Behind Rebel Reform: Loretta Kryshak’s Mission to Create Meaningful Change
For many people, photography is about capturing beautiful moments. For Loretta Kryshak, it has always been about something deeper; creating human connection, preserving stories, and inspiring meaningful change.
As an internationally recognized photographer and the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, Loretta has built a career that blends creativity, compassion, and advocacy. While her photography has taken her across the globe, her work through Rebel Reform reflects a mission much closer to home: helping communities, supporting people in need, and creating lasting impact through service and storytelling.
The Vision Behind Rebel Reform
Rebel Reform was created with a simple but powerful belief: real change begins when people feel seen, heard, and valued.
Under Loretta Kryshak’s leadership, the organization focuses on humanitarian outreach, community engagement, and initiatives that bring people together through empathy and action. The work is rooted in the understanding that every person has a story worth telling and every community deserves support.
For Loretta, leadership has never been about titles or recognition. It has always been about connection.
“Photography taught me to slow down and truly see people,” she explains. “That same mindset shapes the way I approach leadership and community work.”
That perspective has become a defining part of Rebel Reform’s mission.
Using Storytelling to Create Impact
One of the unique aspects of Rebel Reform is the role storytelling plays in its outreach efforts.
In today’s digital world, people are constantly overwhelmed with information. Statistics and headlines may grab attention for a moment, but personal stories are what create lasting emotional connection. Loretta’s background as a photographer has given her a distinct ability to recognize those moments of humanity that often go unnoticed.
Whether documenting communities, supporting charitable initiatives, or advocating for causes that matter, she believes storytelling can help bridge divides and inspire action.
Photography, in many ways, became the foundation for that philosophy.
Years spent photographing remote landscapes, humanitarian efforts, and candid human moments taught Loretta that some of the most meaningful experiences happen quietly. Those lessons continue to influence the way Rebel Reform communicates its mission and serves the community.
Leading With Creativity and Compassion
Creative leadership is not always associated with nonprofit work, but Loretta believes creativity is one of the most important tools a leader can possess.
The ability to think differently, connect emotionally, and communicate visually allows organizations to engage communities in a more authentic way. Through Rebel Reform, Loretta has worked to combine advocacy with creativity to help bring awareness to important causes while building stronger community relationships.
Empathy also plays a central role in her leadership style.
Rather than focusing solely on programs or outcomes, Loretta emphasizes the importance of listening to people’s experiences and understanding the human side of every issue. That approach has helped shape Rebel Reform into an organization centered on dignity, compassion, and meaningful connection.
The Challenges of Nonprofit Leadership
Like many nonprofit leaders, Loretta understands that creating meaningful change comes with challenges.
Community organizations often operate with limited resources while trying to address complex social issues. Balancing advocacy, outreach, fundraising, and long-term impact requires persistence and adaptability.
But for Loretta, the work remains deeply personal.
Her experiences as a photographer taught her that even small moments can leave a lasting impact. A single image can change perspective. A conversation can inspire hope. A community initiative can improve lives in ways that extend far beyond what people initially see.
That belief continues to drive her work with Rebel Reform today.
Why Human Connection Still Matters
In an increasingly fast-paced and digital world, Loretta believes authentic human connection has never been more important.
Much of today’s communication happens through screens, algorithms, and short attention spans. Rebel Reform aims to create something more personal; a reminder that compassion, service, and storytelling still matter.
Through both her photography and nonprofit leadership, Loretta Kryshak continues to focus on the same core mission: helping people feel connected to one another and inspired to make a difference.
Because behind every photograph, every community initiative, and every act of advocacy is ultimately the same goal, creating meaningful change through humanity itself.
Why Milwaukee, Wisconsin Is a City Worth Fighting For
I have stood on every continent this planet has to offer. I have photographed glaciers in Antarctica, markets in Southeast Asia, plains in Africa, and alleyways in South America. I have seen cities that dazzle and landscapes that silence you. And after all of it, I come home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I come home to Milwaukee not because I have to, but because I want to. Because this city, complicated and imperfect and fiercely alive, is worth showing up for every single day.
