Groundbreaking for the Journey House Center for Family Learning and Youth Athletics will take place on Sept. 16, at Longfellow Elementary School, 1021 S. 21 St., in Clarke Square. The new addition, a collaboration of Longfellow School and Journey House, will serve the two institutions by providing a new cafeteria, kitchen, gym, computer labs and classrooms.

Although the groundbreaking was originally scheduled for early spring, financing issues delayed it until the fall.

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The occasion will be marked by a ceremony beginning at 10 a.m., and followed by the official groundbreaking at 10:30. Once it is complete, Journey House will sell the buildings housing its Youth Center, 2212 W. Greenfield Ave., and Adult Learning Center, 1900 W. Washington St., and run those programs from the new structure. The addition will culminate a 12-year journey toward a new center for both Longfellow and Journey House.

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Raised in a South Side neighborhood where he still lives, Edgar Mendez is the managing editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Mendez is a proud graduate of UW-Milwaukee, where he double majored in journalism and sociology, and of Marquette University, where he earned a master’s degree in communication. He won a 2018 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and 2014, 2017, and 2018 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for his reporting on taverns, marijuana law enforcement, and lead in water service lines. In 2008, he won a Society of Professional Journalists’ regional award for columns dealing with issues such as poverty, homelessness and racism. His writing has been published by the Associated Press, Reuters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media. He has also co-authored three articles published in scholarly journals.