 

“Our health centers don’t have a really good way of being able to look that up,” she said. 

Her organization supports Nebraska’s federally qualified health centers, which provide low-cost medical care and help people apply for Medicaid. 

She’s already seen patients have their Medicaid applications denied due to procedural errors. One woman was denied because she didn’t meet work requirements — even though pregnancy made her exempt.

“She was able to get her Medicaid restored,” Behnke said. “But that’s always been our fear – that somebody’s not going to know that they’ve lost their coverage until they show up to pick up a prescription or they show up for a medical appointment.” 

Residents can call the state’s Medicaid help line, but wait times have stretched as long as 90 minutes, Behnke said. She recommends states consider hiring additional caseworkers, which Nebraska has not done. 

“They are hardworking individuals (at the call center), and there is just an additional load of work and information that’s needed that comes with these requirements,” Behnke said. 

Wisconsin DHS plans to use the additional FoodShare staff secured last year to help with implementing Medicaid requirements, Johnson said, noting the increased budget will add flexibility for other staff to help Wisconsinites. 

Behnke urged Wisconsin to prioritize flexibility in implementing the program. She highlighted that Nebraska requires members to meet requirements in just one month of the last 12 and allows individuals to self-attest to medical frailty — policies Wisconsin DHS confirmed it will follow. 

A balancing act in Montana

Montana also implemented work requirements on July 1 — the first state to do so after the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released stricter guidelines on medical frailty. For three months, Montana enrollees won’t be penalized if they fail to document community engagement hours. 

Dr. Aaron Wernham, CEO of the Montana Healthcare Foundation, said the effects won’t become clear until Oct. 1 – the first day the state begins to disenroll people. The foundation estimates 29,000 people could lose coverage. 

Wernham said it remains unclear how Native Americans, who are exempt  from the requirements, will be asked to document their status. The state had limited interaction with the tribes and other stakeholders on how to communicate the change, he said, and urged Wisconsin officials to engage those groups now. 

Wisconsin could improve implementation by working with partners such as Covering Wisconsin to develop forms, define medical frailty and plan outreach, Wernham said.

Montana has effectively automated systems to determine whether someone is working, Wernham said. But automatically verifying medical exemptions has been more difficult as officials struggle to access claims data, the Montana Free Press reported. 

Defining medical frailty

The challenge comes as federal officials have tightened the definition of medical frailty. Rather than automatically exempting people with certain medical conditions, the rules require people to prove their condition and show that it significantly prevents them from working. 

The tightened medical frailty definition has overshadowed concerns over Montana’s ability to automate processes, Wernham said. 

“There are many patients with cancer that may have a disease that will be lethal if not treated, and yet they might not be too sick to work,” Wernham said. “The real question is, what’s going to happen with those people who have a very serious illness, any doctor would consider them medically frail, and yet it may be hard to say they’re too sick to work?” 

For the first year, people can self-attest that they are too medically frail to work. Wisconsin  officials confirmed DHS will rely on self-attestation and existing diagnoses codes, reassuring providers they would not have to determine medical frailty. But in 2028, states will have to determine how to verify those exemptions while risking federal audits.

Montana and other states should outline their plans for monitoring who is disenrolled from Medicaid and the potential impacts, Wernham said. That’s something Wisconsin has done by  announcing that roughly 63,000 are at risk of losing Medicaid due to a lack of work history on file. 

“States aren’t always eager to share their data, especially if it doesn’t look good with the public,” Wernham said. “But the fact is that transparency with regard to data on this program leads to better government.” 

State budget woes

Medicaid funding is often the largest source of federal funds for states, so it can have a big impact on their budgets. State Medicaid budgets could be reduced by an estimated $665 billion through 2034 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

This leaves officials with few choices: raise taxes, cut other programs or cut Medicaid — which would mean reducing provider rates or limiting benefits or coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimated 10 million more people will be uninsured nationwide by 2034 as a result of the new law. 

The cuts could affect the entire health care system, even those who are insured, said Vaishu Jawahar, director of policy programs at the national health care advocacy nonprofit Protect our Care. 

Programs could be cut or premiums will increase because hospital budgets will be strained. Hospitals could face more uncompensated care as more uninsured patients seek treatment, tightening budgets and potentially increasing costs for privately insured patients. 

Jawahar said people who lose insurance may forgo preventive care until their conditions become severe enough to require emergency treatment.

“They’re still going to have to provide care to uninsured people who will come in sicker,” Jawahar said. “… And so, how do hospitals make up for that? They will have to hike costs on people with employer-based insurance.” 

Medicaid cuts are expected to hit rural hospitals hardest. A March report by Public Citizen found 446 hospitals nationwide were at risk of closing or reducing services due to cuts. Samantha Peck, rural hospitals and clinics program manager for the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health, manages funds that benefit critical access hospitals across the state. 

About 13% of patients in Wisconsin hospitals use Medicaid, but Peck said critical access hospitals in Door County, Oconto, Shawano and New London average about 48% of patients on Medicaid, leaving them particularly vulnerable if more patients lose coverage. 

Maternal and mental health programs could be among the first cut, Peck said. 

“The biggest worry is that community hospitals will start reducing service lines,” Peck said. “What we’re already seeing is a reduction in maternal care, specifically labor and delivery.”

Clinics prepare to help Wisconsinites navigate changes

NorthEast Wisconsin Community Clinic, a free and low-cost health center in Green Bay, is educating people about the new requirements with its mobile outreach vehicle. 

In 2025, 47% of the center’s clients were on Medicaid, which means it’s preparing its budget to receive less federal reimbursement next year. Executive Director Kim Franzen said the clinic will continue serving the uninsured.

“While I’m concerned, I want to make sure that as a health center, it’s our responsibility to take care of people regardless of their ability to pay,” Franzen said. 

Franzen worries people might not realize their coverage was denied before racking up medical bills. 

“If you lose your Medicaid, now a person could potentially have four therapy sessions (before realizing) that ‘Oh, I didn’t know my coverage lapsed,’ and then as an organization, we have to step back and go, ‘OK, so do we bill the person? Do you write off the expenses?’” she said. 

Adam VanSpankeren is the navigator program manager for Covering Wisconsin, which receives federal funding from the Affordable Care Act Navigator Program and responds to calls about health insurance.

Despite recent funding cuts, VanSpankeren hopes people affected by the changes call Covering Wisconsin for help.

“I don’t love that people are affected, but that means we’re going to be able to help those people,” VanSpankeren said. “It’s the people that don’t call us that I worry more about.” 

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Some states started Medicaid work requirements early. What can Wisconsin learn? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My predecessors at Wisconsin Watch have done some amazing reporting on people experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin. 

A big question came up when I started my internship – how can unhoused people get help? 

There’s no simple answer. Homeless shelters and nonprofits for low-income families are still extremely limited by resources, available beds and caseworkers. And counties, especially rural ones, simply don’t have enough shelters. Some may not even have a single one.

So when I set out to answer this question, I knew that doing some light research online and making a list of shelters would not be enough. Plus, those lists already exist. At Wisconsin Watch, we spend time thinking about how our stories can fill information gaps and serve our communities. 

This resource guide has been many weeks in the making. The process started with going out in the field, talking to people with lived experience, listening in on meetings and watching homeless system leaders do their work.

I asked them: What don’t people understand about homelessness and the network of resources available?

Here’s what I heard about what’s needed: 

• A guide that walks people through the process, instead of just a list.
• More information about how the homeless response system works.
• A printed version to distribute widely.
• A resource that clears up misconceptions and stigma around homelessness.
• Information on how to help and get involved in your community.

If you read more, you can get the answers to questions like “How many people are homeless in my region?” 

You can also download a flowchart on how to access homelessness resources in northeast Wisconsin. If you want to help, I’d love it if you could share the flowchart online, or print it out and put it somewhere in your community. Let me know if you do.

