Honored to Be Nominated for the 2026 Ozaukee Impact Awards Emerging Nonprofit Leader of the Year
Make it stand out
“I am honored and deeply grateful to share that I have been nominated for the 2026 Ozaukee Impact Awards Emerging Nonprofit Leader of the Year.”
-Loretta Kryshak
Presented by the Ozaukee Nonprofit Center and Bank Five Nine, the Ozaukee Impact Awards celebrate individuals, organizations, businesses, and volunteers who have made a meaningful difference in the lives of others through service, leadership, and community engagement.
To be recognized by members of the community I care so deeply about is incredibly humbling.
While this nomination bears my name, it truly represents the collective efforts of the many people who work tirelessly to make a positive impact every day. Through my role as Executive Director of Rebel Reform, I have had the privilege of working alongside remarkable volunteers, nonprofit leaders, community partners, donors, and advocates who continually demonstrate what can be accomplished when people come together for a common purpose.
Over the past year, I have witnessed firsthand the generosity and compassion that exist throughout Ozaukee County and southeastern Wisconsin. From supporting local charitable organizations to helping create opportunities for individuals and families facing difficult circumstances, our community consistently proves that meaningful change happens when people are willing to serve others.
One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is seeing the ripple effect that kindness can create. A single act of generosity often inspires another, and those moments can transform communities in ways that extend far beyond what we initially imagine.
This nomination also reflects the mission that drives everything I do, both professionally and personally. Whether through photography, storytelling, nonprofit leadership, or community outreach, I believe that every person deserves to feel seen, valued, and supported. My goal has always been to use my platform and experiences to help connect people, raise awareness, and encourage action that creates lasting positive change.
I would like to sincerely thank the individual who nominated me for this recognition. Your confidence and support mean more than words can express.
Most importantly, I want to thank every volunteer, supporter, donor, board member, community partner, and friend who has joined us in our mission. This nomination belongs to all of you as much as it belongs to me.
The Ozaukee Impact Awards ceremony will take place on July 23, 2026, and I am honored simply to be included among so many inspiring individuals and organizations making a difference throughout our community.
No matter the outcome, I remain committed to continuing the work that matters most: helping others, strengthening communities, and creating opportunities for positive change.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
With gratitude,
Loretta Kryshak
Executive Director, Rebel Reform
Seven Continents Through the Lens: How World Travel Shaped Loretta Kryshak as a Photographer and Humanitarian
There is a photograph I took in Antartica that I return to often. No people, no color, no movement just a vast plane of ice stretching toward a horizon that seemed to belong to another world entirely. The light was coming from everywhere at once, flat and blue-white and completely unlike anything I had encountered before. I stood there for a long time before I raised my camera. Sometimes the most important thing a photographer can do is wait.
That moment, and hundreds like it across seven continents, is what has shaped me, not just as a photographer, but as a person who believes deeply in the power of paying attention. Over the years, my camera has taken me from the markets of Southeast Asia to the glaciers of Antarctica, from the plains of Africa to the alleyways of South America, and every single place has left something in my photographs and in me.
Why Seven Continents?
People sometimes ask whether completing all seven continents was a goal I set out to achieve deliberately. The honest answer is that it grew naturally from a fundamental restlessness; a belief, held since I was young, that the world is far larger and stranger and more beautiful than any one place can show you.
My husband Mike and I have always believed that travel is among the most important investments a family can make. Not tourism exactly, though there is nothing wrong with tourism. But genuine, slow, attentive travel, the kind where you eat where locals eat, stay long enough to notice patterns, and bring your children along so they learn early that their way of doing things is one way among many. We have homeschooled our children in countries across Southeast Asia. We have volunteered alongside communities in Africa and India. We have stood on every continent and tried, imperfectly, to understand what we were seeing.
The camera is what makes me look carefully enough to actually see it.
Africa: Learning to Wait
Africa was where I first understood that wildlife photography is almost entirely an exercise in patience. You can have the best equipment, the perfect light, the ideal position and still miss the photograph if you move too soon or too late.
I photographed a leopard in the early morning, in that brief window when the light is neither harsh nor flat but golden and directional and alive. The leopard held still. I held still. For a few seconds, we were simply two creatures occupying the same patch of morning, and then it was over. I had the frame. But I only had it because I had learned, by that point, to resist the urge to shoot immediately and instead wait for the moment that was actually there, not the one I expected.
Africa also gave me some of my most humanizing experiences as a traveler. The communities I visited — often with volunteer groups, sometimes through connections made by Rebel Reform — maintained extraordinary social cohesion with far fewer material resources than any community I had encountered at home in Milwaukee. DELETE: That observation did not make me feel superior or generous. It made me feel instructed. These communities knew things about mutual support and human connection that I had been trying to build programmatically for years. I photographed what I saw and brought those images home as reminders.
