No 2024 Recipient
2023 Recipient
Global Citizen - Colin Hanson: A Walk In Their Shoes
A Walk in Their Shoes is the idea of a single teacher that grew and took on a life of its own. As late as the 1980 U.S. Census, Marathon County, Wisconsin, was part of the “whitest" congressional districts in the United States. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s, central Wisconsin began to see immigration of Southeast Asian refugees. Today, the Wausau School District—the largest district in the county—boasts students who speak over 35 different home languages. It is critical that our young people learn to work and live in a global society. As educators, we also feel that it is important that young people understand the impact of other cultures and that history takes place everyday across our planet. Our hope is that A Walk in Their Shoes can continue to bring authors with compelling stories of humanity and transformation to students and community members in Marathon County. A Walk in Their Shoes is a collaborative effort by north central Wisconsin educators who hope to put a very personal face on the current events that fill the airwaves, print media, and the Internet. By providing access to powerful speakers who have first-hand experience with contemporary history we hope to provide middle school students across central Wisconsin with lessons that impact students’ lives, helping them see the world with different eyes, the opportunity to look at life from a global perspective, and the chance to see that one person can truly make a difference.
2022 Recipient
2022 Global Citizen: Madeline Uraneck
Just because a woman has traveled solo through, held jobs in, or studied in 64 countries doesn’t make her a global expert. Just because she’s circled back to revisit Japan 8 times, Sweden 11 times, and Norway 12 times doesn’t make her an accomplished linguist. But it does make her willing to self-identify as “global citizen.” I feel comfortable being in many of the world’s more isolated spaces, such as a tiny village on a mountain top. I love temperature extremes, from cross-country skiing in snowy forests to summer plunges in icy waterfalls to wandering across wind-blown deserts. My best surprises come from the remarkable people I meet, the strangers who reach out a friendly hand to guide me to a mosque or a dance hall, then bring me home to their own hut or living room. Small children sense my family radar and become good guides and language teachers. Even though I am a woman without children, I have more families than most. As I explore the grand patchwork of ethnicity and cultures, I find that people share my desire for creativity, joy, and peace. On these pages, I share some reflections and will value your responses.
2021 Lack of Recipient per Beyond-ference and Outside Circumstances
2020 Recipient
Global Citizen Award--Team Rubicon
Jake Wood and William McNulty Team Rubicon began when Jake Wood, William McNulty and a small group of other like minded military veterans saw the devastating impact of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and decided they wanted to help. They worked through friends and family to gather medical supplies and went to help. After that experience, they realized that their experiences as veterans put them in a unique position to be able to help areas in times of crisis and Team Rubicon was founded. Team Rubicon has two major goals: to help in situations where there may be an inadequate disaster response based on a variety of factors and to help reintegrate veterans into civilian life by providing them opportunities where their experiences and training can make them more effective in service to others. Team Rubicon has performed over 100 missions and worked a wide variety or domestic and international natural disasters.
2019 Recipient- Sleep in Heavenly Peace - WI Portage Chapter
In February of 2018, Brian Scheibach was watching a new episode of the Facebook series Returning the Favor where host, Mike Rowe, finds “do-gooders slightly better than ourselves” who are doing things in their community. The show was featuring Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) and its creator, Luke Mickelson from Twin Falls, ID who was organizing bunk bed build days where volunteers came together and build and deliver bunk beds to kids who might have been sleeping on floor. Brian felt it more than a coincidence and put it out to his Facebook friends about bringing the idea to Portage, WI. By the end of the week, Brian had reached out to Luke Mickelson asking about how to bring a chapter to Portage. It didn’t take long, by the end of April Brian had traveled to Twin Falls, ID with other interested chapter presidents from all over the country and learned what it would take to get a chapter up and running. Fast forward one year and the SHP -WI Portage Chapter has built and delivered 100 beds to kids who otherwise would be poor sleeping conditions. But even more importantly there’s been over 200 different volunteers from around Portage and the surrounding communities who have stepped up and helped out changing the lives of kids. Brian is proud to see all the positives coming out of this initiative but none more importantly than enjoying this experience with his entire family. His wife Lesley, is the Donations Chairperson, his daughters, Lexi and Tori both come home from college and participate in any and all build and delivery days, and his high school aged son, Braeden, is in charge of all branding of the beds during the build days. Brian is currently employed as the Technology Director at School District of Cudahy. He grew up in Fond du Lac, went to UW-Whitewater for Elementary Education and taught in the Wauwatosa school district early on in his career. So he understands the need for a good night’s sleep. If you want more information on how to get involved by all means look us up on Facebook. (www.facebook.com/SHPPortage/) www.shpbeds.org
2018 Recipient-Fierce Freedom
In 2008, Jenny Almquist was at a presentation on human sex trafficking and couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. How could slavery be happening in this day and age? She decided she had to do something and with her husband, Dave Almquist, started a retail business, Fierce Beauty, to raise money for organizations that free men, women, and children from human trafficking. The mission evolved, and in 2012 Jenny launched a non-profit organization, Fierce Freedom, to educate and raise awareness about human trafficking in northwest Wisconsin. In 2013 the organization opened its office in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Fierce Freedom educates the public about the fact that human trafficking isn't just something that happens only in overseas third-world countries or in large cities. This crime against the most vulnerable among us occurs right here in the United States, right here in the Midwest, right here in rural Wisconsin. By educating the public, law enforcement, politicians and others about human trafficking, Fierce Freedom will continue to help reduce this horrific crime. During the past few years, Fierce Freedom has played an important role not only in western Wisconsin but across the state in doing just that. The organization has spoken about the harsh realities of human trafficking to representatives in schools, churches, police departments, city and county government, state officials and with anyone else willing to listen. Fierce Freedom has forged relationships with those entities and others and has helped enact legislation at the state level that has significantly improved trafficking-related laws, enlisting bipartisan support. Despite those successes, and the growing support for the efforts of Fierce Freedom, much work remains to make meaningful inroads against sex and labor trafficking. Fighting those crimes will require continued work of people and agencies across Wisconsin and elsewhere, and Fierce Freedom plans to be play an even more vital role in those efforts in the future.