Still have more questions? I’ll try to answer them. Email me at acode@wisconsinwatch.org.

Listening shaped our homelessness resource guide for northeast Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin Watch spoke to community leaders in northeast Wisconsin to understand how support systems work, how people who are unhoused can get help in each county and who counts as homeless. 
• Officials explain how waitlists for housing programs work, how they’re funded, why people who are unhoused are more visible in cities and ways people who have housing can help. 
• The story includes links to resources and a flowchart available for free download.

An estimated 1,200 people are homeless in northeast Wisconsin — and that could be a vast undercount. Nonprofit leaders say shelters are at capacity on a regular basis and a lack of affordable housing is contributing to the problem. 

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, someone would have to work 112 hours per week at minimum wage to afford a modest 1-bedroom rental home in Wisconsin. Amid rising costs, Jackie Baumgart, director of youth services for Foundations Health & Wholeness, says rural counties Foundations serves have few homeless shelters.

“We need a shelter or three in every county … If there was somebody to call and get somebody in every time, we could do wonderful work, because it wouldn’t always be in crisis,” Baumgart said. 

Experts say there are misconceptions about who counts as homeless and how the homeless response system works. That prevents people from accessing resources and contributes to stigma around homelessness. 

To understand how support systems work, how to get help in each county and who counts as homeless, Wisconsin Watch put together a guide of frequently asked questions about homelessness informed by interviews with community leaders in northeast Wisconsin. 

Click here to download a free flowchart on how to access homelessness resources in northeast Wisconsin.

How many people are homeless in my region?

Homelessness is measured nationwide by a “point in time” (PIT) count — a snapshot of all the people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The federal government requires this to happen annually in January, but all counties in northeast Wisconsin conduct an additional summer count in July. 

During the PIT count in January, volunteers found 560 individuals who were living in shelters or on the street in Brown County. Other counts can be broken down into coalitions that include multiple counties. 

Northeast (Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto and Shawano counties): 83 people

Lakeshore (Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties): 224 people

Fox Cities (Calumet, Outagamie and northern Winnebago counties): 330 people

To count someone as homeless, volunteers must speak to people who seem to be living on the streets to confirm they’re unhoused. Those who are sleeping on the couch of a friend or family member don’t count. This means many people aren’t included in the count who might be considered homeless, especially in rural areas. That’s important because the PIT count is indirectly tied to the amount of grant funding designated for each region.

Who is considered homeless?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, breaks its definition of homelessness into several categories. These categories determine which programs or aid you can apply for. 

Category 1: Literally Homeless

This includes who most people generally picture when they hear the word “homeless” – anyone who is unsheltered and could be sleeping outside, in a tent or in a car. It also includes people living in a temporary homeless shelter or using hotel vouchers. 

Category 2: Imminent Risk of Homelessness

This category includes individuals or families who will lose their housing within 14 days of applying for homeless assistance and who lack resources to obtain other permanent housing.

Category 3: Homeless Under Other Federal Statutes

This group includes unaccompanied youth under age 25 or families with children who don’t meet the previous definitions, but still lack permanent or stable housing, which often means living in someone else’s home due to economic hardship. Referred to as being “doubled up,” this could look like someone sleeping on a friend’s couch or staying in another family’s basement. Category 3 can also include youth who are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or campgrounds due to lack of alternative options. 

In the 2024-25 school year, over 20,000 students in Wisconsin were homeless, including 15,400 who were “doubled up,” according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Although this category is considered homeless under the federal definition, doubled up students don’t qualify for most federal homeless assistance. Instead, they are supported by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which requires each school district to designate a homeless liaison and provide transportation for students experiencing homelessness.

“A majority of our students experiencing homelessness are living doubled up,” said Kristine Nadolski, state coordinator of Education for Homeless Children and Youth. “It’s a big piece kind of missing in other counts, and I do think that our students are still under-identified.”

Category 4: Fleeing/Attempting to Flee Domestic Violence

Anyone who does not have a residence due to fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence is placed in Category 4. Specific shelters exist solely for domestic violence survivors that provide crisis intervention, counseling, support groups and legal advocacy.

Categories cover broad swath of people

Overall, these four definitions encompass a wide variety of people who aren’t usually included in the broader public perception of homelessness. Eliza Cussen is the community engagement director for Pillars, a shelter and low-income housing agency in Appleton. She said some people might not consider themselves homeless even though they fit one of these definitions.

“If you have moved in with your mom because your landlord raised your rent and you couldn’t swing it, you might not identify as homeless,” Cussen said. “So that can make people really hesitant to call for those services, or think that they are deserving.” 

How do I get help?

There are many ways to find services, including calling 211, your county Aging and Disability Resource Center or your local government. If you’re seeking shelter, you should probably access Coordinated Entry as a first step, which will place you on a list that all organizations in your area can pull from based on your eligibility. 

211: https://211wisconsin.communityos.org/, dial 211, or text your zip code to 898211.

Findhelp: https://findhelp.org/ 

Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Door, and Kewaunee counties — You are under the Lakeshore Homeless Coalition and Lakeshore CAP.

• Coordinated Entry: Lakeshore CAP 920-694-0041​
  • Lakeshore CAP Resources by County 
  • Door County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide 
  • Door County ADRC Resource Guide 
  • Food Resources outside of Brown County  
  • Manitowoc County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide 
  • Manitowoc and Kewaunee County ADRC Resource Guide
  • Kewaunee County Lakeshore CAP Resource Guide
  • Manitowoc Public Library Community Resources  

Brown County — You are under the Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition.

• Coordinated Entry: House of Hope 920-884-6740, Wise Women 920-883-7202, Golden House 920-435-0100
  • Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition Resources
  • Brown County Places to Go 
  • Brown County ADRC **Please note: Newcap is closed**

Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano Counties – You are under the Northeast Homeless Coalition.

• Coordinated Entry: Foundations Health & Wholeness 920-381-7533  
  • Shawano Area United Way Resource Guide for Shawano and Menominee counties
  • 2026 ADRC Wolf River Directory **Please note: Newcap is closed**
  • Oconto County Food Resources
  • Food Resources outside of Brown County  
  • Marinette County ADRC Resource Guide **Please note: Newcap is closed**
  • Tri County United Way Resource List

Outagamie, Calumet, northern Winnebago Counties  — You are under the Fox Cities Coalition

• Coordinated Entry: Liz Crowley, city of Appleton 920-832-6460
  • Fox Cities Housing Coalition Resources
  • Pillars Community Resources 
  • Calumet County ADRC 
  • Oshkosh / Winnebago County Housing Authority Resources
  • City of Appleton Resources 
  • Outagamie County ADRC 
  • Fox Valley Food Pantry Brochure 
  • Fox Valley Street Smart Resources 

Other resources:

• Free and low-cost medical clinics: The National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics 
• Homeless liaisons in Wisconsin schools: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Homeless Liaison Directory 
• Food banks: Feeding America Find Your Local Food Bank tool 
• Step-by-step guide to getting help from the National Alliance to End Homelessness
• Job Centers of Wisconsin 
• Northeastern Region Domestic Violence Services Directory from End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin

How do waitlists for housing programs work? 

Waitlists are managed through a system called Coordinated Entry, which is designed to streamline the housing application process. Rather than operating on a first-in, first-out basis, the system prioritizes people based on their level of need.

Organizations statewide can access this list and pull people who meet their requirements when a spot opens up. To be put on the Coordinated Entry list, people are asked questions about their chronic disabling conditions, medical needs, the length of their homelessness and more.

Instead of calling every housing program in your area to get on a waitlist, you will already be on a list that they can see and pull from. They can figure out your eligibility.

Who gets the highest priority depends on the different requirements of each agency. You will also be asked about things like veteran status or if you are fleeing domestic violence. Applicants are also asked which counties they would consider moving to, allowing them to access housing if a spot opens elsewhere. 

How are these programs funded? 