South America: Grassroots Lessons
South America is where I learned the most about grassroots organizing, and I learned it not from a workshop or a book but from watching local nonprofit leaders work with almost nothing and accomplish extraordinary things.
I was particularly struck by the specificity of their interventions. Nothing was abstract. Everything was aimed at a particular person in a particular circumstance this family needs this, that neighborhood is missing that. The photography I did there reflects that specificity. I was drawn less to sweeping landscapes than to close, quiet portraits of everyday life: a woman arranging produce at a market stall, a child walking to school along a road that was more dust than pavement, an elderly man sitting in the shade outside a building whose walls told a hundred years of history in their peeling paint.
Those images, and the organizing philosophy behind them, came back to Milwaukee with me and shaped how I think about Rebel Reform's work. We try to be specific. We try to serve the person in front of us, not an abstraction of need.
India: The Weight of Scale
India humbled me in ways I did not fully expect. I had traveled widely before I went, and I thought I was prepared for the scale of what I would see. I was not.
What I found there was not only poverty though the poverty was real and confronting but also resilience of a kind that photography struggles to capture because it is so interior, so embedded in daily life that it doesn't announce itself. The most powerful images I made in India were not of suffering. They were of ordinary persistence: a family cooking dinner, a group of children doing homework on a rooftop, a man repairing a bicycle beside a road.
The bicycle image stayed with me for a long time. There is something universal about a bicycle about the modest miracle of human-powered mobility that cuts across every culture I've visited. It is perhaps part of why the bike giveaway program at Rebel Reform has always felt so personally meaningful to me. We have given away more than 4,000 bicycles to children in Milwaukee through our partnership with community organizations. Every single time I watch a child ride away on one of those bikes, I think about that man on the roadside in India, and the image I almost didn't take because I was moving too fast.
Southeast Asia: Color, Chaos, and the Case for Black and White
Southeast Asia presented me with a problem I have never entirely solved: it is almost impossibly colorful. Markets stacked with fruit and textiles, temples draped in gold, streets painted in ways that seem to defy any single frame.
And yet my best work from that part of the world is in black and white.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about why. Part of it is simply that color, in a scene so saturated with it, can overwhelm the photograph's other elements its geometry, its human story, its emotional core. Stripping the color away forces the viewer to look at what is actually happening, not just what is visually spectacular.
But I think there is something else too. Black-and-white photography insists on a kind of permanence. It removes the image from its specific historical moment from the particular fashions and signs and technologies that date a photograph and makes it feel, instead, like something that has always been true and will go on being true. The weight of a vendor's concentration over her stall. The way light divides a narrow street into two worlds. The laughter on a child's face. These things do not belong to a decade. They belong to the human experience.
That belief that there are things worth photographing because they are permanently true is one I carry into my humanitarian work as well. The need for dignity. The hunger for community. The particular joy of a child with a bicycle. These are not trends. They are constants.
Australia and New Zealand: Space and Silence
I have found, in my travels, that the photographs I treasure most from sparsely populated places are rarely the dramatic ones. They are the quiet ones. A single tree in a field. A road disappearing into distance. A sky with room enough in it to think.
Australia and New Zealand gave me space in a way that few other places have. Space to be a small thing in a large landscape, which is a perspective I find useful to revisit periodically. When you run an organization, manage relationships, coordinate logistics, and advocate loudly for the people your programs serve, it is easy to lose the thread of your own smallness. These landscapes restored it.
The photographs I brought back from that part of the world are among the most minimal of my career. Very little in the frame. A great deal of sky. I love them precisely because they are so different from the density and urgency of the work I do at home.
Antarctica: The Continent That Stopped Me Cold
I have already written elsewhere about Antarctica, but I will say again here what I always say: it is the place that stays with me most.
There is no culture to photograph in Antarctica in the way there is culture in every other place I have visited. No markets, no architecture, no faces shaped by generations of particular history. There is only the planet itself ice and sky and the sound of wind and, on certain extraordinary mornings, complete silence.
My black-and-white work from Antarctica was recognized with an honorable mention at the Monochrome Awards, and while I am proud of that recognition, what I value most about those images is what they remind me of every time I look at them. The world is ancient and enormous. We are brief and small. What we choose to do with our brief time in our small corner of it how we treat the people around us, what we build, what we give away matters more than the scale of the planet suggests it should.
I came home from Antarctica and threw myself into the work of Rebel Reform with a renewed sense of urgency. Not frantic urgency, but the settled, purposeful kind. The kind that comes from having stood somewhere that puts things in perspective.
