Reading Time: 6 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.” 

Laurie Doxtator hasn’t been sleeping well lately. 

That’s been the case since she moved out of Amanda’s House last fall. 

She spent nearly three years working toward her sobriety at the long-term, sober living home for women and their children in Green Bay. She also became a leader — helping housemates navigate the communal quarters and feel supported. She was three years sober from alcohol, eight years sober from heroin and free of all other drugs when she left.

But Doxtator has hit bumps along her sobriety journey since moving in with her older brother, less than seven miles away on the Oneida Reservation, where she’s an enrolled Oneida Nation member. 

While still avoiding heroin and alcohol, she recently began smoking marijuana again — about once a day to ease her grief. That’s typical with recovery. Progress rarely moves in a straight line. 

As Wisconsin Watch reported last year while chronicling her move out from Amanda’s House, grief has remained an undercurrent for Doxtator, who has endured losing a range of family members.

But joy and fulfillment have been there, too — including at Amanda’s House, where she learned to cope through a daily routine marked by affirmations. 

She knew leaving wouldn’t be easy. Establishing new routines would take time. Moving in with her brother meant returning to where she previously used substances and was surrounded by negative influences. 

“I wish I could just go and hide,” Doxtator said. 

But she now has tools to cope and move forward, and she has support from outside of Amanda’s House. That includes visits to the Recovery Nest, part of the Oneida Comprehensive Health Division, which offers holistic healing and growth for those seeking recovery. It’s a place to process her emotions and connect with coaches who can relate. 

“I had a slipup in my journey but it happens, it happens no matter what,” she said. “I’ll get back on track. 

‘Deep down I hurt’ 

While crafting a turtle medicine wheel at a Recovery Nest event in May, Doxtator left the room in tears. The pit-pattering of rain against the window had stopped as the dark blue-and-gray sky outside gave way to sunshine. 

Doxtator sat at a table surrounded by her fellow recoverees, including coaches Stephanie Skenandore and Kristy Bedolla. A volunteer prepared “Indian tacos” featuring made-from-scratch fry bread. As part of a cleansing routine, the recoverees passed around a shell with burned sage, a process called smudging that’s intended to rid evil and negativity from the room. The women teased each other like family.

“I laugh and giggle but deep down I hurt,” Doxtator said. 

Doxtator had just learned of another family member’s death. This time, a cousin. That’s why she attended that evening’s Recovery Nest gathering. She recognizes that trauma and grief can spiral into old habits if not addressed. A day earlier was the one-year anniversary of her brother Earl’s death. 

“I better get over here before my mind starts wandering,” Doxtator recalled telling herself that morning. 

She planned to attend her cousin’s funeral that evening. It would be a traditional Oneida Nation arrangement, similar to ceremonies for Earl and the two children she lost. 

As Doxtator’s 62nd birthday approached, she stared down a maze of dates marking the deaths of loved ones. Spring and summer are particularly hard each year, Doxtator said. She lost her mother and a son in those seasons, too. 

Paula Jolly, who co-founded the Mandolin Foundation with her daughter and later opened Amanda’s House after her daughter’s overdose death, understands the difficulties of grief and loss — especially as she helps people facing the same hardships her daughter faced. She jokingly warns people not to interrupt her when she’s cleaning her office — it’s how she copes with frustration. 

Jolly has never struggled with addiction herself, but she regularly attends 12-step meetings. She just finished two years of therapy after realizing that the characteristics of alcoholism and family dysfunction she experienced growing up had carried into her own life.

“Everyone’s like, ‘oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’ve been through all that and you keep moving,’” Jolly said. “I don’t have any choice. This is what I was put here for. I just do the best I can. Some days are messy, that’s just the way it is.” 

A familiar face on the road 

Challenges like Doxtator’s prompted Recovery Nest to start in the first place.

The need for a safe place to connect with others in recovery while leaving toxic influences behind illustrates why Recovery Nest still matters, Skenandore said. Drawing on her own experience with addiction and recovery, Skenandore understands what it takes to stay sober and how easy it is to return to substance use patterns. 

Skenandore and Doxtator share more than a commitment to recovery. They’re also cousins who have known each other since childhood, even bowling together in a league at Red Carpet Lanes in Green Bay. 

“I get to tell some of my cousins, they can’t get rid of me no matter what because they’re a cousin on both sides,” Skenandore said, laughing. 

In her Recovery Nest role, Skenandore wants to make sure Doxtator and her peers know they have supporters who back them no matter what. 