Regional Continuum of Care programs distribute federal funding for homelessness service organizations. Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties have their own CoCs, while the Balance of State CoC oversees the rest of the state through regional coalitions. 

Each federal grant is designated for specific types of support, such as homeless prevention, emergency shelter — through HUD’s Emergency Solutions Grant — or the CoC’s motel vouchers, permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless and transitional housing with the goal of helping residents achieve stable housing elsewhere

Successful applicants must meet one of HUD’s homeless definitions, in addition to other eligibility requirements. Grants are sometimes designated for specific populations like veterans, domestic violence victims, youth or individuals who are chronically homeless. Plus, anti-poverty nonprofits and homeless shelters often don’t have enough beds available for the existing homeless population, which is why people sit on waitlists for months or years. 

A recent HUD memo announced broad changes to Continuum of Care funding. Josh Benti, homeless initiative project director for the Greater Green Bay Blueprint to Prevent and End Homelessness, said CoCs across the country now must compete for 40% of HUD’s budget based on criteria like criminalizing homelessness. Previously, 10% of funds were competitive. 

This represents the Trump administration’s broader shift from the Housing First model, which prioritizes providing permanent housing for people and then addressing the root causes of their homelessness.

On Aug. 7, a district court ruled in favor of a coalition of state governments – including Wisconsin – to effectively block HUD’s 2026 notice of funding, saying HUD failed to provide the proper notice and public comment period required.

Why do I see more homeless people in cities?

Rural homelessness is usually harder to see. It’s more common for people in rural areas to live out of their cars or doubled up with a family member or friend, especially since there aren’t as many shelters. Lots of people might not even consider themselves homeless if they are sleeping on someone’s couch. 

Because rural areas are sprawling, with many people doubled up, homelessness can be harder to count. That means rural coalitions may report lower numbers in the PIT count, which indirectly reduces federal funding.

Rural areas also have fewer resources — like shelters or supportive housing — forcing more people to relocate to Green Bay or other cities.

But the solution isn’t always to move. Shawano Area Matthew 25 Executive Director Kendra Brusewitz said people used to being homeless in Shawano might struggle to adapt to living in a larger city. She sometimes encourages people to relocate, but only if they don’t have any support systems in their community. 

“Affordable housing is a challenge everywhere,” Brusewitz said. “So it’s not healthy for anybody to make all these promises, too, of like, ‘Hey, if we just get you to Green Bay, you’ll have all of these opportunities and resources,’ and then they’re in a community that still has the same issues, and then they don’t have supports there either.” 

How can people who have housing help?

Many organizations that don’t provide shelter still interact with people experiencing homelessness and can benefit from understanding how the homeless response system works. These organizations can help brainstorm community-wide solutions, Benti said.

“Housing is something that affects us all, either housed or unhoused … Our hospitals aren’t homeless providers, but they provide services to those who are experiencing homelessness,” he said. “Our employers hire and employ people who are experiencing homelessness. … So, it’s getting all these systems to work and communicate and collaborate better.” 

People who want to help can donate if they have disposable income or volunteer with organizations serving people experiencing homelessness. Volunteering can start with contacting a local shelter or attending a coalition meeting. 

Northeast Coalition (Shawano, Oconto, Marinette and Menominee counties): Contact Abby Ries at abby.ries@wibos.org

Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition: https://bchhcwi.org/get-involved-2/ 

Fox Cities Housing Coalition: https://www.foxcitieshousing.org/calendar 

Lakeshore Coalition (Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Sheboygan counties): https://lakeshorecap.org/ 

Even if you can’t donate or volunteer, you can still help fight the stigma surrounding homelessness. Brusewitz said she welcomes tours of the SAM25 shelter for greater community understanding. 

“We’re not a big city, but we do have people who are struggling,” Brusewitz said. “The stigma with homelessness, too, of like, ‘Well, they should just get a job,’ or ‘Maybe they should just quit doing drugs or drinking,’ and that’s not always the case.” 

Ryan Graham, homeless systems manager for the Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, said widespread homelessness reflects a broader affordability issue, with many people just one crisis away from losing their housing. 

“What you’ll see is we have all these people who just can’t afford basic needs or can’t afford their current housing, and they’re one bad event from becoming street homeless,” Graham said. “If we don’t have any kind of homeless prevention or diversion programming to stop that from happening, you’re just increasing the bottleneck that we have at our crisis response system, which we don’t have enough of already, right? So it’s really a tough environment across the country, but in particular in a lot of our rural counties.”

This story was updated to reflect that the Coordinated Entry system places people on waitlists for federally funded housing programs. It was also updated to correct the fact that Continuums of Care organizations distribute funding for homelessness service organizations. Wisconsin Watch regrets the errors.

How to get help: A guide to homelessness resources in northeast Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Business owners and individuals have mobilized to provide food, water and supplies to those impacted by Monday’s tornado and to clear fallen trees from the area.  
• Wisconsin Watch spoke to several people about why they volunteered their time and resources. 
• Waverly Beach Bar & Grille distributed 500 box lunches daily through Thursday to help affected community members, who include its own employees.  
• Organizations like Operation BBQ Relief provided food to survivors and first responders to “give them just a couple minutes reprieve from all this.”

A walk around downtown Menasha reveals the heart of devastation after an EF3 tornado surged through parts of Neenah, Appleton and Menasha on Monday at 11:56 a.m., traveling 12 miles. Ceramic roof tiles lie shattered on the sidewalk, trees bend at unnatural angles, downed power lines block streets and roofs are torn from churches and homes. 

Community members are still recovering from losing homes and businesses, and thousands of residents remain without power two days later. But the neighborhoods hit the hardest buzz with activity. Chainsaws roar on every street as volunteers clear trees to reopen roads and protect what’s left of people’s houses. 

Roy Eckberg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Green Bay, told Wisconsin Watch the tornado developed quickly as two storms merged.

“Typically, most tornadoes, you probably get a few minutes to maybe 10 minutes (of warning), but in this case, the rapid development was something I’ve never seen in northeast Wisconsin,” Eckberg said. “It was that fast. It was shocking.” 

Ben Clemmer, who lives just a mile away from severely damaged businesses including Mandersfield’s Home Bakery and Tony’s Bar, was working from home when the tornado hit. 

“It was pretty crazy looking. You know, there’s that kind of freaky storm glow that people talk about. That was very real … Seeing trees bending basically all the way over to horizontal was kind of incredible,” he said. “The surprising part, I guess, to me, is that there’s any trees left.”

Since he had a generator, Clemmer set up a phone charging station outside his house Tuesday so neighbors could maintain access to critical updates and communication. Downed power lines left the entire city – about 18,000 residents – without electricity, according to the Associated Press. 

He’s one of many community members eager to help disaster survivors. Businesses and individuals have mobilized to provide food, water and supplies and to clear fallen trees.  

Helping hands reach out

Jesse Hieb, of Muskego, drove his truck around the worst-hit parts of Menasha, handing out water and Gatorade bottles from a cooler with James Enderle, outreach pastor for Living Savior Lutheran Church. Hieb has experience with disaster relief, including when a flood hit Muskego last August.

“Pop’s (Pub) down in Muskego is trying to put together supplies from that community,” Hieb said. “They were hit with a flood last year, so they’re just trying to pay it forward. So we’re gonna go down, pick those supplies up, come back up tomorrow, do the same thing. Drive around with ice cold water, trying to just help people get through the day.” 

Local business owners transformed their restaurants into food distribution sites, like Waverly Beach Bar & Grille, which planned to give out box lunches from 1 to 4 p.m. daily through Thursday. 

Even though the restaurant wasn’t hit by the tornado, Operations Director Dion Block said many employees were impacted, and residents began using the space as a temporary shelter while waiting to return to their homes. He ordered 500 box lunches per day from his supplier Monday night and mobilized his staff to hand out meals and water on Tuesday.

“We range from people who just lost something like a fence or a tree that damaged their house to … multiple employees whose families lost their home,” Block said. 

