After nearly five decades serving residents of Milwaukee’s central city, New Concept Self Development Center is closing.
Currently housed within the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, 1531 W. Vliet St., the organization once served more than 7,000 families a year and ran a number of programs for youths, adults and families.
This included parenting classes, a driver’s license recovery program, GED classes and employment assistance services.
“It is very difficult to quantify our impact over the last 48 years,” said Maria Flores, executive director of New Concept. “We innovated numerous programs that changed people’s lives.”
According to New Concept Board Chair Ulla Pinion, the center never recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced it to pivot from face-to-face services to online.
“Programming and funding became more and more limited,” Pinion said. This resulted in the board voting to close New Concept during a meeting in October.
The center will close its doors for good Dec. 31.
“Its legacy is going to be all of the people you see in the community that have passed through New Concept’s doors,” Pinion said.
A history of innovation
Founded by June Perry and fellow social worker Geri McFadden in 1975, New Concept innovated culturally competent programming for African Americans in Milwaukee, Pinion said.
“There are a lot of organizations that just now do what New Concept was doing many years ago,” she said.
Some of New Concept’s successful programs over the years included the Each One Reach One girls mentoring program at the Hillside housing development; its model first time juvenile offenders program; prenatal care programs; and programs for men at the George M. Sanders Fathers’ Family Resource and Employment Center, located within its current facilities.
Terron Edwards, a current New Concept board member, was a participant in fatherhood programming at New Concept.
“That was when my boys were babies, and I was a teen dad,” Edwards said. “That was a time that I was really lost.”
Edwards said he learned many lessons from fatherhood mentors at New Concept, such as the purpose of being a father and how to help kids avoid childhood traumas you experienced.
He said he took those lessons with him as he started his own fatherhood group at Northcott Neighborhood House and eventually launched his own organization, Fathers Making Progress.
Fathers Making Progress, which also is located at the King Community Center, will take over fatherhood programming from New Concept.
“The lessons and the integrity I gained at New Concept continue into what our movement has become,” Edwards said. “I’m proud to be able to continue that tradition.”
Denise Wooten says
My hat goes off to those who not only created a safe learning environment for families but set me on my personal quest as a single mom to serve others in our community. I was there in the 80s when June Perry and Geri McFadden brought together professional women and men to implement outreach services that went to the heart of what tools families really needed to succeed. I served alongside Carla Lee-Brown, Sheri Williams-Panell and Susan Giniger, to name a few, charismatic individuals who established milestones that were the foundation that are still mirrored 40 years later. Now that was a PATH to follow and I am extremely proud that I did. Congratulation!!!
Sheri says
For more than fifty years New Concept Self Development Center has been serving Milwaukee. As Denise Wooten stated, I was there with her in the NCSDC offices at Martin Luther King, Jr Community Center. In 1982, I was hired by founders June Perry and Geri McFadden as a Family Life (Sex) Educator to launch the program PATHS: Parents as Teachers of Human Sexuality. This was groundbreaking! Congratulations to Adrienne Kiff (Each One, Teach One), Carla Lee-Brown, and Susan Ginger for your part in the rich history of NCSDC!
Ron Smith says
We are so thankful for your service and for you commenting on this story.
Ron, NNS executive director
Joanne Williams says
This is a real loss to the many communities New Concept served.