That is not a sentiment I hold lightly. I have been involved in Milwaukee's nonprofit and business communities for over a decade through Rebel Reform and Rebel Converting, and I have seen firsthand both the challenges this city faces and the extraordinary people who refuse to let those challenges have the last word. Milwaukee is a city worth fighting for. DELETE? This is why.
Milwaukee Has a Community That Shows Up
I have organized a lot of events in my life. Bike drives, backpack distributions, mask campaigns, food fundraisers. And the thing that has never once failed to move me is how Milwaukee shows up when asked.
When we launched #MaskUpMKE in early 2020, we did not know what to expect. The pandemic was new, fear was high, and we were asking people to trust us with something urgent and logistically complex. Within weeks, we had 22 partner agencies, support from organizations like the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County, Milwaukee Public Transit, and the Milwaukee Bucks, and a network of volunteers that helped us distribute over 4 million masks to healthcare workers and underserved communities across the region.
Milwaukee did that. Not one organization, not one family, not one well-funded campaign. Milwaukee, its people, its institutions, its businesses, its neighbors did that together.
That same spirit shows up every year at our annual bike drive. Families dig bikes out of garages and storage units. Local businesses run internal donation campaigns. Mechanics volunteer entire evenings to repair and tune donated bicycles. And on the day of the event, at places like Kosciuszko Park, hundreds of children ride away on bikes that a community decided they deserved to have. We have given away more than 4,000 bicycles and helmets since we began not because Rebel Reform is extraordinary, but because Milwaukee is.
The Organizations Holding This City Together
Every city has its crisis responders: its hospitals, its fire departments, its police. Milwaukee has those, and it also has a dense, remarkable network of nonprofit organizations that address the quieter crises: hunger, homelessness, isolation, lack of opportunity.
I have had the privilege of working alongside some of the best of them.
Just One More Ministry feeds thousands of malnourished children in Milwaukee every week. When Rebel Reform partnered with them to raise over $50,000 for their summer campaign and then rolled up our sleeves to help renovate their 24,000-square-foot warehouse, I was reminded of what an organization operating with genuine urgency looks like. They do not wait for conditions to be perfect. They serve the person in front of them, today, with whatever they have.
The 16th Street Community Health Centers have been a cornerstone partner in our bike day programming, connecting us with the families and children who need what we have to give. Their deep roots in Milwaukee's south side and their trust within the community make everything we try to do there more effective.
Organizations like Mr. Bob's Under the Bridge serve Milwaukee's homeless population with the kind of personal, relentless dedication that no government program can fully replicate. When Rebel Reform provides backpacks; over 1,300 distributed in recent years, filled with blankets, toiletries, and yes, happy socks; it is organizations like this that ensure they reach the people who need them most.
Milwaukee's nonprofit ecosystem is not perfect. It is underfunded, often overstretched, and navigating systemic challenges that no single organization can solve alone. But it is also among the most committed collections of mission-driven people I have encountered anywhere in the world. That is worth naming and worth protecting.
Milwaukee's Complicated History Is Part of Its Strength
I would not be honest if I wrote a love letter to Milwaukee without acknowledging its contradictions.
Milwaukee is frequently cited in national studies as one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. Its north side and south side carry histories of disinvestment and inequity that did not happen by accident and will not be corrected without sustained, intentional effort. Poverty is concentrated in ways that are visible and uncomfortable if you are paying attention and invisible if you are not.
I am paying attention. Part of what has kept me in this work, and in this city, for as long as I have been doing it, is the belief that the places with the most complicated histories are also the places where the most important work is happening. Milwaukee is not a city that needs to be fixed by people from somewhere else. It is a city that needs its own people, people who love it and know it and have chosen to stay to keep showing up.