2017 Recipient--Will Allen and Growing Power
Mr. Will Allen and Growing Power, Inc. as this year’s recipient of the WCSS Global Citizen Award winner.Will grew up the child of a sharecropper. After a short stint playing in the American Basketball Association and later the European League, Will began a career in corporate sales and marketing. Eventually, he tired of his career in sales and took over his wife’s family farm.
While searching for a place to sell his produce he found a vacant garden center on Milwaukee’s north side, the last tract in the city of Milwaukee still zoned for agriculture. Here could not only sell food and grow food on-site in a neighborhood where there was little fresh food to be found. His life changed when youth including kids who lived in the largest low-income public housing project in Milwaukee, asked him for assistance with growing their own vegetables. Will became teacher and trainer,. In 1995, Growing Power Inc. was born: a not-for-profit center for urban agriculture training and building community food security systems.
Growing Power is a national non-profit organization that works to transform communities by supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live through the development of Community Food Systems. These systems provide high-quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community. Growing Power develops Community Food Centers, as a key component of Community Food Systems, through training, active demonstration, outreach, and technical assistance. It is involved in more than 70 projects and outreach programs in Milwaukee, across the United States and throughout the world. Will has trained and taught in the Ukraine, Macedonia and Kenya, and has plans in place to create community food centers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Haiti
Will has been awarded the John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” and named a McArthur Fellow – only the second farmer ever honored. He is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was one of four national spokesmen who stood on the dais with First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to launch her “Let’s Move!” initiative. In 2010, Time magazine named Will as one of 100 World’s Most Influential People.
2016 Recipient-- David A. Block
David Block earned a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from Carroll University in 1976 and a PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1983. He taught in Maryland for nine years, then returned to teach in Wisconsin in 1988. At Carroll University, he served for years as Chair of the Geography, Environmental Science, and Life Sciences programs, as manager of the university’s wetland field station, and as Waukesha’s National Weather Service cooperative weather observer. He retired from full-time teaching in 2010.
At Carroll, David taught a variety of geography and environmental science courses which provided local and international field experiences for students. He served on the university’s International and Off-Campus Programs Committee, and organized field studies in Alaska, Kenya, Tanzania, Belize, and Costa Rica. He and his wife, Terese, housed and hosted Carroll students from East Africa for many years, and developed close ties with their families.
Given his passion for geography and compassion for people in need, David organized nine academic and mission related trips to East Africa over a twenty year period. He visited the rural village of Ribe (“ree-bay”) Kenya in 2002, and met with the family of one of Carroll’s international students. They shared about social, health, and environmental concerns in their impoverished village, and soon after, a foundational plan for a family and community partnership with Ribe was established.
In 2010, David’s family embarked on a school building project in Ribe. The first two-story building in the district was completed a year later. David’s church also oversaw completion of a community church and renovation of a women’s center nearby. When Carroll instituted an annual academic theme program that same year, David assisted in formalizing the partnership between the university and Ribe. In response to Carroll’s 2011-12 “Water” theme, funds were raised to implement a gravity-fed water distribution system with 30,000 feet of buried pipe and 52 surface spigot sites. Over 80 percent of the villagers were given reliable access to potable water.
This was just the beginning. In response to Carroll’s 2012-13 “Energy” theme, David organized and conducted fundraising efforts and project planning for installation of electricity in eight primary schools, purchase of emergency generators, and the initiation of a fuelwood reforestation project. In response to Carroll’s 2013-14 “Humanity” theme, he coordinated an effort by local churches and the university to raise funds for medical supplies and equipment in a newly built, but empty, medical clinic. In response to Carroll’s 2014-15 “Time” theme, he assisted local donors, church partners, and the Carroll academic community in funding a systematic malaria education and eradication program in Ribe; over 300 nets were installed in homes for residents identified as “at risk” for the disease. Finally, in response to this year’s 2015-16 “History” theme, David coordinated a distance learning project involving Carroll and Ribe students, with the goal of preparing an oral history of Ribe, safeguarding historic materials, and improving their outdoor cultural center.
David has also organized natural history tours in Costa Rica, Panama and Belize for Waukesha’s Retzer Nature Center, and collaborated on an environmental education program in rural Belize. As Chair of Missions at his church, he has co-organized a well drilling project in Kenya and a church building project in the Dominican Republic. Closer to home, he has volunteered with several local concerns, including the Hope Center’s Project Move program for indigent residents and the Hearts in Motion medical mission organization. Lastly, he serves as an annual judge in the state’s National Geographic Bee final competition.
As a geography educator and church mission organizer, David has embraced the role of global citizen with benefit to many. He has a gift for mobilizing people around worthy social causes, which, in turn, positively impacts and empowers those being served. To this, a rural village in Africa can attest.
2015 Recipient-Remembering Jesse Parker, Inc.
Most kids in the world wake early each day to carry heavy jerry cans filled with dirty water across steep terrain, repeating the tiresome task several times before sunset. Many will not survive past the age of five years and most young girls will be forced to haul water instead of going to school. Can one boy make a difference for these kids? Can one boy bind together communities a world apart, extending the borders of their hometowns? Yes. This is the legacy of a young Tomah boy, gone too soon, yet leaving a lasting ripple of hope. The story of one rural Wisconsin community rising to support his dreams as chronicled in a one hour WKBT news special, “Tears to Water”.
Jesse Parker only lived for 17 years, but his life has impacted many in Wisconsin and Africa. He was killed July 4th, 2009 in a tragic car accident while traveling home from a family beach vacation. He never held the typical high school dreams of prom king or quarterback, instead he dreamed of earning an engineering degree to build clean water wells for kids in Africa. He championed many social causes, believing we are called to be our brother’s keeper.
His small hometown of Tomah WI mourns his loss and has risen to embrace his legacy. Jesse was an avid runner. His coaches and teammates began an annual charity run/ walk to embrace his dreams. The annual Jesse Race has grown to include a yearly gathering of more than 800 runners and walkers of all ages and abilities joining with over 200 volunteers to embrace a community of compassion. United in the knowledge that we each can make a difference, no matter our abilities, age or circumstances.
