By Maggie Blaha and other neighbors
I am glad that I am somewhat of a calendar nut. I have saved our calendars from 1972 to the present time. They proved to be a healthy source of information about the development of the Martin Drive Neighborhood Association. We have bounced dates around for a couple years now. I finally feel that I know what we have been looking for as far as starting and keeping the MDNA going.
It seems that there was a meeting on August 31, 1988 of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, I have no memory of that meeting and the calendar memo does not go farther than just the indication stated.
The meeting that our early members most remember took place on February 18, 1993 at the Devitts. Tom and I hosted the next one on March 9, 1993 and Leo Ries had one on March 30, 1993. Our neighbor David, who had just moved into his house, was the host for April 27. This information might give you a clue as to how slowly the process worked for getting us into the habit of meeting on the same night each month. Neighborhood Housing Services had a representative working with us all along the way. Mike Hogan almost held our hands to convince us that this was something we could do. In that vein, NHS provided workshops where we actually learned how to go about organizing and improving our neighborhoods. One of the best parts of the workshops was getting to know people from around the city who were in the same boat. Marquette U. hosted one on May 8th from 8 - 4 PM. We followed that up quickly with one on June 5th that I think was at the Washington Park Senior Center from 8:30 - 10:30.
At the end of
June, UWM provided us with a meeting space. We were now off and running but
Mike stayed with us for almost three years to ensure a stable organization.
Several other people hosted our monthly meetings, Al and Betty Siemsen in December, 1993 and March of 1994. We used the Heights' Café for our January, 1994 meeting. Our first survey was kicked off with bakery from Mike on April 30, 1994. In looking back we see that we also felt that a neighborhood rummage sale would invite neighbors to become acquainted as well as eliminate the excess in the houses on June 11, 1994. From July 14, 1994 the meeting night varied from the second Thursday, third Thursday, fourth Thursday to the second Monday until January 20, 1996. We had spent 3 years getting settled down. Under Pat Mueller's leadership, we met many service providers and wonderful collaborators who helped us build up our confidence as supporters of the City of Milwaukee. It was wise of us to establish a permanent meeting time of the second Monday of the month at a somewhat permanent location at the Blaha residence. Pat took the lead almost from the beginning until March of 2001. NHS did send us other representatives but few stayed, probably because we were ready to be on our own.
In May, 2001 MDNA underwent a re-organization of responsibilities. Maggie agreed to be the agenda setter and everyone at that meeting volunteered readily to accept one of the many roles needed for an effective organization to work. Here it is, May, 2005 and we have accomplished much that we set out to do those many years ago. We have a diverse group of people regularly attending meetings. We have many neighbors interested and willing to read the minutes of the meetings, keeping up their properties, helping when and where they can, and adding their own spin on things. We have newer neighbors with pulsing energy really pushing us to improve. We are now able to offer experiences for our young people, safety activities for anyone, gatherings for the individual blocks/apartments or the newest event for the entire neighborhood, the picnic in August. These might look like new ideas, but the groundwork was indeed seeded during the past twelve years by the dreams of the early property owners and association members. We have much to do. We hope to have even more people sharing the load by volunteering to help fulfill the ideas of the MDNA.