“We’re not a treatment, we’re just here to walk with them and be that extra support for them.”

When working with Native peers, Skenandore builds on her understanding of the intergenerational trauma many tribal communities have experienced. Growing up, she thought the drinking in her family — and learning to open a beer can at an early age — was normal. Skenandore said she doesn’t remember what initially prompted her to seek treatment. 

“When I went, I went drunk, and I don’t remember the ride,” she said. 

“I never realized until after I became sober… that it really dawned on me how much trauma there is,” Skenandore said. “We haven’t been able to change it. It’s slowly changing, it’s not a quick change.” 

Even if it’s difficult to break cycles of intergenerational trauma in their communities, Skenandore and Bedolla see promising signs for the future as a culture of recovery and sobriety emerges in their children’s generation. 

A new look for a new chapter 

Doxtator’s hair is now even shorter than before. After moving out of Amanda’s House last year, she chose a new style to mark a fresh start. 

She previously taught a grief class at Recovery Nest and knows that participating in the program helps manage her recovery. She hasn’t regularly attended recently, but she’s planning to change that.

 “They miss me,” Doxtator said. Her coaches hope she will eventually lead the classes again, where she once led candlelight conversations. 

Living with her brother gives her more freedom than Amanda’s House did, with its rules and structure. But she’s not sure she was ready for it. 

Doxtator said she regrets restarting smoking, but she’s determined to break the habit again. “It’s up to me … I will get through this.”

Editor’s note: After being interviewed for this story, Doxtator and Jolly participated in a Wisconsin Watch Public Square community event, where they reflected on what it was like to share their stories. Read more here.

Laurie Doxtator faces recovery’s next test 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

An idea about profiling voters across Wisconsin turned into a multiyear project for Wisconsin Watch photojournalist Joe Timmerman – one focused on connection. 

The Public Square series launched in November 2024 and so far includes 10 stories about regular Wisconsin residents working to build community in the towns and cities they call home. 

“Instead of just focusing on politics, we really wanted to focus on community and where people were coming together,” Timmerman said.

To showcase the images and celebrate the project, Wisconsin Watch partnered with the city of Green Bay, the Astor Neighborhood Association, Catchlight Local and Report for America to host an outdoor photo exhibition on Saturday, June 6, at St. James Park in Green Bay. The display will be available for a short time at the park for community members to visit. 

Roughly 45 people attended the event on Saturday, walking among the posters of images, reading summaries of the stories and listening to a panel discussion about the series. Timmerman moderated the event, asking questions of four northeastern Wisconsin residents who participated in Public Square. 

Below, we recap the panel discussion, highlighting a few of the panelists’ answers for each question. Be sure to check out all 10 stories in the Public Square series, which included people who live across the state. 

How do you think your story fits into Public Square?

The students and staff who keep the Pulaski News in print embody the mission of the series, said Madelyn Rybak, a recent Pulaski High School graduate who wrote for the Pulaski News.

“We really are the only major source of news in the village of Pulaski, so I think that through writing for the Pulaski News, we really do our part in ensuring that the community really knows their neighbor,” she said. 

So too, does Third Space Green Bay, said co-founder Ivy McGee. The nonprofit organization aims to create an environment where people can make connections, particularly people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community who move to Green Bay. 

“I was kind of naive to the fact that people that are coming into this community really don’t feel that connection, and it’s a hard community to kind of come into,” she said. 

What was it like being interviewed and photographed for the series?

Paula Jolly, executive director and co-founder of Amanda’s House, said she usually isn’t comfortable doing interviews and being photographed by journalists. But with Timmerman, the experience was different. 

“He took his time, and he cared, and it just really made it a lot easier,” Jolly said. 

Part of it, she said, had to do with the equipment Timmerman chose to make the photographs. He used a twin-lens reflex camera circa 1950 and medium format film; it meant he had to take his time. 

Timmerman visited each subject for Public Square multiple times and spent hours with them – talking to them, observing how they went about their days and seeing them inhabit their spaces. 

The process allowed McGee and her co-creators to “slow down and take a breath.”

What was it like seeing your stories published?

A friend reached out to Laurie Doxtator after her photo appeared on the front page of a local newspaper (Wisconsin Watch allows media outlets to republish its stories free of charge). Timmerman met Doxtator when she was living at Amanda’s House. She allowed him to document her journey moving out of the sober living home.  

“This was my story that I told,” Doxtator said.

Similarly, Jolly said she sits for interviews to help community members better understand addiction, including how it affects people and their families. 