In the five years since Jesse’s death his charity, Remembering Jesse Parker, Inc. has provided more than $250,000 of charitable support. Funding local projects that give food to hungry families, coats to kids, support for Special Olympians, assistance to families suffering from cancer, support to disadvantaged youth and the elderly, compassion initiatives for school kids, scholarships to youth on humanitarian trips or young adults with college education, and to provide lifesaving car seats and cribs to local infants.
Globally, Jesse’s vision has provided clean water to more than 30,000 people in need. Building a bridge of friendship and hope that binds the small town of Tomah WI to several villages along the equator of Uganda, Africa. Several classrooms in Tomah have hauled dirty water so the kids can experience the life of their African friends. Jesse’s dream inspired local Rotary clubs to champion a $300,000 rotary grant that will provide more than 20,000 people in rural Uganda with clean water, education, and micro businesses. Proof that community can extend beyond the borders of our hometown. By joining together those ripples of hope have become waves of action. Each of us can change the world, one drop at a time.
2014 Recipients-Joseph Quinnell and Susan Perri--The Thailand Project
During the summer of 2005, Joseph Quinnell, an undergraduate art student focusing on photojournalism and Communication: Public Relations at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, befriended a population of children along the Thai/Burma border who “did not exist”. They were born stateless, meaning they had no citizenship from any country, were barred from obtaining an education, and were aggressively targeted by human traffickers. These children and their elders believed that they would never have equal access to education. Uninformed of their rights and powerless, they were without hope and unable to dream of what they could one day become.
After returning to the United States, Quinnell partnered with Susan Perri, an undergraduate fine arts student focusing on graphic design and marketing. Together they promised this population of stateless children and young adults that they would one day have equal access to education and, for the next eight years, worked tirelessly to make their promises true. Every “impossible” goal they set before themselves has now been achieved and equal education is now Thai law.
Quinnell and Perri’s efforts have been publicly recognized by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, the Thai Government, the U.S. State Department and national and international media. Most recently, their work led to the largest success story in Thailand’s history regarding hundreds of stateless individuals being granted Thai citizenship and access to equal human rights.
Along with their work with The Thailand Project, Quinnell also works part-time for the City of Appleton at the Appleton Public Library and Perri works part-time at United Way Fox Cities and the Volunteer Center of East Central Wisconsin.
To learn more about The Thailand Project and the issue of statelessness in Southeast Asia, please visit: www.TheThailandProject.org.
2013 Recipient-Arno Michaelis
From the time Arno Michaelis was 17 until he was 24, was a substantial part of the white power movement. He was a founding member of what went on to become the largest racist skinhead organization on Earth, and a Reverend of a self-declared Racial Holy War.
Today, Arno is the co-founder of The Life After Hate and a Kindness is Not Weakness Warrior from Milwaukee. (http://lifeafterhate.org/) The publishing arm, La Prensa, publishes books in print, audio, and e-book formats, along with curriculum material to supplement the Kindness Not Weakness outreach. Coverage of these activities in the magazine creates further opportunities to broaden and empower this practice of peace, which is the most effective response to the cycle of violence that grips human society. KNWW is a national organization based on character development that empowers people to treat each other with kindness and respect while finding the strength and determination to achieve their goals. Character development results in a natural affinity for personal responsibility, which addresses a host of symptoms caused by lack of character, such as bullying, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, and substance abuse.
Arno’s award winning book My Life After Hate scrubs scabs off the festering wound of racism, then soothes with the essential wisdom of forgiveness and compassion.
2012 Recipient-Door County Habitat for Humanity
Rick Nelson has dedicated his life to finding ways to help people in need not only here in the United States but also in Honduras. He married his high school girlfriend, Barbara, and they have been married for 40 years. He has two sons, a daughter and a granddaughter.
He has been involved in helping others since he was 23 years old when he began working for the State of Wisconsin’s Job Service. He received awards from the State for his work helping Vietnam veterans affected by Agent Orange. Early in his career, Rick moved with his family to Honduras where he spent 10 years working with the Miskito people on the eastern coast of Honduras. Rick was the administrator of a medical clinic and treasurer of the Honduran Moravian church. Both of those jobs had long been occupied by people from the United States. But Rick believes in the value of local leadership so he trained two local Miskito people and turned both jobs over to them, an unprecedented move at the time. Rick moved on to start the first high school in the largely Miskito region on the eastern coast of Honduras. Before this, Miskito children had to leave their families and move to a city hundreds of miles away to attend high school. This was very costly and as a result many children were not able to go to high school.
Rick returned to his hometown to become Executive Director for Habitat for Humanity in Door County. When Rick started with Habitat, teams of volunteers were building one to two houses a year. Today, after five years with Habitat, Rick and a team of volunteers are building three houses a year, running a Restore that sells used furniture with proceeds going to Habitat, and painting houses through a program called a “Brush with Kindness” that gathers volunteers and staff to paint houses for older people and others that cannot afford to paint their homes. In addition, Rick coordinates and guides teams of volunteers from Door County Habitat to travel to Honduras and work with Habitat International to build homes in some of the poorest areas of the country. Rick also recently started a project called Harvest the Rain to purchase and install water tanks for collecting rain water in Honduran villages with no clean drinking water. He and a group of volunteers travel several times a year to Honduras to help install the water tanks in local villages. Over 105 tanks have been installed.
Rick has devoted his entire career to helping others. This award is an honor and an opportunity to shed light on some of the projects to which Rick, and many others, have devoted their time and energy.
Door County Habitat for Humanity, 410 N. 14th Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
http://doorcountyhabitat.org/
2011 Recipient-Cristianne Wendler
Cristianne Wendler has worked in the field of HIV/AIDS for almost 15 years in the US and South Africa, with a focus on youth prevention and education and AIDS orphans. Cristianne has a master's degree in Public Health from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and bachelor degrees in International Relations and Political Science, as well as a certificate in African Studies. Cristianne was the recipient of the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, which took her to South Africa in 2003 where she began her work with AIDS orphans by helping to establish Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry. Ikageng is a nonprofit organization in Soweto, South Africa that cares for children who have been orphaned by AIDS by providing the children with shelter, education, medical care, food, clothing and psychological support. Ikageng began with 33 children; today, it cares for 1,500. Upon Cristianne’s return to the US, she furthered her work with AIDS orphans through Kidlinks World, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin. Kidlinks is a nonprofit organization which benefits AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children in Southern Africa through education and fundraising.
