AFTER
AMANI RESIDENT SPOTLIGHT
Block Build MKE Brings Blessings Home repair help vital for longtime resident Ms. Mary Johnson who gives ‘love, care and everything’ to her Amani community
“Joy is helping others,” said Ms. Mary Johnson, an longtime Am- ani resident looking forward to seeing her neighborhood lifted up by Block Build MKE hosted by Revitalize Milwaukee and Domini- can Center. Mary has been in Amani for more than 40 years. She raised four children and three grandchildren in the home she bought for her and her mother when they moved here from Mississippi. She also brought along five of her 14 sib- lings, whom she helped care for. “I never wanted help; I took care of everything myself,” said Mary.
“I just was raised with too much pride. If you want something, you need to work for it. Build your life. You want to know you did your best.” The family came to Amani for a better life. Mary’s parents were sharecroppers, and she said her mother worked too hard for everything in life, so she wanted to give her a comfortable home where she could spend time doing what she liked. “By God’s grace, we made it,” she said. “And my mother lived to be 87 years old in this house.” When arriving in Milwaukee at 19
years old, Mary and her moth- er were both able to get jobs in the healthcare field to pay for a home they initially rented. “You live where you can afford,” she said. “But I got tired of renting.” She was married at 20 and soon had children of her own, whom she wanted to grow up in a sta- ble environment. “My marriage became abusive, and I refused to raise my children around abuse,” she said. So, she started working even harder. Her heart was always with helping people, especially elders. She worked two jobs in the healthcare field and retired after 40 years in 2012, only because
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