Tornado survivors with no place to stay were bused to Christ the Rock Community Church, which continues to provide overnight shelter. 

Emlyn Thomas of Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit disaster relief organization, gave out bratwurst at a tent just outside Christ the Rock. He was serving food at a National Night Out event in Chilton on Monday evening when he heard news of the tornado. He immediately packed the leftovers, drove to the Appleton area and served first responders. 

“Tornadoes usually are very narrow in their focus; it’s a line,” Thomas said. “This was not that narrow. This was pretty wide. I have never seen a firehouse destroyed. Station 41 was leveled. So this is in some ways unprecedented.”

Operation BBQ Relief began in 2011 after an EF5 tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, and now deploys volunteers to disasters across the country to provide barbecue meals to storm victims and first responders. Thomas said his crew will stay outside Christ the Rock until Thursday at minimum. 

“We call it the one hot meal that matters,” Thomas said. “Some of these folks, short of it being you lose a kid, this is the worst day of their life. They’ve lost everything. Your wedding pictures are in somebody’s yard 25 miles away. Every possession you had is gone. We can show up and we can give them just a couple of minutes reprieve from all this.”

Chris Ghobrial, owner of 18 Acres Food Truck, drove up about an hour and a half from Watertown and was giving out smashburgers outside of Christ the Rock on Tuesday. 

“It’s just part of our outreach program to give back to the communities that are in need, especially because we’ve been blessed with what we have and want to reciprocate the blessings,” Ghobrial said. 

‘Learning to cope’

A curfew remains in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for the village of Fox Crossing and the city of Menasha. A boil water advisory also remains in effect for some Fox Crossing water utility customers. As of Wednesday morning, crews restored electricity to parts of Menasha, but thousands of Outagamie and Winnebago county residents still lacked power.

Two days after the tornado, Clemmer said the community is grappling with the long-term implications of rebuilding. 

“There’s lots to do, and yet sometimes it feels like there’s nothing you can do about it,” Clemmer said.

“We’ve started to transition from the initial shock of the event to now shifting more fully into a recovery mode. It’s just kind of learning to cope, I guess, with the new situation, … what do you have to do to … continue moving forward.” 

Officials are asking nonresidents to avoid traveling to Menasha and not to self-deploy to affected areas. Winnebago County officials are circulating a resource guide with information on cooling and charging sites, food, Wi-Fi centers, shelters, medical equipment and ways to donate. Volunteers can sign up to be officially deployed at Volunteer Fox Cities or in person at 1478 Midway Road.

Miranda Dunlap contributed reporting to this story.

Volunteers mobilize across Fox Cities after tornado is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Wildfires in northern Minnesota and Canada have caused some of the worst air quality on record for Wisconsin. The entire state remains under an Air Quality Advisory for fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke until noon on Friday, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

As of 2 p.m. Thursday, most of the state’s air quality was in the “very unhealthy” or “hazardous” Air Quality category. That means that everyone, not just sensitive groups, should avoid outdoor activities, the DNR said.

In areas near Superior, the Air Quality Index rose above 800, while parts of eastern Wisconsin including Milwaukee and Kenosha measured above 650. National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sheppard told Wisconsin Watch these levels are some of the worst on record. 

“What we’ve heard from some of our partners is that the Air Quality Index values that we’re seeing are definitely either never before seen or up there,” Sheppard said. “I’ve been working here for three years, and I’ve seen nothing anywhere near that high.” 

Index values in Wisconsin have exceeded the records set by wildfires in June 2023, DNR spokesperson Craig Czarnecki said in an email, noting that the figures “will still need to be quality assured.” At that time, levels peaked at 273, which means concentrations in Superior and the Milwaukee area have more than doubled. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends setting up a portable air cleaner or filter in a room that can be closed off from outside air and setting your air conditioner  to recirculate mode if possible or close the outdoor intake damper. 

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is a main pollutant released from wildfire smoke that can enter the bloodstream. Dr. Joan Schiller, a member of Healthy Climate Wisconsin and retired medical oncologist, told WPR this can exacerbate lung conditions.

“I don’t think people realize how far away you can be from the fire itself and still have health problems,” Schiller said. “These health problems typically manifest themselves as respiratory problems, such as exacerbation of COPD or asthma or emphysema.” 

How can I check the air quality in my area?

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors the air around the country and compiles an air quality index, or AQI.

Here’s what to know about the index and how to keep tabs on your area, especially in U.S. regions dealing with smoke from Canadian wildfires.

What does the air quality index measure? 

The index rates how clean or polluted the air is each day. The EPA uses this measure to keep tabs on five kinds of air pollutants. The main concern from the wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution. These particles are tiny enough to get deep into the lungs. They can cause short-term problems like coughing and itchy eyes and, in the long run, can affect the lungs and heart.

What do the numbers and colors mean? 

The index categories typically only run from zero to 500 – although levels have reached well above 500 in multiple parts of the state. The higher the number, the worse the air quality. That range is broken down into six color-coded categories. Green or yellow — in the zero to 100 range — the air is pretty clear. Once it gets up to orange, the air quality could be a concern for sensitive groups like children, older adults or those with health conditions.

In the red and purple zones, the air quality is considered unhealthy for everyone.

And if the index gets to maroon — at 301 or above — pollution levels are hazardous.

At these high levels, take precautions to avoid breathing in the dangerous air. That can mean reducing your outdoor activities, running air purifiers inside and wearing a well-fitting mask like an N95 when you’re outside.

What’s the air quality right now? 

Check AirNow.gov, which updates every hour. The site shows a real-time map of the air quality across the country and also includes a forecast for the day ahead. The map pulls in measurements from a network of air monitoring stations across the country. States and cities may also offer more local guidance.

How long will smoke last in Wisconsin? 

According to Sheppard and the National Weather Service (NWS), a southerly wind on Friday means smoke is anticipated to retreat from west to east  – likely bringing an end to the advisory for much of the state. 

“With those southwest winds, the air is going to get kind of clearer and healthier in a southwest to northeast manner,” Sheppard said. “Areas further north and east in Wisconsin are going to be most likely to hang on to that smoke.” 

Areas along Lake Superior may also need to have the advisory extended, NWS said. But Sheppard said winds could bring back a second wave of smoke to the rest of the state as soon as Saturday. 

“The weather models tentatively are telling us that the second batch of smoke could be as strong, or perhaps even worse,” he said. 

The Associated Press contributed reporting, as did Hongyu Liu of Wisconsin Watch.

Wildfire smoke brings hazardous air quality in Wisconsin. Here’s how to stay safe is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 9 minutes

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• Newcap was a leading provider of homeless services for 10 counties: Brown, Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano, Forest, Langlade, Oneida and Vilas.
• The organization’s abrupt closure in March left counties scrambling to fill the gaps. 
• In Shawano County, for example, residents no longer have a year-round homeless shelter. 
• Furthermore, Newcap took the lead in three regional homeless coalitions, and its staff served in key roles, fulfilling responsibilities for Coordinated Entry, the point-in-time count and federal and state funding. 
• Newcap’s Brown County federal grants have been transferred to House of Hope and Foundations Health & Wellness.

It’s been more than three months since the anti-poverty nonprofit Newcap closed, laying off 90 employees and leaving more than 100 low-income households on the brink of homelessness. For Shawano County residents, that means losing their only year-round homeless shelter. 

At Safe Haven domestic abuse shelter in Shawano, Executive Director Mindy Lohff started getting dozens more crisis calls and observing more unsheltered people on the streets or in wooded areas.

“We’ve seen an increase in our shelter stays directly, we’ve seen an increase in the calls for looking for shelter,” Lohff said. “Unfortunately, if they aren’t actively fleeing domestic violence or sexual violence, they’re not eligible (to) stay here, and there’s nowhere for them to go in Shawano County.” 

