STARS Small Town and Rural Seniors

08/20/2026

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- It's one of the biggest challenges facing Wisconsin in the years ahead. The state's internal projections show a population that will be significantly older by the end of the decade.According

08/17/2026

A few days earlier, I was in Baraboo, Wisconsin, helping set up chairs for a town hall hosted by the nonpartisan community organizing project Small Town and Rural Seniors. The senior citizens behind the event, most in their 70s and 80s, were huddled in a corner going through the questions they would ask when the candidates arrived.

Judy Brey of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, asked the first question: “If elected as governor, will you support a moratorium on the closure or sale of county-owned nursing homes?”

The entire room leaned in, eyes on the candidates.

Judy and many of the other seniors in the room have been in a years-long fight with their local county boards over the sale of publicly owned nursing homes to private buyers. For generations, these nursing homes have provided residents a sense of security as they and their loved ones age.

“It’s all ideological,” says Judy. “It’s not based on reason or what’s best for people.” When these homes are sold to private buyers, the quality of care goes down and the costs for families go up as the corporations who have purchased them squeeze out every last dollar of profit.

But still, many county boards are putting the nursing homes up for sale. Why? Because for two whole generations now we’ve been told that public goods are no good at all.

~Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, The Nation

Read more:

Public goods were meant for us, but corporate interests want to take them away.

08/13/2026

Small Town and Rural Seniors (STARS) statement on Wisconsin Primary

Small-Town and Rural Seniors across Wisconsin have been watching the governor's race carefully. We want to know two things: Which candidates understand the contributions and needs of seniors, and what will the candidates do for us, the fastest-growing age group in the state?

Today, there are already more than 1 million Wisconsinites aged 65 and older. By 2030, there will be 1.3 million seniors in Wisconsin – and seniors already vote at the highest percentage of any age group.

To put it plainly, there is not a path to statewide office that doesn’t require the support of seniors, and we will be reviewing the primary results to understand the role older adult voters played in determining the outcome of the primaries.

Despite the number and power of senior voters, no candidate running for governor has yet articulated a comprehensive plan for investing in seniors and our families.

Two weeks ago in Baraboo, STARS hosted a candidate town hall. At the town hall, we pressed the candidates on issues such as the growing caregiver shortage, the sale of publicly owned nursing homes, senior housing, transportation, affordability, and fraud. We have been organizing both in our hometowns and across the state and have a firm sense of proactive, sound policy that could enhance the quality of life for seniors and help move Wisconsin forward.

No matter who will be Wisconsin’s next governor or which party will control the statehouse, our work to organize seniors to improve our lives and our communities continues beyond any election cycle.

For Immediate Release, August 13, 2026
Contact: [email protected] | ‪(262) 394-6659‬

08/11/2026

Today, we vote. Tomorrow, we continue to build people power together--toward a state that says "yes" to housing, healthcare, transportation, connection, and quality of life for small town and rural seniors across Wisconsin.

Go in confidence today, friends. We'll see you on the other side!

~Your STARS Planning Team

08/03/2026

STARS South Bus departing Bus Stop 2 at Trinity Lutheran it Fort Atkinson last weekend. Look at that joy! And so much to follow.

07/30/2026

At the July 25, 2026, Small Town & Rural Seniors Governor-Candidates Town Hall, held in Baraboo, Wisconsin, Susanna Juon-Gilk, a retired LPN and musician from Merrill, addressed gubernatorial candidates on senior fraud.

Before turning to the candidates, Susanna asked a question of the room. By show of hands, how many of the roughly 100 seniors gathered had received a phone call, text, email, or piece of mail that week designed to scam them out of their savings? Nearly every hand in the room went up.

Susanna shared her own experience of receiving sometimes dozens of scam calls in a single day. "Many of us in this room today have worked our whole lives and are trying to survive on our savings while prices soar all around us," she told the candidates, "and every day we are hounded by predatory, AI-assisted fraud syndicates. Senior fraud is a major criminal enterprise. They are organized, highly sophisticated, and well-financed. The FBI estimates that seniors are scammed out of $7 billion each year."

She also had a message for the room: seniors are being targeted, and they have nothing to be ashamed of. The shame belongs to the fraudsters, not to the people they target.

She asked the candidates what they each would do to stop financial exploitation targeting seniors before it happens.

To hear their responses, visit the video in the comments below.

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Follow us for more news from the STARS Town Hall.
Connect with us & link to that video below.

07/30/2026

At the July 25, 2026, Small Town & Rural Seniors Governor-Candidates Town Hall, held in Baraboo, Wisconsin, Sara Nichols of Williams Bay, executive director of Open Arms Free Clinic, the only free medical clinic serving low-income and uninsured residents of Walworth County, addressed gubernatorial candidates on rural transportation.

"On Sundays, when I visit nonprofits, community centers, or churches in Walworth County," Nichols told the room, "there's a new bus that pulls up outside, filled with seniors and others who need a ride." That Sunday bus service didn't exist a couple of years ago, not until the community stepped up and demanded a solution to isolation in the county.

Since the service launched, ridership has grown every single month, from 40 rides in the first month to over 870 rides in six months.

"Transportation is a health issue," Nichols said. "It is a connection issue. It is a hunger issue. It's the way people get to the services, resources, and people they love."

Nichols pointed to the scale of the problem statewide: roughly 20 to 23 percent of Wisconsin residents aged 65 and older don't get behind the wheel at all or lack a valid license. In Wausau, seniors can't even get a bus to Rothschild, right next door. Wisconsin remains the only state in the Midwest without a Regional Transit Authority bill, a tool that lets local governments cross municipal boundaries to jointly plan, fund, and operate connected public transit.

Nichols asked candidates: as governor, would they support a Regional Transit Authority in Wisconsin?

All four candidates responded "yes" before elaborating on how they'd build out rural transit further.

Every small-town and rural senior in Wisconsin should have the freedom to get where they need to go when they need to get there.

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Follow us for more news from the STARS Town Hall.
Connect with us & watch a video of the full event at the links below.

07/30/2026