President's Message

It is an honor to step into the role of President of the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County. As we look to the future, one of my primary goals is to ensure the financial stability of our organization, allowing us to continue our vital work for years to come. By strengthening our fundraising efforts and seeking new partnerships, we will build a solid foundation that supports our mission and empowers us to expand our impact throughout the community.

Equally important, I am committed to honoring the dedication and passion of our current members while actively working to grow our membership in ways that reflect the rich diversity of Milwaukee County. Our strength lies in our collective voice, and by continuing to reach out to all members of our community, we can ensure that our organization truly mirrors the population we serve. Together, we will foster a more inclusive and dynamic League—one that is well-equipped to champion democracy and advocate for positive change across our country.

Thank you for entrusting me with the opportunity to lead the League during this challenging time. 

Unite and Rise, Peg Schrader

McFarland Goes to Washington in the Battle for Reproductive Rights
Pat McFarland, longtime member of LWVMC, was one of 100 storytellers invited to share her personal story of living without reproductive rights at “Our Voice. Our Stories. Our Future.”, a national storyteller summit, June 22-24, in Washington, D.C. 

The event, sponsored by Free and Just, marked the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision ending reproductive rights in the U.S. The storytellers from across the country included patients, providers, physicians, and advocates who have been impacted by restrictions on abortion access.

“I do this for women who did not survive their abortion,” said McFarland, who now openly discusses her experience in 1970, at age 22, in Mexico City.

Scheduled to meet with media representatives, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, other members of Congress, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and granted permission to speak for LWVMC while at the summit, McFarland, who turned 77 last month, only first shared her story about three years ago. 

At a meeting of PERSISTers Wisconsin, a group started in Wauwatosa in 2016, a woman told the story of her abortion and asked if anyone else had endured a similar experience. McFarland decided to speak up.

Her birth control had failed. Her boyfriend didn’t want to get married. She flew to Mexico because abortion was illegal here. During the abortion, she fainted. The doctor told her she had bled excessively, and she should immediately go to the hospital upon returning to the U.S. Recovery was difficult.

After the experience, she promised to dedicate her life to advocating for children. She worked as a Head Start teacher, then began a long career teaching early childhood education at MATC. She helped create the state’s first union of child care workers.

McFarland has spoken at MATC, UWM, and for Planned Parenthood, campaigned with Mandela Barnes during his senatorial race, and was featured in a front-page article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Recently, she has met with legislators in Madison as a new bill on abortion rights is under consideration.

She also serves on the Reproductive Rights Committee of LWVMC.

“I feel honored about being asked to share my story. We are fighting for reproductive rights for all women in the U.S. and to overturn Dobbs. We must keep doing the work that we have to do to make it happen. I have three beautiful granddaughters and I worry about their future,” McFarland said.

Her granddaughter, Anya, at nine years old, was, by chance, one of the first to see McFarland’s story on the front page of the Journal Sentinel and learn of her grandmother’s abortion. 

Explaining the situation to Anya, McFarland mentioned that she had never told her own mother because she feared her mother would be ashamed of her.

“Oh, grandma,” Anya responded. “I am sure she would be so proud of you.”

LWVMC Annual Meeting

Nearly 100 members and guests attended LWVMC's annual meeting, held Saturday, May 31, at Alioto’s Restaurant, Wauwatosa.  Highlights of the meeting were a poem created for the League by spoken word artist AmiraThePoet, and a very successful Silent Auction, which raised $3,600, chaired by Elizabeth Harris-Hodge.  The auction team also included: Liddie Collins-Siegrist; Marie Garnhart; Lorna Grade; Brandelyn Hodge-Wembley; Jen Lemke; Patricia McFarland; Marilyn McKnight; Paula Pintar; Peg Schrader; Donna Spars; Mary Ellen Spicuzza; Kathy Ulbricht; Mary Voelker.

Members approved the FY 2025-2026 budget and elected these board officers and directors:

President - Peg Schrader; First Vice President Organization - Nancy Maloney; Third Vice President Voter Services - Candice Owley; Secretary - Jen Lemke; Members-At-Large - Liddie Collins-Siegrist, Patricia McFarland, Karen Nelson (to fill Candice Owley's unexpired term), Mary Voelker. 