What Seven Continents Taught Loretta Kryshak About Seeing
The through-line in all of this, the thing that connects a leopard at dawn in Africa to an ice field in Antarctica to a child receiving a bicycle in Milwaukee is attention. Photography has taught me that attention is the foundation of everything worth doing. You cannot photograph what you have not truly seen. You cannot help a community you have not truly listened to. You cannot lead an organization well if you are too busy to notice what is actually happening inside it.
I travel because the world is worth seeing. I photograph because the act of making an image forces me to see it more carefully. And I do the work I do at Rebel Reform because everything I have seen on seven continents and in the streets of the city where I live has convinced me that people, everywhere, are worth showing up for.
That is the only philosophy I have ever needed.
Loretta Kryshak is the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, the social outreach arm of Rebel Converting. She is an award-winning photographer whose work has been recognized by the Monochrome Awards, and she has traveled to all seven continents. She documents her journeys, photography, and humanitarian work at lorettakryshak.com.
From Finance and IT to Nonprofit Leadership: Loretta Kryshak on Building a Life of Purpose
If you'd asked Loretta Kryshak in her early twenties what she pictured for her career, she would have described spreadsheets, network architectures, and writing code, not warehouses full of donated bikes, or press appearances to announce million-mask milestones, or spending an afternoon photographing children at a park in Milwaukee receive their first bicycle.
Life has a way of taking your skills somewhere you never expected to need them and Loretta has spent a lot of years being grateful for that.
A Foundation Built on Finance, Technology, and Design
I graduated from UWM, where I earned two bachelor's degrees. One in Finance, one in Management Information Systems both landing me on the Dean's Honor List. I started out using my financial skills as a computer programmer, customizing financial programs focused on basic MRP to manage inventory control, production planning, and scheduling for manufacturing industries. Over time, I was a pioneer when barcoding became available to help make inventory control easier.
I also hold an Associate of Arts in Graphic Design and Photography from Milwaukee Area Technical College, where I earned Dean's Honor Roll recognition as well.
That combination; financial literacy, systems thinking, and visual design sounds eclectic, but it has turned out to be exactly the toolkit that nonprofit leadership demands.
Running Rebel Reform is not a lax job. It requires understanding how money moves, where it should go, and how to make a case for specific allocations when resources are limited. It requires systems thinking: how do you coordinate 22 partner agencies to distribute 4 million masks during a public health crisis? How do you organize a warehouse, a volunteer team, a logistics chain, and a community outreach campaign simultaneously? Effective organizational communication requires a strategic blend of clear, compelling, and mission-true messaging, where both visual and verbal elements are aligned.
Finance. Systems. Design. I use all three, every single day.
The Corporate Path That Preceded the Nonprofit One
Before Rebel Reform, I worked in the corporate world as a consultant, project manager, and systems analyst. These weren't glamorous titles, but the work was intellectually rigorous and taught me skills that I don't think any amount of nonprofit-specific training could have replicated.
As a consultant, I learned to enter unfamiliar organizations, quickly understand how they actually function (as opposed to how they say they function), identify inefficiencies, and recommend solutions that could survive implementation. As a project manager, I learned to hold timelines and people accountable without destroying relationships. As a systems analyst, I learned to think in processes to see not just what's happening now, but what happens next, and next after that.
All of this became the architecture of how I lead Rebel Reform. When we partnered with Just One More Ministry to renovate their 24,000-square-foot warehouse, I wasn't just writing a check, I was managing a project. When we designed the #MaskUpMKE campaign, I wasn't just organizing volunteers, I was architecting a system that had to scale across county lines and health department relationships and manufacturing logistics simultaneously.
I am proud of what Rebel Reform has accomplished. I am equally proud of the professional foundation that made those accomplishments possible.
What Loretta Kryshak Believes About Women in Leadership
I am careful not to overclaim about my own experience, but I do think there's something worth saying about the path that led me here.
I came of age in fields of finance, information technology, systems engineering where women were present but not common. Where being taken seriously required a certain kind of persistent, unflappable competence. Where you learned quickly that you did not get the benefit of the doubt; you demonstrated it, every time, and then you moved forward.
The women I admire most in leadership share knowing that confidence comes from knowing your worth and refusing to compromise it. I try to model that at Rebel Reform, and I try to model it for the young people in our community of both, boys and girls who are watching how adults show up when things are hard.
The Junior Women's Club and Community Roots
Before Rebel Reform, when I became a mother , I joined the Junior Women's Club of Mequon an organization that exemplifies exactly the kind of community-level relationship building that I believe underpins all meaningful civic work. Volunteering and organizing through organizations like the Junior Women's Club has kept me connected to the fabric of everyday life in southeastern Wisconsin in a way that a nonprofit executive role alone never could.