Cristianne is the author and architect of the Global AIDS curriculum, which educates about HIV/AIDS as a global, social justice issue, exploring cofounding issues of poverty, gender inequality and conflict. The curriculum has a service learning component and resources to help teachers and students implement a service learning project in conjunction with the curriculum. Cristianne wrote the Global AIDS curriculum because she has seen firsthand how HIV/AIDS is devastating families, communities and countries and she believes that we all need to better understand the full context of the greatest global pandemic of our time. If you would like more information about the Global AIDS curriculum or to contact Cristianne, please go to www.globalaidscurriculum.com.
Cristianne would sincerely like to thank the Wisconsin Social Studies Council for this wonderful award. She is deeply honored to receive the award and apologizes for not being able to accept the award in person, but she is currently completing a fellowship in Thailand on peace studies and conflict resolution, which I hope will further my work to educate and empower young people to fight social injustice.
2010 Recipient-Dr. Sharon E. Hutchinson, UW - Madison Department of Anthropology
As one of the monitors on the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, Sharon has helped investigate and document attacks against civilians by the Sudan Army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and government-allied militias. Educated, passionate, and fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Nuer, Sharon represents a threat to those that profit from the subjugation of the southern Sudanese. She has been threatened with poisoning and assassination a number of times, but nothing has stopped her efforts to shed light on the country’s human rights abuses.
Her passion is to make sure that the voices of the southern Sudanese reach the U.S. and international human rights communities. She helped organize grassroots peace activities and guided aid work through NGOs such as Amnesty International and Save the Children, and conducted extensive undercover work documenting civilian human rights abuses for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Currently, she is working on constructing three elementary schools in the Western Upper Nile and is in the process of developing a curriculum and printing course materials.
Sharon is serving as an expert witness in a major U.S. Federal Court Case, raised by current and former residents of southern Sudan, against Talisman, a major Canadian oil company, and the government of Sudan. The plaintiffs allege that the company collaborated with the Sudanese government in a policy of ethnic cleansing of civilian populations to facilitate oil exploration and extraction activities.
She was the principal investigator and study designer in 1999 for a major research project on “Displaced Populations in Khartoum: A Study of Social and Economic Conditions” for Save the Children, Denmark. She trained and directed 20 Southern Sudanese research assistants, analyzed data, and made policy recommendations for international assistance.
Sharon has created and funded the nonprofit organization Schools for Sudan. She pays the teachers’ salaries, searches for and sends over books and computers and purchases supplies. Reliable channels are hard to find, but she is using contacts with friends in USAID and people she’s hired in Sudan to make sure the money and supplies arrive. The organization is starting off small but Sharon still hopes to add a couple more schools.
Sharon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
2009 Recipient-James A. Harris, We Help War Victims
James A. Harris is the co-chair of “We Help War Victims,” an organization that assists survivors of war and other conflict to rebuild their lives. Since 2000, the organization’s main effort has been to assist Hmong and Lao families who have been impacted by the Indochina War.
Mr. Harris began his career as an educator in the Wisconsin Indian Teacher Corps where he taught children of the Ho Chunk Tribe living near Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
For 10 years Mr. Harris was a classroom teacher. Among his accomplishments were the acquisition of numerous teaching awards and the distinction of becoming one of the first make kindergarten teachers in Wisconsin.
He was the primary-level author of Holt Social Studies published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. He also authored the texts and teachers’ guides for three levels of Science Horizons published by Silver, Burdett and Ginn. For more than 20 years Mr. Harris served as a school administrator and was a frequent presenter at conferences and staff development workshops. When his public advocacy for the health of his students resulted in a local paper mill installing several millions of dollars worth of new pollution controls, he was recognized by the Washington Post and several environmental groups for his leadership. Later in his career, he was selected by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as the state’s “Elementary Principal of the Year.”
Since the year 2000, Mr. Harrison has made numerous trips to Laos to deliver medical supplies and school libraries to needy villages. Mr. Harrison is now employed as a project manager of Phoenix Clearance Ltd., a company doing clearance of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Laos. He is currently living in Nakai District, Khammuan Province, Lao but returns to Wausau for part of the year.
2008 Recipient-Jay M. Breyer, Missing Persons Network
Jay has been intimately involved in the prevention and rescue of missing children and adults since he helped found the Youth Educated in Safety program in 1994. Y.E.S. was founded following the abduction, assault and murder of 12 year old Cora Jones, Amy Breyer and Laurie Depies. The organization has grown and evolved into the Missing Persons Network of Wisconsin of which Jay is the Executive Director. They have provided thousands of children with photo Kid Care IDs and DNA Life Print IDs. By 2002, they had distributed their 25,000th kit. Jay is tireless in his volunteer activities including the Boy Scouts, the Lutheran Church, Lions Club, Bubolz Nature Preserve and many more. In addition, his personal interests include Writing Poetry-Nationally Published Poet, Beekeeper, Maple Syrup Producer, Puppeteer and acting. Jay has been married to Molly for 25 years and has 4 children. He has been a Partner in Tile Unlimited for 25 years. When Jay was told he would receive the first WCSS Global Citizenship Award, he was overwhelmed because it came from teachers and he wrote the following:
"Overall, we have been involved in the education of over 70,000 children and adults and have helped search for and recover 350 missing children and adults. I have dedicated my life in search for the recovery of missing and exploited children and adults. I am no hero, but a person that made a promise to a little girl at her funeral that I would not give up because I knew she fought for her life with every last ounce of her life. We have no choice but to fight for that same right to be safe and empower ourselves not only to protect but to prevent our children from being victims. It is hard to reflect on a resume because there are so many things others have done to help me continue, so this recognition is not only for me but many others who have given all they could to help us do what we do best, fight for the safety of our children and to bring them home when they are missing."