Advocacy Programs VP Gail Sklodowska presented the 2025/2026 advocacy priorities (and leaders): 

Climate Action Group (Candice Owley & Louis Petering); Reproductive Rights Committee (Charlie Gaebler-Uhing & Gail Sklodowska); Immigration (Donna Spars); Mass Incarceration (Emily Sterk); LGBTQ+ Rights (Kaye Vance).   

Next year's Nominating Committee Chair is Mike Kloehn, working with members Maria Avila and Virginia Jones. The bylaws require that the new board appoint two board members to serve on the Nominating Committee. 

The Future of our World is at Stake, and We Have Work to Do

LWVMC Endowment Established
A $100,000 endowment for the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County has been successfully established with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, thanks to the generous donations of League members following a 2024 end-of-the-year appeal letter seeking to raise the final $20,000.

The creation of the endowment accomplishes two major goals for the organization, according to Nancy Maloney, LWVMC President: increased assurance to future donors that their gifts will have a sustained impact, and safeguarding the long-term financial viability of the chapter.

“This fund is something that foundations issuing grants want to see, as it is an indicator of the financial health of the organization. In addition, it ensures that our League will continue to exist for future generations no matter what financial challenges we might face,” Maloney wrote in her appeal letter. 

The importance of the endowment’s creation cannot be overstated, said Mary Voelker, Fund Development Committee Chair. “This will allow us to continue our impact to empower voters and defend democracy,” she said.

Donate Here!

Introducing Our New Governance Committee

The Board of Directors has established a Governance Committee, whose basic purpose is to help the Board, and ultimately LWVMC, do its best work. The committee monitors compliance with LWVMC rules and procedures, policies, elections and voting processes, and bylaws. The committee also prepares submissions for bylaws amendments, and assists the Board with policy-making and goal-setting. The committee will help recruit and train board members, and will assist the President in hiring staff and contract workers. 

ReproWarriors Use Impactful Art

The Reproductive Rights Committee’s ReproWarriors took our joyous community outreach materials to the LWVWI annual meeting. The ReproWarriors displayed how Leagues can partner with an art activist to achieve greater reach and involvement beyond our typical demographic.  ReproWarriors has partnered with feminist art activist  Jacqueline von Edelberg using her successful visual arts method of creating garlands of cloth ribbons with an accompanying statement of why an issue is important to a person. Jacqueline initially created the pink ribbon campaign used by ReproWarriors for the Northwest Illinois NOW Chapter’s Women Roar in 2024. This work is supported by a grant from the Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee.  

The colorful display was set up in the lobby of the convention center. Attendees were invited to add to our “Garland of Choice,”  rip a fabric ribbon and write a statement why reproductive rights were important to them. Jacqueline took photos at a selfie station and encouraged them to post on social media with the hashtag #ReproWarriors. This activity was well received, and 125 ribbons were added to the garland. Attendees were also offered the opportunity to create tassels for home. The tassels, 3 ribbons attached to a Unite & Rise tag, are designed to be a discussion-starter promoting the LWVUS Unite & Rise campaign. A total of 60 tassels were made.  We encouraged everyone to proudly display them at the No Kings Day rallies. 

If you are interested in seeing ReproWarriors in action check out the LWVMC Event Calendar or contact committee co-chairs Charlie Gaebler-Uhing (c.gaebler-uhing@lwvmilwaukee.org) or Gail Sklodowska (g.sklodowska@lwvmilwaukee.org).

Happy Birthday to the Voting Rights Act and Section 203!

¡Celebramos el 60 aniversario de la Ley de Derecho al Voto (VRA) y el 50 aniversario de la Provisión sobre Minorías Lingüísticas el 6 de agosto de 2025!

Or, an equal way of saying it: 

On Aug. 6, 2025, help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and the 50th anniversary of the Language Minority Provision, an amendment to the VRA that protects citizens’ access to election information in their dominant language!

Both anniversaries fall on Aug. 6, selected for its historic significance – the day in 1861 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act, a precursor to the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Big plans are in the works for the celebrations!

That’s according to Eloisa Gómez, League facilitator for the Milwaukee VRA Anniversary Commemorative Advisory Committee, an 11-member coalition sponsoring the event. Gómez is also chair of LWVMC Comité por el voto Latino/ Latinx Outreach team and a member of LWVWI’s Wisconsin Community Alliance Committee (CAC).

Here are some of the celebrative activities: 

• VRA Day will be proclaimed by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Governor Evers, and other elected officials throughout the state. 