Local organizations matter. Neighborhood relationships matter. The woman you serve alongside at a community event is the person who calls when she hears about a family that needs bikes or backpacks or a warm meal. That network is irreplaceable and it doesn't build itself.
A Career That Keeps Evolving
I'm often asked whether I miss corporate life. The honest answer is: As a Graphic Artist I am still very much involved with our company and everyday chaos at Rebel Converting.
But, what I also have — leading an organization that directly changes the material conditions of people's lives, while also pursuing photography, and traveling with my family, and staying connected to the community where I've built my life — is richer than anything I pictured in those early years of spreadsheets and network diagrams.
The skills are the same. The purpose is larger. And the work, even on its hardest days, is worth it.
Loretta Kryshak is the Executive Director of Rebel Reform, the social outreach arm of Rebel Converting. She holds degrees in Finance, Management Information Systems, and Graphic Design & Photography and has spent over a decade leading community impact programs in southeastern Wisconsin. Follow her work at lorettakryshak.com.
Milwaukee Charity Bike Collection 2026: Behind the Scenes
Every bicycle has a story. Here's a look at what it really takes to collect, restore, and deliver hundreds of bikes to kids across Milwaukee who need them most.
2026 16th Annual Bike Collection
There's a moment every year that I look forward to more than almost anything else; the day when the warehouse at Rebel Converting fills up with bikes that are donated, collected, sorted, and waiting. Each one represents a child in Milwaukee who will soon have something they've never had before: the freedom to ride.
This year’s bike drive wouldn’t be what it is without the incredible support of Lake Express Ferry, whose partnership continues to power the event year after year. By offering complimentary ferry tickets to donors, they’ve helped turn a simple collection into one of the largest community-driven bike donation efforts in the region.
The 2026 16th Annual Bike Collection was amazing, and I wanted to pull back the curtain and show you what actually happens behind the scenes; the planning, the volunteers, the long days, and the unexpected moments that make this all worth it.
Bikes Come in Faster than We Can Sort Them
Most people don't realize that the bike giveaway begins months before the actual event. In addition to the bikes dropped off on event day, we hear from people all year long who want to give back. Apartment complexes and local police departments often reach out about unclaimed or extra bikes they’d like to donate. We also work closely with DreamBikes and Working Bikes, who help us put some of the higher-quality adult bikes to good use in exchange for kids bikes that go straight back into our community. And just as often, it’s individuals calling or emailing to ask, “Can I drop off a bike?”—which, of course, the answer is always yes.
The response every year humbles me. People dig through garages, pull bikes from storage units, call their neighbors. Businesses organize internal drives. Schools run collection competitions. By the time the drop-off dates arrive, bikes are coming in faster than we can sort them.
The Volunteers Who Make It Happen
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: Rebel Reform is only as strong as the people who show up. This year, our volunteer team has been extraordinary. From teenagers giving up their Saturdays to retired mechanics tuning up donated bikes, every person who walks through the warehouse door is changing a child's life.
“When you hand a child a bicycle, you’re not just giving them a way to get around. You’re giving them independence and that means everything.”
The sorting process alone takes dozens of hands. Every donated bike is assessed — tires checked, brakes tested, frames inspected for safety. Those that need work go to our repair station, where skilled volunteers spend hours making sure every bike that leaves our warehouse is truly road-ready.
Documenting the Stories
As a photographer, I find these collection days almost overwhelming in the best possible way. The light in the warehouse in the early morning, the concentration on a volunteer's face as they adjust a derailleur, the pride of a donor handing over a bike they've carried from their car. These are the images I live for.
I've been shooting this collection from every angle this year, and I'll be sharing photos throughout the season right here on the blog and on social media. Follow along because the real story isn't in the final giveaway event. It's in all the quiet, unglamorous hours that make it possible.
From Collection to Communities
Join us this June at Kosciuszko Park Bike Day on Saturday, June 13, 2026 from 11:00am–2:00pm, and see firsthand how these bike donations transform lives across Milwaukee. It is one of our favorite events of the year, and we would love to see you there. Every bike is carefully inspected for safety by the teams at Rebel Converting, the Wisconsin Bike Fed, DreamBikes, and Working Bikes—ensuring each one is ready to ride when it’s handed off to a new owner at our bike giveaway on June 13.
Thank you to every single person who donated a bike, volunteered their time, or simply cheered us on. And a special thank you to Lake Express Ferry for making this event possible year after year. Together, we are keeping Milwaukee moving.
Come celebrate with us!
Kosciuszko Park Bike Day
Saturday, June 13, 2026 · 11:00am – 2:00pm
Kosciuszko Park, Milwaukee, WI