2023 Recipient
Global Citizen - Colin Hanson: A Walk In Their Shoes
A Walk in Their Shoes is the idea of a single teacher that grew and took on a life of its own. As late as the 1980 U.S. Census, Marathon County, Wisconsin, was part of the “whitest" congressional districts in the United States. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s, central Wisconsin began to see immigration of Southeast Asian refugees. Today, the Wausau School District—the largest district in the county—boasts students who speak over 35 different home languages. It is critical that our young people learn to work and live in a global society. As educators, we also feel that it is important that young people understand the impact of other cultures and that history takes place everyday across our planet. Our hope is that A Walk in Their Shoes can continue to bring authors with compelling stories of humanity and transformation to students and community members in Marathon County. A Walk in Their Shoes is a collaborative effort by north central Wisconsin educators who hope to put a very personal face on the current events that fill the airwaves, print media, and the Internet. By providing access to powerful speakers who have first-hand experience with contemporary history we hope to provide middle school students across central Wisconsin with lessons that impact students’ lives, helping them see the world with different eyes, the opportunity to look at life from a global perspective, and the chance to see that one person can truly make a difference.
2022 Recipient
2022 Global Citizen: Madeline Uraneck
Just because a woman has traveled solo through, held jobs in, or studied in 64 countries doesn’t make her a global expert. Just because she’s circled back to revisit Japan 8 times, Sweden 11 times, and Norway 12 times doesn’t make her an accomplished linguist. But it does make her willing to self-identify as “global citizen.” I feel comfortable being in many of the world’s more isolated spaces, such as a tiny village on a mountain top. I love temperature extremes, from cross-country skiing in snowy forests to summer plunges in icy waterfalls to wandering across wind-blown deserts. My best surprises come from the remarkable people I meet, the strangers who reach out a friendly hand to guide me to a mosque or a dance hall, then bring me home to their own hut or living room. Small children sense my family radar and become good guides and language teachers. Even though I am a woman without children, I have more families than most. As I explore the grand patchwork of ethnicity and cultures, I find that people share my desire for creativity, joy, and peace. On these pages, I share some reflections and will value your responses.
2021 Lack of Recipient per Beyond-ference and Outside Circumstances
2020 Recipient
Global Citizen Award--Team Rubicon
Jake Wood and William McNulty Team Rubicon began when Jake Wood, William McNulty and a small group of other like minded military veterans saw the devastating impact of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and decided they wanted to help. They worked through friends and family to gather medical supplies and went to help. After that experience, they realized that their experiences as veterans put them in a unique position to be able to help areas in times of crisis and Team Rubicon was founded. Team Rubicon has two major goals: to help in situations where there may be an inadequate disaster response based on a variety of factors and to help reintegrate veterans into civilian life by providing them opportunities where their experiences and training can make them more effective in service to others. Team Rubicon has performed over 100 missions and worked a wide variety or domestic and international natural disasters.
2019 Recipient- Sleep in Heavenly Peace - WI Portage Chapter
In February of 2018, Brian Scheibach was watching a new episode of the Facebook series Returning the Favor where host, Mike Rowe, finds “do-gooders slightly better than ourselves” who are doing things in their community. The show was featuring Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) and its creator, Luke Mickelson from Twin Falls, ID who was organizing bunk bed build days where volunteers came together and build and deliver bunk beds to kids who might have been sleeping on floor. Brian felt it more than a coincidence and put it out to his Facebook friends about bringing the idea to Portage, WI. By the end of the week, Brian had reached out to Luke Mickelson asking about how to bring a chapter to Portage. It didn’t take long, by the end of April Brian had traveled to Twin Falls, ID with other interested chapter presidents from all over the country and learned what it would take to get a chapter up and running. Fast forward one year and the SHP -WI Portage Chapter has built and delivered 100 beds to kids who otherwise would be poor sleeping conditions. But even more importantly there’s been over 200 different volunteers from around Portage and the surrounding communities who have stepped up and helped out changing the lives of kids. Brian is proud to see all the positives coming out of this initiative but none more importantly than enjoying this experience with his entire family. His wife Lesley, is the Donations Chairperson, his daughters, Lexi and Tori both come home from college and participate in any and all build and delivery days, and his high school aged son, Braeden, is in charge of all branding of the beds during the build days. Brian is currently employed as the Technology Director at School District of Cudahy. He grew up in Fond du Lac, went to UW-Whitewater for Elementary Education and taught in the Wauwatosa school district early on in his career. So he understands the need for a good night’s sleep. If you want more information on how to get involved by all means look us up on Facebook. (www.facebook.com/SHPPortage/) www.shpbeds.org
2018 Recipient-Fierce Freedom
In 2008, Jenny Almquist was at a presentation on human sex trafficking and couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. How could slavery be happening in this day and age? She decided she had to do something and with her husband, Dave Almquist, started a retail business, Fierce Beauty, to raise money for organizations that free men, women, and children from human trafficking. The mission evolved, and in 2012 Jenny launched a non-profit organization, Fierce Freedom, to educate and raise awareness about human trafficking in northwest Wisconsin. In 2013 the organization opened its office in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Fierce Freedom educates the public about the fact that human trafficking isn't just something that happens only in overseas third-world countries or in large cities. This crime against the most vulnerable among us occurs right here in the United States, right here in the Midwest, right here in rural Wisconsin. By educating the public, law enforcement, politicians and others about human trafficking, Fierce Freedom will continue to help reduce this horrific crime. During the past few years, Fierce Freedom has played an important role not only in western Wisconsin but across the state in doing just that. The organization has spoken about the harsh realities of human trafficking to representatives in schools, churches, police departments, city and county government, state officials and with anyone else willing to listen. Fierce Freedom has forged relationships with those entities and others and has helped enact legislation at the state level that has significantly improved trafficking-related laws, enlisting bipartisan support. Despite those successes, and the growing support for the efforts of Fierce Freedom, much work remains to make meaningful inroads against sex and labor trafficking. Fighting those crimes will require continued work of people and agencies across Wisconsin and elsewhere, and Fierce Freedom plans to be play an even more vital role in those efforts in the future.