• A series of voter awareness actions will begin on Juneteenth Day, June 19, with the theme, “We Are the Voting Rights Act”/ “Somos la ley del derecho al voto.”

• Educational events will increase public knowledge of current challenges facing voting rights by state or federal legislation.

• Organizers will produce up to 20 videos, using the theme, “Amplify the Vote,” of diverse Milwaukeeans sharing their perspective on the importance of the voting.

• To highlight key historical victories after decades of racial discrimination, a bilingual informational handout material about Mr. Ezekiel Gillespie, Milwaukee resident – and the first African American gaining the right to vote in Wisconsin – has been created for distribution throughout the city.

• Book clubs and libraries will be encouraged to promote books on civil rights.

The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, removed race-based discrimination for voting purposes, particularly in the South. The legislation banned literacy tests, empowered the attorney general to investigate unlawful use of poll taxes, and made it illegal to harass, threaten, or intimidate in order to prevent a lawfully registered voter from voting.

Ten years later, in 1975, the Language Minority Provision amended the VRA to provide limited-English speakers of certain languages the right to have all voting materials – sample ballots, absentee ballots, voter registration, instructional forms, polling place notices, election information pamphlets – translated so as to access election information. 

The law applies to geographical jurisdictions where the proportion of voting age citizens with limited English proficiency is over 5 per cent or if the jurisdiction has more than 10,000 voting age citizens.

Community partners serving on the advisory committee include: BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing for Community), the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Ho Chunk Nation,  Interfaith Conference, League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), NAACP Milwaukee Branch 3254, Souls to the Polls, Voces de la Frontera, and HAWA (Hmong American Women Association).

The League encourages all its members to read up on the civil rights struggles leading to the 1965 Voting Rights Act and discuss what they learned with others.  Look to the League’s website for information available to the public.

Join the celebration of voting rights!

Mass Incarceration is Focus of New Advocacy Program 

On Saturday, April 26 the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County collaborated with the Milwaukee Turners for a dialogue revolving around confronting mass incarceration. The event, open to the public, was held April 26 at the St. John's On The Lake Community Room. 

Dr. Emily Sterk, who led the discussion, said, "I am excited to work together with the League and the Milwaukee Turners as we continue our efforts to confront mass incarceration across our city, county, and state."  Sterk works at the Milwaukee Turners as Research and Advocacy Associate and also serves as the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County's Mass Incarceration Advocacy Program Leader, She provided an overview of ongoing issues across Milwaukee County and later facilitated the conversation between the 15 League and Turners members in attendance.

Here's a link to a short presentation by Dr. Emily Sterk

As promised, we are back and ready to organize Voter Registration Drives at our libraries for the second half of 2025.

We are very excited to be coordinating with National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) on September 16, 2025, and would like to schedule as many voter registrations through the libraries on that day, or in that week. 

As a recognized partner organization with the Milwaukee Public Library, we are pleased to be organizing voter registration drives at three branch libraries on NVRD at the branches at Villard Square, Martin Luther King Jr, and Mitchell Street.  In addition, save the date for a Central Library event on September 17, 2025, featuring a speaker, Dr Eric Klinenberg, discussing civic engagement. More information will follow on what sounds like an excellent presentation.

It will be a busy summer for the Library Outreach Team!  Watch the Weekly Update for more information about events as they are organized.  Let us know if you would like to join this important outreach!

Please note that we have two libraries that are now looking for a LWVMC liaison:  Atkinson and Villard Square, and we will also be looking for some volunteers to assemble and deliver the Voter Registration supplies for the events.  If you are interested, please reach out to Marsha Poulsen (m.poulsen@lwvmilwaukee.org) and Amy Germershausen (a.germershausen@lwvmilwaukee.org).

Different Ways to Give!

Thank you for your continued generosity to the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County.  Your support is important as we tirelessly continue our work to empower voters and defend democracy.  Help step up our activism to fight against undemocratic actions by our government and advocate for the causes we care about.     

Gifts from individuals to the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County can be made in different ways:

• A cash donation with a check made out to LWVMC.  Send this to the

League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County,

6737 West Washington Avenue, Suite 2218, 

West Allis, Wisconsin 53214.

• A credit card donation here.

• A Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from your IRA.  Please talk with your financial advisor to see how this can lower your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) if you are required to be taking distributions. 

