The next chapter

A safe and affirming community outside the walls of Courage MKE's home base

When Fayomi Agbongbon first met Brad Schlaikowski around the time she started working at Courage MKE, he told her the “Brad and Nick” story — how Brad and his husband, Nick, had sat down on their couch one day to talk about the needs of teenage LGBTQ foster kids, and four months later had started Courage MKE, which would go on to become a group home and apartments for LGBTQ young people in need of support.

“I was sold,” Fayomi said. “I wanted to be part of that story and all that it would be.”

At the time, Fayomi was between jobs, feeling burnt out from her years as a home health care worker. She learned about Courage when her friend convinced her to attend a fundraiser for the organization. That’s where she met some of her future co-workers, as well as some of the group home’s residents; her conversations convinced her to interview with Courage MKE, and she was offered a job.

“I was wandering the world aimlessly and had no idea what I was gonna do ‘when I grew up,’” Fayomi said. “The Brad and Nick story saved my life.”

So it came as a shock to Fayomi when Brad gathered the Courage staff last year to tell them that the “Brad and Nick story is over.”