2017 Recipient--Will Allen and Growing Power
Mr. Will Allen and Growing Power, Inc. as this year’s recipient of the WCSS Global Citizen Award winner.Will grew up the child of a sharecropper. After a short stint playing in the American Basketball Association and later the European League, Will began a career in corporate sales and marketing. Eventually, he tired of his career in sales and took over his wife’s family farm.
While searching for a place to sell his produce he found a vacant garden center on Milwaukee’s north side, the last tract in the city of Milwaukee still zoned for agriculture. Here could not only sell food and grow food on-site in a neighborhood where there was little fresh food to be found. His life changed when youth including kids who lived in the largest low-income public housing project in Milwaukee, asked him for assistance with growing their own vegetables. Will became teacher and trainer,. In 1995, Growing Power Inc. was born: a not-for-profit center for urban agriculture training and building community food security systems.
Growing Power is a national non-profit organization that works to transform communities by supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live through the development of Community Food Systems. These systems provide high-quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community. Growing Power develops Community Food Centers, as a key component of Community Food Systems, through training, active demonstration, outreach, and technical assistance. It is involved in more than 70 projects and outreach programs in Milwaukee, across the United States and throughout the world. Will has trained and taught in the Ukraine, Macedonia and Kenya, and has plans in place to create community food centers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Haiti
Will has been awarded the John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” and named a McArthur Fellow – only the second farmer ever honored. He is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was one of four national spokesmen who stood on the dais with First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to launch her “Let’s Move!” initiative. In 2010, Time magazine named Will as one of 100 World’s Most Influential People.
2016 Recipient-- David A. Block
David Block earned a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from Carroll University in 1976 and a PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1983. He taught in Maryland for nine years, then returned to teach in Wisconsin in 1988. At Carroll University, he served for years as Chair of the Geography, Environmental Science, and Life Sciences programs, as manager of the university’s wetland field station, and as Waukesha’s National Weather Service cooperative weather observer. He retired from full-time teaching in 2010.
At Carroll, David taught a variety of geography and environmental science courses which provided local and international field experiences for students. He served on the university’s International and Off-Campus Programs Committee, and organized field studies in Alaska, Kenya, Tanzania, Belize, and Costa Rica. He and his wife, Terese, housed and hosted Carroll students from East Africa for many years, and developed close ties with their families.
Given his passion for geography and compassion for people in need, David organized nine academic and mission related trips to East Africa over a twenty year period. He visited the rural village of Ribe (“ree-bay”) Kenya in 2002, and met with the family of one of Carroll’s international students. They shared about social, health, and environmental concerns in their impoverished village, and soon after, a foundational plan for a family and community partnership with Ribe was established.
In 2010, David’s family embarked on a school building project in Ribe. The first two-story building in the district was completed a year later. David’s church also oversaw completion of a community church and renovation of a women’s center nearby. When Carroll instituted an annual academic theme program that same year, David assisted in formalizing the partnership between the university and Ribe. In response to Carroll’s 2011-12 “Water” theme, funds were raised to implement a gravity-fed water distribution system with 30,000 feet of buried pipe and 52 surface spigot sites. Over 80 percent of the villagers were given reliable access to potable water.
This was just the beginning. In response to Carroll’s 2012-13 “Energy” theme, David organized and conducted fundraising efforts and project planning for installation of electricity in eight primary schools, purchase of emergency generators, and the initiation of a fuelwood reforestation project. In response to Carroll’s 2013-14 “Humanity” theme, he coordinated an effort by local churches and the university to raise funds for medical supplies and equipment in a newly built, but empty, medical clinic. In response to Carroll’s 2014-15 “Time” theme, he assisted local donors, church partners, and the Carroll academic community in funding a systematic malaria education and eradication program in Ribe; over 300 nets were installed in homes for residents identified as “at risk” for the disease. Finally, in response to this year’s 2015-16 “History” theme, David coordinated a distance learning project involving Carroll and Ribe students, with the goal of preparing an oral history of Ribe, safeguarding historic materials, and improving their outdoor cultural center.
David has also organized natural history tours in Costa Rica, Panama and Belize for Waukesha’s Retzer Nature Center, and collaborated on an environmental education program in rural Belize. As Chair of Missions at his church, he has co-organized a well drilling project in Kenya and a church building project in the Dominican Republic. Closer to home, he has volunteered with several local concerns, including the Hope Center’s Project Move program for indigent residents and the Hearts in Motion medical mission organization. Lastly, he serves as an annual judge in the state’s National Geographic Bee final competition.
As a geography educator and church mission organizer, David has embraced the role of global citizen with benefit to many. He has a gift for mobilizing people around worthy social causes, which, in turn, positively impacts and empowers those being served. To this, a rural village in Africa can attest.
2015 Recipient-Remembering Jesse Parker, Inc.
Most kids in the world wake early each day to carry heavy jerry cans filled with dirty water across steep terrain, repeating the tiresome task several times before sunset. Many will not survive past the age of five years and most young girls will be forced to haul water instead of going to school. Can one boy make a difference for these kids? Can one boy bind together communities a world apart, extending the borders of their hometowns? Yes. This is the legacy of a young Tomah boy, gone too soon, yet leaving a lasting ripple of hope. The story of one rural Wisconsin community rising to support his dreams as chronicled in a one hour WKBT news special, “Tears to Water”.
Jesse Parker only lived for 17 years, but his life has impacted many in Wisconsin and Africa. He was killed July 4th, 2009 in a tragic car accident while traveling home from a family beach vacation. He never held the typical high school dreams of prom king or quarterback, instead he dreamed of earning an engineering degree to build clean water wells for kids in Africa. He championed many social causes, believing we are called to be our brother’s keeper.
His small hometown of Tomah WI mourns his loss and has risen to embrace his legacy. Jesse was an avid runner. His coaches and teammates began an annual charity run/ walk to embrace his dreams. The annual Jesse Race has grown to include a yearly gathering of more than 800 runners and walkers of all ages and abilities joining with over 200 volunteers to embrace a community of compassion. United in the knowledge that we each can make a difference, no matter our abilities, age or circumstances.