• A gift from your donor-advised fund (DAF).  See your financial advisor to talk about whether this charitable gift strategy is right for you.  Many local foundations offer help with setting up a donor-advised fund (DAF).  

• A Monthly Donation that can be as low as $10 per month.  Join our monthly giving program to support our mission to empower voters and defend democracy with an amount that fits your budget. 

• A bequest from your estate or listing LWVMC as a beneficiary on your retirement account.  Leaving a gift to LWVMC in your will or estate plan helps ensure that your values live on for future generations.

Please note that gifts to the League of Women Voters (US), a 501(c)4 organization, are not tax-deductible.  Keep this in mind if you make a donation when you renew your membership.  To make a tax-deductible gift, check the box that directs your gift to the LWVMC.  

Gifts to the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County (LWVMC), a 501(c)3 organization, are tax-deductible.  

The EIN number for LWVMC is 39-6096750.  

How Your Gifts Are Used

Just as there are different ways to give, individual donors can direct gifts to be used in different ways:

• To build the Endowment Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Make a note that this is where your gift should be applied.

• To provide a tribute. You can make a gift in memory of or in honor of someone special in your life.  

To contribute to ongoing operating expenses.  Without specific direction, your gift will be used where it is needed most.

Mary Voelker Completes Term as Fund Development Committee Chair

As of June 30, the end of the fiscal year, Mary Voelker will move to new challenges in LWVMC, having completed her two-year term as the first chairman of the Fund Development Committee, established in July 2023.

Voelker, a member of the League since 2018, said the committee exists to support the board of directors’ role in the fiscal sustainability of the organization.

Put simply, the committee works to help the board make sure that there are “sufficient resources to carry out its mission,” said Voelker. “Without focus, the league will not have enough funds to do our work to defend democracy,” she said.

The Fund Development committee’s 16-20 members meet quarterly and focus on cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship – all aimed at building new relationships with, seeking new donations from, and thanking potential and existing donors. 

One of the challenges of financial security for the local League, said Voelker, is that “members think our dues are the financial support for the organization, when, in fact, the local group gets very little from the dues. Most go to the national or the state organizations.”

Voelker, who has also served as a board member at large, will next co-chair with Beth Lueck the VOTE-411 Committee.  VOTE411 is the award-winning nonpartisan online voter guide that helps educate voters before they cast their ballots.

A retired educator and organization development professional, Voelker said she joined the League as a way to help answer, in her own mind, the question: “What can I do?” when she saw the threats to democracy evolving in our country. 

“I didn’t like what I was seeing,” she said. “Our national League says we are in a constitutional crisis. It’s now more important than ever that we continue this work to defend democracy.”

LWVUS Announces Unite & Rise 8.5 Initiative

In April, the national LWV issued a statement declaring the U.S. was in a Constitutional Crisis. In conjunction with that statement, Celina Stewart and Dianna Wynn, LWVUS CEO and president, respectively, released a statement announcing a new initiative to mobilize voters.

"The foundational principles that have sustained our democracy — checks and balances, the rule of law, free and fair elections — are under direct and sustained threat. In this extraordinary moment, we cannot proceed with business as usual. All Americans — no matter who you voted for in 2024 — need to come together, stand united, and fight back to save our democracy. We cannot afford to fail the generations to come.”

The Unite and Rise 8.5 initiative aims to mobilize 8.5 million voters using the power of voter engagement as a cornerstone of our democracy. The 8.5 million is based on historical examples showing that nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change. Unite and Rise 8.5 will showcase the many ways voters can drive change, including through advocacy, mobilization, civic education, and engagement. The initiative is part of LWV’s Women Defend Democracy campaign. 

Read more here.

Artistic Civic Action Displayed at LWVWI Annual Meeting

We are in a constitutional crisis and are fighting to defend democracy.  We have been here before!

The suffragists fought for the right to vote and were successful with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of women's suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to pass the 19th Amendment.  (National Archives)

This past spring, the Fund Development Committee selected ten suffragists who were honored in the program at the LWVMC 2025 Annual Meeting on May 31.   A story about each was in the weekly Update during 10 weeks from March 27 until May 29, 2025.  Read short biographies of these ten women here.   

The fight for women’s suffrage began in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848, where suffragists advocated for the right of white women to vote.  Black activists found ways to insert their voices into calling for suffrage to all women. There was a persistent rhetoric of inclusion in speeches and print publications.  

