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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.