In the five years since Jesse’s death his charity, Remembering Jesse Parker, Inc. has provided more than $250,000 of charitable support. Funding local projects that give food to hungry families, coats to kids, support for Special Olympians, assistance to families suffering from cancer, support to disadvantaged youth and the elderly, compassion initiatives for school kids, scholarships to youth on humanitarian trips or young adults with college education, and to provide lifesaving car seats and cribs to local infants.
Globally, Jesse’s vision has provided clean water to more than 30,000 people in need. Building a bridge of friendship and hope that binds the small town of Tomah WI to several villages along the equator of Uganda, Africa. Several classrooms in Tomah have hauled dirty water so the kids can experience the life of their African friends. Jesse’s dream inspired local Rotary clubs to champion a $300,000 rotary grant that will provide more than 20,000 people in rural Uganda with clean water, education, and micro businesses. Proof that community can extend beyond the borders of our hometown. By joining together those ripples of hope have become waves of action. Each of us can change the world, one drop at a time.
2014 Recipients-Joseph Quinnell and Susan Perri--The Thailand Project
During the summer of 2005, Joseph Quinnell, an undergraduate art student focusing on photojournalism and Communication: Public Relations at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, befriended a population of children along the Thai/Burma border who “did not exist”. They were born stateless, meaning they had no citizenship from any country, were barred from obtaining an education, and were aggressively targeted by human traffickers. These children and their elders believed that they would never have equal access to education. Uninformed of their rights and powerless, they were without hope and unable to dream of what they could one day become.
After returning to the United States, Quinnell partnered with Susan Perri, an undergraduate fine arts student focusing on graphic design and marketing. Together they promised this population of stateless children and young adults that they would one day have equal access to education and, for the next eight years, worked tirelessly to make their promises true. Every “impossible” goal they set before themselves has now been achieved and equal education is now Thai law.
Quinnell and Perri’s efforts have been publicly recognized by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, the Thai Government, the U.S. State Department and national and international media. Most recently, their work led to the largest success story in Thailand’s history regarding hundreds of stateless individuals being granted Thai citizenship and access to equal human rights.
Along with their work with The Thailand Project, Quinnell also works part-time for the City of Appleton at the Appleton Public Library and Perri works part-time at United Way Fox Cities and the Volunteer Center of East Central Wisconsin.
To learn more about The Thailand Project and the issue of statelessness in Southeast Asia, please visit: www.TheThailandProject.org.
2013 Recipient-Arno Michaelis
From the time Arno Michaelis was 17 until he was 24, was a substantial part of the white power movement. He was a founding member of what went on to become the largest racist skinhead organization on Earth, and a Reverend of a self-declared Racial Holy War.
Today, Arno is the co-founder of The Life After Hate and a Kindness is Not Weakness Warrior from Milwaukee. (http://lifeafterhate.org/) The publishing arm, La Prensa, publishes books in print, audio, and e-book formats, along with curriculum material to supplement the Kindness Not Weakness outreach. Coverage of these activities in the magazine creates further opportunities to broaden and empower this practice of peace, which is the most effective response to the cycle of violence that grips human society. KNWW is a national organization based on character development that empowers people to treat each other with kindness and respect while finding the strength and determination to achieve their goals. Character development results in a natural affinity for personal responsibility, which addresses a host of symptoms caused by lack of character, such as bullying, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, and substance abuse.
Arno’s award winning book My Life After Hate scrubs scabs off the festering wound of racism, then soothes with the essential wisdom of forgiveness and compassion.
2012 Recipient-Door County Habitat for Humanity
Rick Nelson has dedicated his life to finding ways to help people in need not only here in the United States but also in Honduras. He married his high school girlfriend, Barbara, and they have been married for 40 years. He has two sons, a daughter and a granddaughter.
He has been involved in helping others since he was 23 years old when he began working for the State of Wisconsin’s Job Service. He received awards from the State for his work helping Vietnam veterans affected by Agent Orange. Early in his career, Rick moved with his family to Honduras where he spent 10 years working with the Miskito people on the eastern coast of Honduras. Rick was the administrator of a medical clinic and treasurer of the Honduran Moravian church. Both of those jobs had long been occupied by people from the United States. But Rick believes in the value of local leadership so he trained two local Miskito people and turned both jobs over to them, an unprecedented move at the time. Rick moved on to start the first high school in the largely Miskito region on the eastern coast of Honduras. Before this, Miskito children had to leave their families and move to a city hundreds of miles away to attend high school. This was very costly and as a result many children were not able to go to high school.
Rick returned to his hometown to become Executive Director for Habitat for Humanity in Door County. When Rick started with Habitat, teams of volunteers were building one to two houses a year. Today, after five years with Habitat, Rick and a team of volunteers are building three houses a year, running a Restore that sells used furniture with proceeds going to Habitat, and painting houses through a program called a “Brush with Kindness” that gathers volunteers and staff to paint houses for older people and others that cannot afford to paint their homes. In addition, Rick coordinates and guides teams of volunteers from Door County Habitat to travel to Honduras and work with Habitat International to build homes in some of the poorest areas of the country. Rick also recently started a project called Harvest the Rain to purchase and install water tanks for collecting rain water in Honduran villages with no clean drinking water. He and a group of volunteers travel several times a year to Honduras to help install the water tanks in local villages. Over 105 tanks have been installed.
Rick has devoted his entire career to helping others. This award is an honor and an opportunity to shed light on some of the projects to which Rick, and many others, have devoted their time and energy.
Door County Habitat for Humanity, 410 N. 14th Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
http://doorcountyhabitat.org/
2011 Recipient-Cristianne Wendler
Cristianne Wendler has worked in the field of HIV/AIDS for almost 15 years in the US and South Africa, with a focus on youth prevention and education and AIDS orphans. Cristianne has a master's degree in Public Health from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and bachelor degrees in International Relations and Political Science, as well as a certificate in African Studies. Cristianne was the recipient of the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, which took her to South Africa in 2003 where she began her work with AIDS orphans by helping to establish Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry. Ikageng is a nonprofit organization in Soweto, South Africa that cares for children who have been orphaned by AIDS by providing the children with shelter, education, medical care, food, clothing and psychological support. Ikageng began with 33 children; today, it cares for 1,500. Upon Cristianne’s return to the US, she furthered her work with AIDS orphans through Kidlinks World, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin. Kidlinks is a nonprofit organization which benefits AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children in Southern Africa through education and fundraising.
