Next Door 50th Anniversary

Next Door 50th Anniversary

The story of Next Door began in 1969 at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church at 30th Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee. A devoted group of parishioners and clergy saw a need to better serve their neighborhood and expanded an outreach program with numerous social services and educational support for youth and young adults. They called the program “Next Door” because it was in a former parsonage building beside the church.

Next Door operated at Our Savior’s for 22 years before moving to the central city to focus on high quality early childhood education and family support services. Today, Next Door serves nearly 1,400 children a year from birth to five years old with two center-based locations, a home visitation program and 11 partnership sites. Click here for more history.

To commemorate our first 50 years of service to Milwaukee, Next Door launched a 50th Anniversary Fundraising and Community Relations Campaign in 2019. We are grateful for the generous community support – more than $ 7 million donated – to enhance our early childhood education programming and create much-needed building renovations at our 29th Street campus. See below for a closer look at our fundraising and community engagement outcomes.