However, she was surprised to hear from people outside northeast Wisconsin who saw the story. 

“I didn’t realize it was going to the rest of the state,” she said. “Somebody from, I think, Milwaukee said, ‘Oh, I saw your article.’ I was like, ‘What? Really?’ It was kind of fun, but it also gets the word out in a wider area, so that’s important.”

Rybak spoke about the important role journalism plays in making people be seen and heard. 

“It felt so nice to just have a spotlight shown and to know what I did mattered to people,” she said. 

Once the feature on Third Space Green Bay was published, McGee said she continued to follow the series. 

“I was more connected to the community through the storytelling,” she said. 

How have each of you, your organizations or your communities grown, changed or developed since the time these images were taken?

Since Doxtator moved out of Amanda’s House, she continued her sobriety and cut her hair. 

“I’m still here and still growing,” she said. “Every day is a different day.”

The Public Square feature on Amanda’s House “opened up a lot more opportunities for us, just getting the word out there and helping people,” Jolly said. 

Third Space Green Bay now has a physical space, which the organization leases through The Art Garage. The co-creators are still looking for a permanent space to call their own. 

“There’s so many reasons why Third Space Green Bay is important, and why it exists, and why we want to continue to be a space to offer folks to come and connect, or just be,” McGee said.

The organization also started “Third Thursdays with Third Space” – monthly, themed events designed to “build connection, promote collective well-being and celebrate the creativity and resilience of BIPOC and queer communities in Green Bay.”

As for the Pulaski News, the publication was featured in myriad news stories and received a $5,000 grant from the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation. Rybak said more students are interested in writing for the newspaper, as well.

“For a very small student-run publication like us, it (the donation) is huge,” Rybak said. “That was such a great feeling to know that my work was a tiny part of that, and I feel so grateful for the opportunity we had with Wisconsin Watch, just to get our word out there.”

The photo captions in this story were updated with the correct spelling of Madelyn Rybak’s name. Wisconsin Watch regrets the error.

‘It felt so nice … to know what I did mattered’: Public Square subjects reflect on the power of community storytelling 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

When I started working at Wisconsin Watch nearly two years ago, the 2024 election was quickly approaching. In my role as the sole staff photojournalist, I began collaborating with my colleagues deeply reporting investigations and explainers that held power to account and explored solutions to the biggest issues facing our state: health and welfare, government, education and employment, agriculture and the environment and justice and safety. 

As my colleagues followed timely news hooks for their election coverage through breaking news and investigations, I wanted to spend more time with the people behind the headlines. That planted the seeds for Public Square, a series of profiles exploring the lives of voters from across the state — not just recording who they planned to vote for but understanding why and documenting the daily experiences that shaped their decisions. 

Soon after I began working on the original series of voter profiles, we realized this project was about far more than a single election and would require more time, care and energy to give each story the attention it deserved. At the time — and still today — I was thinking a lot about how politically divided this country and Wisconsin can feel while also hearing about the decline of third spaces: public places beyond work and home where people gather and build community. As more of our lives moved online, those spaces seemed to shrink or be forgotten.

Public Square became a direct response to those questions about where people can still find connections, regardless of political identity. As I traveled across the state, we introduced readers to their neighbors and invited them to suggest who we should talk to next. As the series grew, we aimed to highlight the roles people play in their communities, explore the issues shaping their lives and pair those stories with portraits. 

I photographed this project on medium-format film using a 1950s-era Yashica-D camera that produced square images — an approach that slowed the portrait process and helped me connect with each person I photographed. Pairing these images with the concept of meeting people where they gather and build community inspired the project’s name. 

Over the last two years, this project has come to reflect Wisconsin Watch’s evolving mission: using journalism to help make Wisconsin communities stronger, more informed and more connected. As we report on the issues shaping people’s lives, we hope our work not only holds power to account but also helps people feel seen, better understand their neighbors and engage more deeply in civic life.

On Saturday, June 6, Wisconsin Watch will host a free, live outdoor exhibition and community conversation in Green Bay’s St. James Park. Large-format photography prints from Public Square will be displayed throughout the park alongside excerpts from reporting that provide context and insight into each story. I’ll moderate a panel discussion featuring local residents highlighted in the project’s images, with a Q&A to follow. Attendees will receive a free zine, and the installation will remain in the public park for three weeks following the event. You can sign up here. 

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll attend and spend some time reflecting on how you connect with your own communities. I’m excited to see you there.

Wisconsin Watch to bring Public Square photography exhibit to Green Bay 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.