That is what Rebel Reform tries to be: a locally rooted organization that takes seriously the responsibility of being embedded in a community. We are not passing through. We live here. Our children go to school here. We shop at local businesses, know our neighbors, and care about what happens on streets beyond our own. That rootedness is, I believe, the only real foundation for meaningful community work.
Lake Michigan and the Geography of Home
There is something about living on a Great Lake that shapes a person's sense of place in ways that are hard to articulate. Lake Michigan is enormous, genuinely oceanic in its scale and its moods, and yet it is freshwater, approachable, swimmable, shared. It belongs to everyone in a way that oceans, for all their grandeur, do not quite manage.
I photograph Lake Michigan often. The light on the water in the early morning is some of the best light I have found anywhere, and I have looked for good light on every continent. The lakefront is also where some of our most meaningful community events happen including the annual bike collection drive with Lake Express Ferry, whose partnership has been essential to the growth of our bike program. Standing at the lakefront in April, watching donor after donor arrive with bikes loaded into minivans and truck beds, with the lake behind them and the city skyline in the distance that image, repeated year after year, is Milwaukee to me.
What Loretta Kryshak Wants People to Know About This City
I have met people, in my travels and in my work, who have a fixed idea of Milwaukeeusually formed by a headline or a statistic or someone else's story. I understand how that happens. Cities are large and complex and easy to reduce.
What I want people to know is that the Milwaukee I have experienced for over a decade is a city of extraordinary generosity, deep community pride, and a stubborn refusal to give up on its most vulnerable residents. It is a city where a manufacturing company can decide to become a force for social good and find, almost immediately, a community ready to support and amplify that work. It is a city where a teenager can make 10,000 masks during a pandemic and be celebrated for it. It is a city where mechanics volunteer their Saturday nights to fix bikes for children they will never meet.
Visit Milwaukee will tell you about the restaurants and the festivals and the architecture, all of which are genuinely worth your time. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I earned my degrees in Finance and Management Information Systems, anchors an academic community that produces thoughtful, civic-minded graduates year after year. Milwaukee Area Technical College provides accessible pathways to skilled trades and professional careers for thousands of students who might not otherwise have them.
These institutions matter. But what matters more, to me, is the culture they exist within: a culture that, at its best, takes seriously the idea that a city's strength is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members.
Milwaukee is not there yet. No city is. But Milwaukee is fighting, every day, to get closer. And as long as it is, I will be here fighting alongside it.
A City That Earns Its Loyalists
I did not grow up thinking I would spend my career in Milwaukee. I grew up thinking I would use my degrees and my skills to build something successful, travel the world, and figure the rest out as I went. What I did not anticipate was falling in love with a city — with its lake and its neighborhoods and its people and its particular, stubborn, generous spirit.
Rebel Reform exists because Milwaukee made it possible. Every bike we have given away, every mask we distributed, every backpack we filled, every dollar we raised for Just One More Ministry; none of it happened in a vacuum. It happened because this city's people, institutions, and organizations chose to show up alongside us.
That is what a city worth fighting for looks like. Not perfect. Not without struggle. But alive, and generous, and unwilling to abandon the people who need it most.
Milwaukee, I am not going anywhere.
Loretta Kryshak is the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, the social outreach arm of Rebel Converting. She is a humanitarian, award-winning photographer, and global traveler who has called southeastern Wisconsin home for over a decade. Follow her work at lorettakryshak.com.
Loretta Kryshak: A Journey of Impact and Inspiration
Loretta Kryshak serves as the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, the social outreach arm of Rebel Converting, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of hospital-grade disinfectant wipes. For over a decade, Loretta has spearheaded initiatives to support nonprofits and address pressing community needs in southeastern Wisconsin. Rebel Reform’s mission is to strengthen and sustain vulnerable populations through strategic partnerships and impactful charitable endeavors.