It’s not just that Lohff has nowhere to direct unsheltered people in Shawano. Newcap was a leading provider of homeless services for 10 counties — including Brown, Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano, Forest, Langlade, Oneida and Vilas. In 2025, Newcap had the capacity to provide nearly 250 beds across those counties, from emergency shelter to permanent housing. 

These mostly rural counties have been rocked by Newcap’s abrupt closure March 31, which came amid financial challenges and leadership changes. Former CEO Cheryl Detrick was placed on leave shortly before the nonprofit closed its doors and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, revealing that it owed nearly $4 million to creditors. 

The nonprofit’s closure reveals how the loss of a single agency can have a staggering effect, especially in rural areas where resources for the unhoused are already few and far between. As a federally designated regional leader — or Community Action Agency — Newcap held the keys to funding for many programs and can’t be easily replaced by a single organization. 

Working together on shelter solutions

Shawano Area Matthew 25 is a seasonal overnight homeless shelter open from Oct. 15 to May 15. Newcap’s closure means Shawano County residents no longer have a homeless shelter to turn to during warmer months. Newcap also led Shawano’s homeless coalition, meaning it controlled state funding for SAM25. Executive Director Kendra Brusewitz said she’s still waiting on $12,000 in funds. 

Over the summer, SAM25’s resource center is still open, providing food, showers, laundry and other assistance. 

“We just continue to see an increase in the numbers coming through our resource center,” Brusewitz said. “Not having a place to refer people, families to in the area during the summer months is challenging.”

Without Newcap, nonprofit leaders realized there was no longer a way for Shawano County residents to access Coordinated Entry – a prioritization list that matches people with housing resources throughout the state based on their eligibility. 

Safe Haven and SAM25 teamed up with Shawano Area United Way to form a coalition, educating local officials on housing needs and brainstorming solutions. Brusewitz and Lohff took charge of signing people up for Coordinated Entry. 

“We’ve actually had clients getting pulled for the housing assistance because they wanted to move to other counties, so that’s been great,” Lohff said. 

They’ve also applied for grants to fund a housing coordinator for Shawano County and collaborated with Bonduel middle and high schools to make hygiene kits. The coalition’s efforts aren’t funded, nor are they part of anyone’s job description. But Shawano community leaders feel it’s necessary.

“A lot of us have lived here, grown up here, and we’re so passionate about it, so some of (the work) may be slightly out of the scope, but it’s so important,” Lohff said.

Support for survivors

Newcap’s grants allowed victims of domestic violence in Shawano and neighboring counties to obtain permanent housing, which is vital since Safe Haven is an emergency shelter, Lohff said. So far, no agency has been identified to permanently take on the grant. 

“The financial assistance for them to be able to obtain the housing has vanished,” Lohff said. “Within the realm of domestic violence, so many of our clients experience financial abuse … and that’s one of the reasons why they don’t leave that abusive relationship, is because their abuser holds finances over their head.” 

Rainbow House, a domestic violence shelter serving Marinette and Oconto counties, was similarly left as one of the area’s only providers after Newcap closed. Executive Director Courtney Olson told Wisconsin Watch she’s received a “steady increase” in calls since then.

Like Safe Haven, Rainbow House cannot respond to general calls for housing. As it is, its waiting list for domestic violence clients continues to grow, which means ensuring their safety in other ways.

“In response to these long waits, we are working hard to keep survivors safe in their own homes whenever possible,” Olson wrote in an email. “That means offering more on the security side (cameras, cell phones, panic alarms, lock replacements, temporary restraining orders) and working with landlords to remove the person causing harm from a lease rather than displacing the survivor.”

A ‘long, slow road’

Regional Continuum of Care programs distribute federal funding for homeless shelters. Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties have their own CoCs, while the Balance of State CoC oversees the rest of Wisconsin through regional coalitions. 

Although based in Brown County, Newcap also served as the lead agency for the Wisconsin Balance of State’s Northeast Coalition — in Florence, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto and Shawano counties — and the NWISH Coalition – made up of Forest, Langlade, Oneida, and Vilas counties. 

The loss of Newcap comes at a time when national funding for Continuum of Care programs is already uncertain. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2027 fiscal year budget would eliminate the Continuum of Care program, reducing all homeless assistance funding by $400 million. 

Meanwhile, the 2026 budget will require the Wisconsin Balance of State to compete with Continuum of Care programs nationwide for a greater portion of funding based on the Trump administration’s priorities. An estimated 1,287 people could lose their housing in Wisconsin, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. 

The Balance of State is acting as a temporary lead for the Northeast and NWISH coalitions, ensuring the “point-in-time” homeless count happens – an essential step to securing federal funding – and filling vacant board positions. 

Balance of State homeless systems manager Ryan Graham said they’re essentially starting from square one, and they won’t be able to replace Newcap easily. 

“Now, it’s about, ‘How do we rebuild some kind of homeless response in that area?’ because the agency that pretty much did all of that and provided the capacity to do it is no longer there,” Graham said. “They were the coalition lead, they were the point-in-time lead, they were the state funding lead.” 

Graham has been impressed by organizations like Safe Haven and SAM25 stepping up, but finding an organization qualified to take on Newcap’s responsibilities is still hard. 

“It’s going to be a long, slow road, “ Graham said. “Hopefully, it won’t be too slow, but we’re really starting from scratch in a lot of areas, especially in the Northeast and NWISH Coalition, as far as building a homeless response system.”

Federal grants transferred to Brown County nonprofits

Even in Brown County, where organizations do exist to take on Newcap’s clients, it’s still not that simple. 

When Newcap closed, the 134 households that depended on federally funded programs were immediately put at risk of homelessness. Public officials advocated to get four federal grants transferred to local organizations and waited nearly a month after Newcap’s closure to receive confirmation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

House of Hope in Green Bay will take on three of the four grants, but Director of Community Engagement Beth Hudak said it’s collaborating with multiple Brown County agencies to manage cases for Newcap’s former clients. 

“One of the biggest lessons we learned … is that when one agency holds all of the funding – does all of the work – when something happens, our community is devastated by it,” Hudak said. “What we really want to make sure we’re emphasizing in the future is having many, many more organizations involved in all of this work.” 

House of Hope’s primary mission is to serve homeless youth — not to provide permanent housing for adults, which some of the grants stipulate. But according to Hudak, HUD said House of Hope was the only agency qualified to take on the grants. 

“I don’t think we really had an option … HUD said that it was either us or the contracts would go to other parts of the state,” Hudak said.  

House of Hope will personally take over a $440,000 grant for youth rapid rehousing in Brown County. Through working with other agencies, it hopes to find subrecipients for a $1.1 million permanent supportive housing grant for individuals in Brown County. 

The third grant was specifically designated for supportive housing in rural northeast Wisconsin. Hudak said House of Hope is working closely with the Balance of State’s Northeast and NWISH coalitions even though they have yet to receive access to the grant funds.

Foundations Health & Wholeness, also based in Green Bay and primarily serving youth, will take on the fourth direct federal grant from Newcap, which provides nearly $300,000 for a youth mobile outreach program. 

Jackie Baumgart, director of Foundations Youth Services, said the grant fits into the work they’re already doing: engaging with homeless youth where they’re at since their access to transportation is often limited. 

“Why we were approached for this is because we do community-based services, and we don’t have specific offices where everybody works,” Baumgart said. “So our staff are out in the community … Our hope is to have a counselor go out and do a mental health check-in with young people that wouldn’t otherwise be able to access these services.” 

The organization will also take over Coordinated Entry for the NWISH and Northeast coalitions, filling another gap left by Newcap. Baumgart said her nonprofit plans to operate with more transparency and collaboration with other organizations. 

“My vision for what to do versus what has been done is to change it up a little bit and make it a more publicly known list for housing … I really want to make sure that we are teaching other organizations how to use it, when to use it, how to take people off of it, when to put people on, so that it’s not us doing all the work,” she said. 

