Our Story

In the fall of 2013, I (Lynn) was a year into parenting and had just resigned from my career as an elementary principal to stay home with my daughter. I (Jean) had just moved from the Chicago suburbs after resigning from my career as an elementary teacher and was trying to figure out what to do with my 3 year old and 1 year old in our new town. As luck would have it, we met at a library playgroup for our daughters and quickly shared our joy about spending more time parenting along with our sadness over leaving beloved jobs as public servants. 

A year later, in 2014, after many conversations and attempts to engage in volunteering with our kid(s), we decided to create our own service project that would not require babysitters and would have a timeframe and activities suitable to the developmental level of our kids and a handful of our friends' kids.  What started with a hope for our three kids grew quickly and confirmed our belief that there were lots of families in the Milwaukee area who had big hearts and wanted to pitch in.

Today, Toddlers and Kids on a Mission is a 501(c)3 non-profit that operates in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. We are a small but mighty organization with a dedicated board and leadership team comprised of a group of parents hailing from diverse professional pursuits. We have educators, business leaders, doctors, marketers, fundraisers, grant writers, lawyers, bakers and more all working hard to build up our city and create welcoming opportunities to serve at stellar local non-profits. 

We love what we do and hope you will join us!

-Lynn and Jean

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Mission

Our mission is to empower children of all ages to work with their caregivers to build relationships and strengthen the Milwaukee community through partnerships and service experiences in an inclusive environment.

Vision

Our vision is to instill the belief in our children that they are responsible for and capable of being dynamic and change-making citizens within their community.

Values

Toddlers and Kids on a Mission strives to provide an environment where all children and families feel safe and affirmed, valued and reflected. We are unaffiliated with any faith traditions or other organizations. We partner with diverse, established, and effective organizations within Milwaukee that, like us, recognize the capability of children to make change, serve others, and build relationships.


How It Works

  • Registration and new events will be advertised via social media, our newsletter, and website. Almost all new events start registration the first of the month.
  • No membership necessary. Every event is FREE with occasional donations requested but not required.
  • Event registration is through our website
  • After registration, we will email you to confirm and provide talking points for you and your child to prepare for the event

We ask that you read through our event description carefully to make sure the project is a good fit for your family. For every project, we make sure that you have the Project Manager's contact information in case you have any questions or a change of plans.

On the day of the event, as you arrive, please look for families wearing orange! Our events start promptly with an introduction by the facility partner or by our project manager. By design, our events are fast paced in order to fit the attention spans of our young volunteers. After the event, the project manager will send you an email to recap the event and ask for you to fill out a short survey rating your experience.