In 1913, the first major national efforts were undertaken, beginning with a massive parade in Washington, D.C., on March 3—one day before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. Organized by Alice Paul for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the parade, calling for a constitutional amendment, featured 8,000 marchers, including nine bands, four mounted brigades, 20 floats, and an allegorical performance near the Treasury Building. The route along Pennsylvania Avenue became choked with spectators, and marchers were jostled and ridiculed by many in the crowd. One hundred marchers were hospitalized. The mistreatment of the marchers amplified the event—and the cause—into a major news story and led to Congressional hearings.  It was another seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment secured the vote for women.  (Atlantic Magazine)

State-wide Campaign Working to Ensure Access to Multi-Lingual Election Information

Promoting increased access by Spanish speakers to translated election materials in Wisconsin, as required by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), is the focus of a statewide campaign sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin’s Community Alliance Committee (CAC), Law Forward, and the ACLU.

The campaign focuses on six Wisconsin geographical areas – so-called Section 203 Communities – that include large Latinx populations: City of Milwaukee, Village of West Milwaukee, City of Abbotsford, Town of Curtiss, and Village of Sharon. 

“We feel it is important that the people of these communities know their federally guaranteed rights,” said Eloisa Gómez, a member of the LWVMC’s Comité por el voto latino/ Latinx Outreach team and a CAC member.

The plan to bolster the availability of Spanish language materials includes a resource guide for county clerks that explains the requirements of the Language Minority Provision of the Voting Rights Act. The provision, passed in 1975, provides limited-English speakers of certain languages the right to have all voting materials – sample ballots, absentee ballots, voter registration, instructional forms, polling place notices, election information pamphlets – translated so as to access election information in certain U.S. jurisdictions. 

It also requires bilingual poll workers, interpreters, and trained election personnel to provide spoken information to non-English speaking voters.  

The legislation aims to ensure “that all citizens will have an effective opportunity to register, learn the details of the elections, and cast a free and effective ballot” regardless of their native language, according to the Act.

Committee members have met with clerks of a handful of counties to discuss the issue. 

At one meeting, before the discussion even began, a community representative said, “Tomorrow President Trump is going to issue an executive order making English the official language in the U.S.”

Lack of funds for bilingual materials, a lack of support from the Wisconsin Election Commission and the need for legal clarity were some of the responses to implementation issues by two of the rural communities. The CAC efforts include a focus on working with the Wisconsin Election Commission to close the support gap for municipalities. 

“There’s a gap in support for providing these services. The law doesn’t define how to meet these obligations in providing the support these communities need,” said Gómez.

The CAC has begun to work with Latino communities within Section 203 jurisdictions to share information of their rights as they work to get all the information in Spanish, and with any entities that are not required by size of Latinx population but desire to provide additional bi-lingual information to their voters.  

“Our vote is valuable. The more that we can coalesce and build trust among groups and individuals, the more we can accomplish. If we can do that right, I am more optimistic about the future,” Gómez said.

Invitation to Get Involved with Fund Development

We have more work than ever to defend democracy. Your help with fund development will increase our capacity to resist the undemocratic actions in Washington and do more to defend democracy!!  

CULTIVATION 

• Suggest an organization for a presentation from the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County 

• Contact a Senior Center and arrange for a presentation.

• Host or co-host a house party to introduce friends and neighbors to the League of Women Voters.  Link here.

• Suggest a women-owned small business.  Invite her to join our mailing list.  Bring her to an event.   Write an article for the weekly Update.  

• Make a connection to someone you know at a foundation aligned with our mission that awards grants in our community.  

SOLICITATION

• Contribute to the Endowment Fund. 

• Set up a Monthly Donation or suggest giving monthly to a friend.

• Chair next year’s silent auction at the Annual meeting.

• Chair an event to celebrate International Democracy Day on September 15, 2025.

• Chair the Giving Day on International Democracy Day, September 15, 2025.

• Chair the Giving Day on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2026.

STEWARDSHIP

• Discuss Legacy Giving with a relative or friend.  

• Create a video with a thank you message for social media.

• Suggest a story about a donor for a donor-spotlight article in the weekly Update.

• Write a social media post with a thank-you message.

• Create key messages that tell the story of our mission to maintain support among our donors.   

• Join the Fund Development Committee to advance ideas about relationships with existing donors.   

Contact Amy Germershausen, the new chair of the Fund Development Committee, for more information