Moving forward

In Green Bay, Newcap’s closure has made way for a unique new homeless shelter that takes in people who have been banned from other shelters in Brown County. Although controversial, Safe Haven Hope Center received a permit in May to use one of Newcap’s former buildings to shelter 19 individuals. 

Safe Haven technically rents the property from Newcap, which means Executive Director Cathi Oreto isn’t sure if it will be able to keep the property as Newcap liquidates its assets. But for now, she’s moving forward with a harm-reduction approach, offering a community-centered shelter with an extremely forgiving policy.

“We know that we’re going to have to ask people to leave, but when we ask them to leave, we’re going to ask them — and we have asked them — to leave for today and come back tomorrow,” Oreto said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the first time, 10th time, or one millionth time, our exit strategy is the same.” 

Meanwhile, a Brown County coalition is making sure the point-in-time count still happens on the night of July 22. Although Newcap led the point-in-time count for the past five years, Hudak said some Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition members have participated for decades. 

“I think we have it pretty well handled,” Hudak said. “One of the biggest issues that we’re coming across is just sort of a lack of data transfer, so some of the more in-depth information that Newcap had, we don’t necessarily have access to because of how quickly they closed.” 

In the future, Hudak said they’ll make sure the entire coalition has access to PIT documentation, instead of just one organization. It’s part of a broader effort to build interdependence between local anti-poverty nonprofits to minimize the impact of one closing. 

That network includes community members, too. Hudak said volunteers are always needed, and anyone who cares about homelessness can provide a fresh perspective. The NWISH and Northeast coalitions are also looking for members.

“All of our coalitions are always looking for more people to be in and support the work, and you don’t have to be a service provider to do that … Having outside perspectives is hugely, hugely important for making sure that we’re doing the best work that we can for the people that we serve,” she said.

‘There’s nowhere for them to go’: Newcap closure leaves northeast Wisconsin counties scrambling to prevent more homelessness is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

When 15-year-old Amelia Culotta stepped into the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, her whole world transformed. 

Walking through the airport’s 400-foot display of Atlanta’s role in the civil rights movement and African American culture, she saw her history reflected back at her for the first time.

“There was more history on one wall than I’ve ever had in school,” Amelia said. “Like, ever.”

Growing up in Green Bay, she was used to being one of the only Black girls in her grade and had never visited a city like Atlanta. Seeing the racial diversity among people living there was a culture shock in the best way.

“Before then, I just felt like, ‘Oh, this is how everything goes, my small world is how all the rest of the world is,’” Amelia said. “It didn’t feel real when I was walking off the airplane because I didn’t realize how much life I haven’t seen, and I was missing.” 

Moments like these are why Rhonda Chandler created Lovin’ the Skin I’m In, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and empowering girls of color in northeast Wisconsin by giving them experiences like Amelia’s.

Small group meetings grow into nonprofit 

When Chandler moved to De Pere with her husband more than a decade ago, they were the first Black family in their neighborhood. For her three kids, transitioning from Charlotte, North Carolina, to a school district with less than 2% Black enrollment wasn’t easy.

“When we sent our children off to school, that’s when they started having a lot of challenges … It started with name calling, all of the things, microaggressions, etc.,” Chandler said. “My oldest daughter … really had a hard time struggling to fit in, finding her people, being accepted.” 

Chandler knew something had to change a few years later when her youngest daughter started experiencing the same bullying and microaggressions.

“I vowed I was going to do something different,” Chandler said. “I was not going to have the same pattern repeated that my older daughter had, so I kind of went into action mode.” 

At first, she started inviting other Black families who shared her daughter’s experiences to her home for monthly meetings in her basement. In 2020, Lovin’ the Skin I’m In was officially established as a nonprofit, motivated by nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice. 

“During George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murder is when it was kind of like an ‘aha’ moment for me, and I was like, this is bigger than just my girls, or just keeping it in my basement,” Chandler said. 

A 2014 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked Wisconsin as the worst state in which to raise African American children based on test scores, employment and poverty rates. Not much has since changed. In 2026, Wisconsin ranked 8th overall for child well-being, but had the worst racial disparities for Black and white children in the country for metrics like children living in high-poverty areas or not graduating on time.

And the school district Chandler lives in – De Pere – still enrolls less than 2% Black students a decade later, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. 

Having been a social worker for about 30 years, Chandler strives to provide a welcoming environment that girls may not feel at school. 

Lovin’ the Skin I’m In now runs regular meetings during the school year at local elementary, middle and high schools, providing peer support and cultural education. Guest speakers have taught students about hair care, career development and mental health, and field trips include going to see DRUMLine Live, based on the marching band tradition at historically Black colleges and universities.

The Women’s Fund of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation awarded Chandler the 2026 Nancy Armbrust Impact Award for her service to over 700 community members in northeast Wisconsin, and her organization continues to grow. Last month, Lovin’ the Skin I’m In launched a weeklong summer camp for elementary and middle school students called the Summer of She. Students learned sailing with Green Bay Sail & Paddle or entrepreneurship at a local Black-owned business, developing new skills and building community.

Having outgrown Chandler’s basement, families meet monthly at Life Church in De Pere. She said the group doesn’t shy away from hard topics in their discussions. 

“We have hard conversations, so sometimes that can be challenging … We talk about how the issues with immigration may affect our families, or what’s happening at school, or the political climate, and the mistreatment in our community and in our world,” Chandler said. “We talk about those things because it’s life and it’s going to affect our family.” 

‘They don’t have to limit themselves’

Prior to her trip to Atlanta, Amelia had been participating in these support groups since elementary school. Now a rising sophomore at De Pere High School and a member of the school’s Black Student Union, she’s seen the program grow up with her in the years since Chandler started it. 

“What we were talking about was just learning about self-confidence and being a part of a (predominantly white institution) … I’ve learned that being an African American girl in Wisconsin isn’t easy,” she said, “but it also gives me the voice to teach and to also learn.” 

Her trip to Georgia in March was part of Lovin’ the Skin I’m In’s second annual cohort introducing a group of a dozen high schoolers to HBCUs such as Clark Atlanta University, Fort Valley State University and Spelman College.

“It was so shocking, just stepping into the airport, the difference in the community … I was like, oh my gosh, I’m in a whole different world,” Amelia said. “And I feel safe for the first time in a long time.” 

As a graduate of Clark Atlanta herself, Chandler facilitated visits with Black sororities and plans to continue working with seniors on college applications, letters of recommendation and scholarships. 

“Some of our girls had never been on an airplane before, haven’t been out of state, any of that,” Chandler said. “So giving them that opportunity and … them being able to go and see those universities where there’s representation and know that they don’t have to limit themselves – they can go to school out of state.” 

The trip was an eye-opening moment that empowered Amelia to keep speaking out against institutional racism. Seeing historical exhibits like the one in Atlanta made her even more aware of the flaws in the education system.

“I think people struggle understanding things because they aren’t taught things, and the problem isn’t because of them, the problem is because of what they’ve been taught … I sit with the remarks and the hate every single day,” Amelia said, “and being a part of Lovin’ the Skin was good because it taught me how to deal with that.” 

Amelia also hopes to continue the legacy of Chandler’s daughter, who was the president of De Pere’s Black Student Union. She wants to help organize an assembly with guest speakers that would teach students about the impact of racism. 

“Do people know what racism is? Not really,” Amelia said. “They know the word. It just sticks out – it’s like a big bad word – but no one really knows what it’s associated to, where it came from, how it impacts people of color. That was never taught.”

This story is part of Community at Work, an ongoing feature series focused on community organizations that make a difference in northeast Wisconsin. Who should we feature next? Email jzvandenhouten@wisconsinwatch.org.