Cristianne is the author and architect of the Global AIDS curriculum, which educates about HIV/AIDS as a global, social justice issue, exploring cofounding issues of poverty, gender inequality and conflict. The curriculum has a service learning component and resources to help teachers and students implement a service learning project in conjunction with the curriculum. Cristianne wrote the Global AIDS curriculum because she has seen firsthand how HIV/AIDS is devastating families, communities and countries and she believes that we all need to better understand the full context of the greatest global pandemic of our time. If you would like more information about the Global AIDS curriculum or to contact Cristianne, please go to www.globalaidscurriculum.com.
Cristianne would sincerely like to thank the Wisconsin Social Studies Council for this wonderful award. She is deeply honored to receive the award and apologizes for not being able to accept the award in person, but she is currently completing a fellowship in Thailand on peace studies and conflict resolution, which I hope will further my work to educate and empower young people to fight social injustice.
2010 Recipient-Dr. Sharon E. Hutchinson, UW - Madison Department of Anthropology
As one of the monitors on the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, Sharon has helped investigate and document attacks against civilians by the Sudan Army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and government-allied militias. Educated, passionate, and fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Nuer, Sharon represents a threat to those that profit from the subjugation of the southern Sudanese. She has been threatened with poisoning and assassination a number of times, but nothing has stopped her efforts to shed light on the country’s human rights abuses.
Her passion is to make sure that the voices of the southern Sudanese reach the U.S. and international human rights communities. She helped organize grassroots peace activities and guided aid work through NGOs such as Amnesty International and Save the Children, and conducted extensive undercover work documenting civilian human rights abuses for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Currently, she is working on constructing three elementary schools in the Western Upper Nile and is in the process of developing a curriculum and printing course materials.
Sharon is serving as an expert witness in a major U.S. Federal Court Case, raised by current and former residents of southern Sudan, against Talisman, a major Canadian oil company, and the government of Sudan. The plaintiffs allege that the company collaborated with the Sudanese government in a policy of ethnic cleansing of civilian populations to facilitate oil exploration and extraction activities.
She was the principal investigator and study designer in 1999 for a major research project on “Displaced Populations in Khartoum: A Study of Social and Economic Conditions” for Save the Children, Denmark. She trained and directed 20 Southern Sudanese research assistants, analyzed data, and made policy recommendations for international assistance.
Sharon has created and funded the nonprofit organization Schools for Sudan. She pays the teachers’ salaries, searches for and sends over books and computers and purchases supplies. Reliable channels are hard to find, but she is using contacts with friends in USAID and people she’s hired in Sudan to make sure the money and supplies arrive. The organization is starting off small but Sharon still hopes to add a couple more schools.
Sharon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
2009 Recipient-James A. Harris, We Help War Victims
James A. Harris is the co-chair of “We Help War Victims,” an organization that assists survivors of war and other conflict to rebuild their lives. Since 2000, the organization’s main effort has been to assist Hmong and Lao families who have been impacted by the Indochina War.
Mr. Harris began his career as an educator in the Wisconsin Indian Teacher Corps where he taught children of the Ho Chunk Tribe living near Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
For 10 years Mr. Harris was a classroom teacher. Among his accomplishments were the acquisition of numerous teaching awards and the distinction of becoming one of the first make kindergarten teachers in Wisconsin.
He was the primary-level author of Holt Social Studies published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. He also authored the texts and teachers’ guides for three levels of Science Horizons published by Silver, Burdett and Ginn. For more than 20 years Mr. Harris served as a school administrator and was a frequent presenter at conferences and staff development workshops. When his public advocacy for the health of his students resulted in a local paper mill installing several millions of dollars worth of new pollution controls, he was recognized by the Washington Post and several environmental groups for his leadership. Later in his career, he was selected by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as the state’s “Elementary Principal of the Year.”
Since the year 2000, Mr. Harrison has made numerous trips to Laos to deliver medical supplies and school libraries to needy villages. Mr. Harrison is now employed as a project manager of Phoenix Clearance Ltd., a company doing clearance of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Laos. He is currently living in Nakai District, Khammuan Province, Lao but returns to Wausau for part of the year.
2008 Recipient-Jay M. Breyer, Missing Persons Network
Jay has been intimately involved in the prevention and rescue of missing children and adults since he helped found the Youth Educated in Safety program in 1994. Y.E.S. was founded following the abduction, assault and murder of 12 year old Cora Jones, Amy Breyer and Laurie Depies. The organization has grown and evolved into the Missing Persons Network of Wisconsin of which Jay is the Executive Director. They have provided thousands of children with photo Kid Care IDs and DNA Life Print IDs. By 2002, they had distributed their 25,000th kit. Jay is tireless in his volunteer activities including the Boy Scouts, the Lutheran Church, Lions Club, Bubolz Nature Preserve and many more. In addition, his personal interests include Writing Poetry-Nationally Published Poet, Beekeeper, Maple Syrup Producer, Puppeteer and acting. Jay has been married to Molly for 25 years and has 4 children. He has been a Partner in Tile Unlimited for 25 years. When Jay was told he would receive the first WCSS Global Citizenship Award, he was overwhelmed because it came from teachers and he wrote the following:
"Overall, we have been involved in the education of over 70,000 children and adults and have helped search for and recover 350 missing children and adults. I have dedicated my life in search for the recovery of missing and exploited children and adults. I am no hero, but a person that made a promise to a little girl at her funeral that I would not give up because I knew she fought for her life with every last ounce of her life. We have no choice but to fight for that same right to be safe and empower ourselves not only to protect but to prevent our children from being victims. It is hard to reflect on a resume because there are so many things others have done to help me continue, so this recognition is not only for me but many others who have given all they could to help us do what we do best, fight for the safety of our children and to bring them home when they are missing."