Announcing the 2026 Unity Award Winners

Milwaukee Magazine is proud to announce the winners of its 2026 Unity Awards:  Kurt Owens, Element Everest-Blanks, Jack Bolog, Katie Cummings, Levi Stein and Ken Ginlack (pictured above, from left. Photos by Kevin J. Miyazaki).

This is our sixth cohort of the Unity Awards, which we began in 2021 to honor the people working, often with little recognition, to make Milwaukee a more vibrant, welcoming place for all.

You’ll soon be able to read more about the honorees in our February issue – and toast them at our Unity Awards event on Feb. 24. But here’s a taste of how these remarkable people are working to build a better Milwaukee:

Jack Bolog is a thinker. The 26-year-old has led the implementation of a new way of thinking about food security at People’s Table, a nonprofit that serves more than 6,000 families on the South Side. One of the Bolog’s key initiatives as director of operations is known as food collectives, in which networks of member-households who benefit from People’s Table work together to partner with and source food from other organizations, pooling resources and strengthening connectivity within neighborhoods.

Katie Cummings is an includer. She had a vision for a professional theater organization to amplify the voices of people with disabilities – and she founded Pink Umbrella Theater Company in 2018 to do just that. It’s one of only six theater companies in the country to focus on hiring paid performers with disabilities, putting on three original plays a year and leading workshops for hundreds of area students. Cummings has also worked with other performing arts companies to ensure their performances are sensory-friendly.

Element Everest-Blanks is a disruptor. She uses her various platforms – founder, DJ and program director at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee’s HYFIN station; Amplifier in Residence at Marcus Performing Arts Center; advocate for independent music venues and many other roles – to elevate Milwaukee’s diverse communities in music and culture spaces that historically have often excluded people of color.

Ken Ginlack is a redeemer. He overcame his own troubled past of crime and substance abuse to create Serenity Inns, growing in just a few years from a single recovery home into a comprehensive continuum of care for men battling substance abuse and mental health challenges. Serenity Inns opened a new 14-bed, $3 million facility on the North Side in 2024.

Kurt Owens is a sower. He was considering leaving his Old North Milwaukee neighborhood but instead doubled down and founded Bridge Builders Inc. and Uflourish Church to help remake, block by block, the Northwest Side. In addition to community-building efforts, Bridge Builders has bought and renovated eight former nuisance houses, replacing drug dealers and other troublemakers with neighbors in good standing.

Levi Stein is an actor. As in, he takes action. As executive director of Friendship Circle of Wisconsin, the rabbi creates opportunities for adults with disabilities through the Friendship Circle Cafe and Bakery in Fox Point. But since the pandemic, Stein has also directed the organization into mental health issues, creating the “Wish You Knew” podcast for and by teens, and leading dozens of SafeTALK suicide-prevention trainings – an effort catalyzed by the 2024 death of his friend Ald. Jonathan Brostoff.