‘I feel safe for the first time’: Brown County nonprofit uplifts girls of color is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988.” 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Jared and Jamie Weigelt share the story of their son Landen’s sextortion and suicide in an effort to educate northeast Wisconsin students, teachers and law enforcement officers about the signs of the scams and ways to report it.  
• Since Landen Weigelt died in 2023, sextortion cases in Wisconsin have skyrocketed.  
• From 2024 to 2025, the number of cases nearly tripled, according to the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. 
• Families are not sitting on the sidelines: They’re speaking to schools, advocating for legislation to protect victims, and some are suing social media companies. 
• Lawmakers passed five bills into law in 2025 to provide recourse for victims and allocate more state resources to responding to sextortion cases.

In a hotel conference room in Appleton, Jamie and Jared Weigelt prepared to tell the story of their son’s death to a waiting group of police officers. In the three years since 17-year-old Landen Weigelt died, they’ve shared this story with countless schools in northeast Wisconsin. 

It’s not easy to relive that day, but they won’t stop anytime soon. 

On Feb. 7, 2023, Landen Weigelt spent the day at Oconto High School, where he was a junior. He was a football and varsity basketball player, popular among his peers, got good grades and had plans for a career as a counselor. 

An employee of the school district, Jamie Weigelt worked in Landen’s building. The day before, a few students came up to her and said something seemed off about Landen.

“Some kids had said that he just didn’t seem himself,” Jamie Weigelt said. “I went down and I talked to him. He told me everything was fine, everything was great.” 

The next afternoon, Jamie found her stepson in his bedroom after he had taken his own life. 

“At first, it really did look like he was sleeping,” she told the group of officers. “It was not until I got closer that I realized something was seriously wrong. … I grabbed his sweatshirt and shook him, but there was no response, and it was at this point that I screamed and grabbed my phone. I knew that I wasn’t calling 911 to save him, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

She learned Landen exchanged nude images with a scammer on Snapchat, who threatened to share them widely if he didn’t pay hundreds of dollars. Landen begged the suspect not to release photos, but they continued to demand money and told Landen they would ruin his life.

“I’m sorry but I think I would rather kill myself,” Landen had responded. 

He was the victim of a crime known as sextortion, something Jamie Weigelt had never heard of before. In the years since Landen’s death, cases have skyrocketed. In Wisconsin, sextortion cases nearly tripled in a single year. The state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received 650 online tips related to sextortion in 2025, an increase from 230 in all of 2024. 

Now, the Weigelts and other victims’ families are devoted to raising awareness about the dangers of this deadly crime. Their efforts, in tandem with law enforcement and state lawmakers, have led to increased outreach in schools, more legal protections for victims and additional resources for the state Department of Justice to respond to sextortion tips.

What is sextortion?

Victims of sextortion — often but not exclusively teens — are solicited or coerced into sending explicit photos to an individual online and then blackmailed into sending more money or more images. In most cases, the perpetrator will create one or more fake accounts posing as teens the victim’s age, sometimes offering nude images first before asking for images in return. Generative artificial intelligence has also increasingly played a role in perpetrators carrying out sextortion schemes without even having to receive a nude image. 

In 2025, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received an average of 137 reports of financial sextortion a day and noted that at least 36 teenage boys had committed suicide as a result of being sextorted. 

Parents, lawmakers act

In Wisconsin, families of victims teamed up with lawmakers to develop specific legislation that addresses sextortion. Last year, sextortion was classified as a felony in Wisconsin under “Bradyn’s Law,” named in honor of Bradyn Bohn. The 15-year-old from Kronenwetter died by suicide in 2025 after being sextorted, and his parents have been key in advocating for increased legislation. 

This April, Gov. Tony Evers signed five new laws providing more recourse for victims and funding for the state to respond to sextortion crimes. Among them, 2025 Wisconsin Act 215 allows victims’ families to file a wrongful death lawsuit if their family member’s suicide was largely due to sextortion, in addition to allowing victims to file a civil suit for monetary damages.

The bills also provided an increase of $400,000 per year in the 2025-27 biennial budget for the Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which receives and responds to tips of suspected online child sexual exploitation. The legislation adds four full-time positions to the team — two criminal analysts, one outreach specialist and one digital forensic analyst — and requires the task force to run a public awareness campaign regarding online safety for children. 

The number of tips coming into the task force is “staggering,” said commander Jesse Crowe, and can cause mental health issues among his staff. As of May 21, 2026, they’ve received over 7,400 CyberTips so far this year with over 300 related to sextortion — which means their one part-time and three full-time criminal analysts are tasked with responding to nearly 1,500 tips per month.

“We really needed the resources based on our numbers,” Crowe said, “and this is a very, very good step in the right direction to get the resources that we need.” 

Having a designated outreach specialist will allow the rest of his team to focus solely on their caseload, rather than having to fit outreach in between cases. 

“This person will be dedicated to really working with communities, working with law enforcement to get more of our messages out there – not only about sextortion, just about how to use the internet responsibly,” Crowe said.

They hope to have the new task force members onboarded by the end of July. 

How tips are submitted

Although tips can be self-reported through report.cybertip.org, many are sent by electronic service providers — such as social media companies. 

Part of the exponential increase in tips over the past two years is because of the federal REPORT Act, which required electronic service providers to report online sexual exploitation of children starting in May 2024.

Self-reporting is also increasing, with NCMEC’s CyberTipline reporting a 100% increase in reports directly from victims in 2025. Experts say this is a positive result of heightened awareness because perpetrators rely on victims being too afraid to speak up. Crowe believes the state’s increase in CyberTips can be partially attributed to outreach efforts in addition to social media companies complying with reporting requirements. 

Once tips are received by NCMEC, they’re assigned to each state based on the location of the suspects and victims. Crowe’s team uses IP addresses, phone numbers or open records requests to determine which sheriff’s offices should receive tips. 

Brian Slinger is the Internet Crimes Against Children supervisor for the Brown County Sheriff’s Office. Once he receives a tip, his main priority is to locate the child and make contact as soon as possible. He relies heavily on partnerships with school districts, including school resource officers. 

“We will usually involve the school resource officers as quickly as we can to make contact with the child to ensure that they’re safe because that’s the number one goal,” Slinger said.

What parents can do

The main message that Crowe, the Weigelts and other advocates emphasize is to develop an open line of communication between parents and children. 

“We tell kids at a very early age, hold my hand to cross the street, wear a helmet, wear a seat belt, and that’s ingrained in them,” Crowe said. “If we start that conversation about safe, appropriate internet use when they’re young, it’ll just be a normal function of them growing up.” 

Becky Wright is the program director at HER Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Green Bay that works with people who have experienced sex trafficking. The organization does outreach presentations to school districts in Brown County about digital safety, healthy relationships and online exploitation.

“I think one of the biggest reasons criminals are using sextortion to target kids is because it causes them to completely panic,” Wright said. “They don’t know what to do because there’s money involved, and they realize they may have made a mistake in the conversation.” 

As a parent of a 12-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, Wright has regular discussions with them about online safety. Each night, they return their phones to her bedroom to charge. 

“I’m monitoring and looking at their phone, usually on a weekly basis, just looking through photos and search histories,” Wright said. “But again, it’s also because I’m aware of what can happen, and they know that, and we’ve had a lot of discussions about that.”

Efforts underway

Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, authored several of the recently passed laws, but wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that they’re “only a few spokes in the broader wheel of kids’ online safety.” 

She pointed to other bills that came out of the Assembly Speaker’s Task Force on Protecting Kids, including Assembly Bill 962, which would require age verification on social media platforms. 

Bohn’s parents, Luke and Brittney Bird, testified in support of the bill, but it failed to pass in the Senate last year among concerns of privacy rights violations. The Birds also joined a wrongful death lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for failing to protect their children, emphasizing a growing effort to hold social media companies accountable for children’s safety. 

Justin Patchin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, has a different proposal: safe sexting strategies. He outlined tips in a recent paper such as not including identifying features or sending suggestive images rather than explicit nude images. Patchin said there needs to be a less fear-based approach to sexting, which is in line with the state’s list of best practices for prevention programs.  