Key achievements include:
Leading Rebel Reform: Transforming Communities in Southeastern Wisconsin
Loretta Kryshak serves as the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, the social outreach arm of Rebel Converting, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of hospital-grade disinfectant wipes. For over a decade, Loretta has spearheaded initiatives to support nonprofits and address pressing community needs in southeastern Wisconsin. Rebel Reform’s mission is to strengthen and sustain vulnerable populations through strategic partnerships and impactful charitable endeavors.
Key achievements include:
#MaskUpMKE and #MaskUpRacine: Co-founded by Loretta, these campaigns distributed over 4 million face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborating with organizations like the Medical College of Wisconsin, United Way, and Milwaukee Public Transit. The initiatives promoted mask-wearing to curb the virus’s spread, earning the Kryshak family the Gwen T. Jackson Community Service Award from United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County. In 2021, Loretta Kryshak honored a Kenosha teenager, Srisupraja Kandrakota, for crafting 10,000 masks, showcasing her commitment to inspiring youth leadership.
Support for Homelessness and Food Insecurity: Loretta led efforts to distribute 1,300 backpacks to homeless individuals and families and partnered with Just One More Ministry to raise over $50,000 to feed malnourished children in Milwaukee. Rebel Reform also renovated a 24,000-square-foot warehouse for the ministry, enhancing their capacity to serve the community.
Community Empowerment: From providing 4,000 bicycles to underserved children through the 16th Street Community Center to supporting Shop With A Cop programs, Loretta’s work focuses on direct, tangible impact.
Rebel Reform continues to seek collaborative opportunities with nonprofits, ensuring resources like goods, services, and capital are allocated effectively to maximize community benefit.
Capturing the World Through Photography
An avid photographer, Loretta Kryshak’s black-and-white photography has garnered international recognition. Her work, often inspired by her global travels, captures the beauty in everyday moments and tells compelling stories. In 2021, her photograph “Untitled,” depicting empty theater seats during the pandemic, received an honorable mention at the Monochrome Awards, highlighting the cultural impact of COVID-19.
Loretta’s philosophy—“I see photos everywhere I go”—drives her to find inspiration in both the striking and the mundane. Her portfolio, showcased on platforms like LensCulture, reflects her travels across all seven continents, from Southeast Asia to Africa. She aims to encourage viewers to look beyond the obvious and find inspiration in their surroundings.
Philanthropy Rooted in Family and Community
Loretta’s philanthropic spirit is a family affair. Alongside her husband, Mike, and their children, Thaddeus and Violet, she infuses Rebel Converting with a commitment to civic responsibility. The family’s efforts during the COVID-19 crisis, including pivoting production to create mask kits from melt-blown polypropylene, demonstrate their innovative approach to community support. Their work with #MaskUpMKE not only provided essential resources but also sparked a citywide movement for public health.
Beyond Rebel Reform, Loretta is a member of the Junior Women’s Club of Mequon, dedicated to community service. Her travels and homeschooling experiences with her children in countries like China, Thailand, and New Zealand have shaped her global perspective on giving back.
A Multifaceted Leader with a Strong Foundation
Loretta’s diverse expertise underpins her success. She holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Finance and Management Information Systems, where she made the Dean’s Honor List. She also earned an Associate’s Degree in Graphic Design from Milwaukee Area Technical College and certifications as a Certified Network Administrator (CNA) and Certified Network Engineer (CNE). Her corporate background as a consultant, project manager, and systems analyst equips her to manage complex initiatives at Rebel Reform with precision and creativity.
Looking Ahead: A Commitment to Impact
As Loretta continues to lead Rebel Reform, her focus remains on addressing evolving community needs, from public health to social justice. Her photography will continue to document the human experience, while her travels inspire new ways to connect and uplift. Whether through donating masks, renovating community spaces, or capturing poignant moments, Loretta Kryshak’s work embodies a relentless drive to make a difference.
To learn more about Loretta’s initiatives, visit Rebel Reform or explore her photography on LensCulture. Follow her journey on Twitter and Facebook.
Last updated: May 17, 2025