Cream City Foundation Awards Ten UWM Students Scholarships

Jeb Ebben, a 34-year-old graduate student of UW-Milwauke, is one of many people working to help the LGBTQ+ community.  He is currently in the graduate Social Work program on the Mental and Behavioral Health track.

Ebben said he is passionate about working with LGBTQ+ youth.  He said there is a lot of struggles in the LGBTQ+ community and he wanted to give the support that he didn’t have when he was younger.

The work that Ebben has done is how he is one of the 10 UWM students awarded scholarships from the Cream City Foundation over summer for contributing to the LGBTQ+ community.

The Cream City Foundation (CCT) was founded in 1982 and it provides grants to organizations and projects that help improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people, according to the website.

According to its website, its mission is to raise money, fund direct services and advocacy organizations in order to help benefit the LGBTQ+ community, and convene collaborations and partnerships to come up with solutions for the LGBTQ+ community.

Edward Lupella, the Events and Communications Coordinator of the CCT, said that the organization was able to award $43,500 to 30 students this year.  Here is the list of the scholarships winners from UWM:

$2,500 Winners: Jeb Ebben, Bridget Kies, Dou Vang, Sara Villareal

$1,000 Winners: Lainey Koch, Josef Pautsch, Isaac Robertson, Shannon Romero, Romesh Jayasundara, Monique Schneider

“This program was built as a way to build future LGBTQ+ leadership in Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin and stems from an environmental scan we performed to find out the elevated needs of our community,” said Lupella in an email.  “Youth are a high priority, and ensuring their education is a way to move our community forward.”

Lupella said the CCT is sponsored by BMO Harris Bank, Husch Blackwell, Milwaukee Gay Sports Network, The Windhover Foundation & Richard Quadracci, Israel Roman & David Marstellar, and many individual donors.

The winners of the scholarships were announced in early August.  There was a Cream City Foundation Business Equality Luncheon on September 26, 2016 at Discovery World to celebrate the recipients, according to the CCT website.

Jeb Ebben, won the $2,500 scholarship sponsored by Cream City Foundation, Cowles Fund.

Ebben worked at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center for a two-semester field placement for the social work program.  He worked on case management and facilitating support groups.

After his two semesters at the center he was offered a position as interim-manager for the youth program.  He worked there during this past summer.

Ebben said that community center helps any LGBTQ+ youth, but does have a focus of LGBTQ+ youth of color, which is some of the kids that he worked with.

He helped people with life skills, how to apply for jobs, and other useful things.  The ages that came in was 13 through 24.

Ebben said that working for the LGBT Community Center gave him opportunities to grow and learning what his limits are.

Ebben talked about being uncomfortable talking about being bisexual and living in a small town with strict ideas of gender roles.

“Seeing the way the cultural landscape has changed, even in the last fifteen years, has been really big and I think that there is a lot more support now,” said Ebben.  “But there is still a lot of strides to be made.”

Ebben said it was interesting when he went to the event for the scholarship winners.  He talked about meeting people from many organizations and sponsors and making connections.

“I feel very grateful and very honored to have been part of it,” said Ebben

Junior Josef Pautsch is an architecture major who won one of the $1,000 scholarships sponsored by Milwaukee Gay Sports Network, Richard Quadracci and The Windhover Foundation.

Pautsch was part of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS) and he wanted to integrate the LGBT community as a minority and think of ways design could help such designing safe spaces or an environment in which these ideas could be expressed.

Pautsch is taking part of the creation of a design competition.  He said the event will be introduced sometime in November.

Josef Pautsch wanted to help the LGBT community because of the personal connection that he has with it.

Pautsch said the night he was finishing his application he was running late to see a movie with his friends.

“If I can just do this it’s gonna be worth it if I get this, like it won’t matter if I’m late to the movie,” said Pautsch.

In the end it was worth being late.

In the future, Pautsch plans on still trying to help the LGBT community.

“I think I’m always going to be a part of the community, so whatever design I come up with could definitely help them,” said Pautsch.

Director of UWM’s LGBT Resource Center Jen Murray commented in an email on how fabulous the scholarship resources given to the UWM students by the Cream City Foundation are.

“The Cream City Foundation (CCF) has been an outstanding community partner to UWM and we appreciate their support of Milwaukee’s LGBT+ students,” said Murray.  “We are thrilled to see the success of the inaugural year of the CCF scholarship awards include several of the UWM LGBT+ Panthers.”

For information on applying for Cream City Scholarships, go to http://creamcityfoundation.org/scholarships/faq/