“Teens engage in sexting because it’s developmentally somewhat normative,” Patchin said. “We tell them not to engage in these behaviors, and in fact, some police officers threaten them with arrest.”

Teens who engage in sexting and find themselves victims of sextortion may then feel trapped. 

“Now you’re backed into a corner, right?” Patchin said. “That you’ve done this illegal thing, technically, because you’ve created and distributed child porn, and so now you feel helpless.”

Although possessing or distributing explicit images of a minor is still illegal under Wisconsin’s child pornography laws, minors generally won’t be charged when images they send are used to extort them – they are seen as victims of a crime in Wisconsin, Crowe said. However, children and teenagers can be charged if they create images and send them without coercion or prompting. 

According to Patchin’s research, only 24% of teens he surveyed said they engage in sexting. But among those who do, about half the time, that image is shared with someone beyond the original sender or they’re the victim of sextortion.

“In the last few years, the international bad actors have gotten into the game,” Patchin said. “They’ve gotten good at targeting vulnerable youth. If you look at case studies of this, if you look at the media reports, a lot of these – especially boys – who have been targeted in the last few years, are popular. They have a lot going on for themselves. They have a lot to lose.” 

Oconto Police Chief Kassie Dufek said over the years that she’s presented Landen’s story with the Weigelts, she’s only seen victimization increase, despite efforts from the DOJ or families. Real change would require social media apps “having significant restrictions.”  

“Our search warrants are signed by a judge that say you must give us this information by this date,” Dufek said. “They don’t comply because they know that they have these big time lawyers … it’s more of a fight for us than it’s worth because we don’t have the time, we don’t have the resources. They do.” 

‘The word is out’

Jill Yindra, who lost her son to sextortion-related suicide, said she and her husband hosted an awareness night in March with over 700 attendees in Mishicot. She recently received a call about a 15-year-old student from a local high school who contacted authorities after being targeted by someone on Instagram. 

“AI imagery was used, threats were made, demands for money, and that perpetrator had also friended mutual friends of the first victim,” Yindra said. “So when this individual realized what this was and what the dangers were, they called authorities right away, and they were able to stop it.” 

Seeing that her and her husband’s advocacy efforts were working gave her hope.

“It warmed our hearts,” Yindra said. “We just don’t ever want another family to go through what we are going through. It’s absolutely horrific.” 

The perpetrators of sextortion schemes depend on the victim feeling alone and ashamed of their mistake — which is why it’s important to inform the public that this is a scam where international criminals systematically target and manipulate teens.

“We’ve had the hard conversations with our kids, but these are career criminals,” Yindra said. “It’s sad, and it’s unfortunate, but we live in a cruel world, and we need to be proactive with it, because this crime goes like wildfire when we remain silent.

“But if you speak up, you talk, you educate, and advocate, things will slow down,” she said. “And now it’s obviously working, because the word is out.”

Data reporter Hongyu Liu contributed to this report.

This story was updated to include the name of the 2026 School Resource Officer Training Conference in photo captions and to clarify that Jamie Weigelt is Landen Weigelt’s stepmom.

‘The word is out’: Wisconsin families turn grief into action as sextortion cases rise is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Scott Rosenberg and Heather Toman did not expect to own a vegetable farm in Wisconsin. Toman was born in New Mexico, and Rosenberg spent the first two decades of his career in the insurance industry. 

Now, as the owners of Full Circle Community Farm in Seymour, they’re considered some of the best organic farmers in the Midwest, and they’re helping expand a community dedicated to sustainable farming. 

Rosenberg quit his high-paying job to get an associate’s degree in sustainable farming at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. There he met Valerie Dantoin, who encouraged him to rent a quarter acre of her land to grow vegetables. 

“A midlife crisis is really what it kind of came down to, but instead of buying a sports car, I took a gigantic pay decrease,” Rosenberg joked. 

After getting her master’s degree in biology at Northern Michigan University, Toman met Rosenberg and established Full Circle Community Farm in 2017, along with Andrew Adamski. 

“It’s a continuous learning curve,” Toman said. “It never is really going to end – us learning and improving. We figure out new things every year.

Collaboration in action

The vegetable farm started on the family land of Rick Adamski and Dantoin, who own an organic pork and beef farm that Full Circle Community Farm partners with. Marbleseed named the group of five its Organic Farmers of the Year for 2024 for their sustainable practices.

Rosenberg and Toman now farm between 12 and 15 acres at peak season. Their Community Supported Agriculture program serves 250 people during the summer, delivering boxes of fresh produce to customers in Green Bay, De Pere and Appleton. 

“Another way to look at it is in 2017-2018, for our cold storage, we were utilizing a donated refrigerator, and now we have a 20-foot by 30-foot walk-in cooler,” Rosenberg said. “So things have slowly changed over the years.”

They help run the SLO Farmers Co-op, a group of seven independent family farms in northeast Wisconsin that cooperate to provide food to local schools and restaurants. All of the farms are committed to organic and sustainable practices.

“Corn, soy farmers, you know, at the end of the day, they’re farmers like I am, so I have respect for them and what they do, and they can farm how they want,” Rosenberg said. “It’s important to me that I’m recognizing the migratory birds that are coming through the area, and the deer that sometimes eat my vegetables, just having buffer zones by the creek of trees, and planting additional trees in there that are native to the area.” 

Rosenberg gave a public tour of the farm on Sunday, June 7, as part of the Summer Farm Crawl hosted by the Lake to Bay chapter of the Wisconsin Farmers Union. Rosenberg showed their greenhouses and some of his equipment, like an Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor that he modified to be an electric vehicle using a golf cart motor.

“Even though I’m not an engine guy, I figured if I just started taking bolts off the engine, it would eventually fall off, and it did … I can get about six hours of operation off that battery, which is more than I need in a single day,” Rosenberg said.

Building community

Full Circle Community Farm also provides a “worker share” option for its CSA, in which members work a shift each week in exchange for a large box of produce. These workers have grown into some of their most valued employees. 

“People just find us, and they have been a huge, huge blessing,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve had some worker shares that have been with us for four or five years now, and they just love their little four-hour slice of coming out here once a week and getting their hands dirty and doing something different.”

The farm also takes on interns through NWTC, training people of many experience levels. 

“We’ll bring people on with zero skills and patiently work with them,” Rosenberg said. “I just get a kick out of working with people and teaching them things, and just seeing the wonder on their faces that sometimes I don’t always feel, so I feel like that’s pretty unique.”

Amber Borealis started as a worker share about eight years ago. She moved onto the property during the COVID-19 pandemic and is now working full time as the farm’s pack shed manager. She’s impressed by how much they’ve been able to expand the farm over the years, including building the pack shed and three high tunnel greenhouses.

“When I started, they had one field,” Borealis said. “So just getting to see how much they can grow and how much community support they’ve had and how much they’ve supported the community in return has been really awesome.” 

Transitioning to farm life wasn’t always easy – Borealis was born in Virginia and trained as a glassblower in college — but Rosenberg and Toman were always game for her to try new things. 

“This past year I learned how to drive a tractor, which is not something I ever thought I’d do in my life … It’s terrifying the first time,” Borealis said. “It is a very large piece of equipment. It’s very loud. You feel very exposed, even if you’re in a cab, because it’s all glass. But it’s really fun, and this is the first year that the plants we’re harvesting are things I planted driving the tractor.” 

Borealis said she’s found an important sense of community living on the farm, especially since her family lives far away on the East and West coasts. 

“It’s nice having the little shelter and little group of friends who feel like family here,” Borealis said. “If I’m having a bad day, I can absolutely lean on Scott or Heather. And then if I’m having a really good day, they will absolutely support me and be like, ‘Yes, you did it!’” 

This story is part of Meet a Neighbor, an ongoing feature series focused on the people who make a difference in northeastern Wisconsin. Know someone we should spotlight? Nominate them here.

Seymour farmers build organic farming community in northeast Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.