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Milwaukee Churches Prepare For Huge Community Event

Marti Mikkelson
Edward Nwagbaraocha sorts through boxes of food that will be given away Saturday at All Saints Church.

About two dozen churches in Milwaukee will hold events Saturday to bring neighbors together and assess their needs. 

It’s called “All Things In Common.” North side Common Council members launched it in June.

Perhaps the program carries special significance now, in light of the violence that broke out in and around the Sherman Park neighborhood nearly two weeks ago, after a police officer shot and killed a man.

WUWM stopped by one of the churches, as it was preparing for the weekend event.

Henry Johnson manages the food pantry at All Saints Catholic Church on 25th and Capitol. Today, Johnson is doing double duty. He’s sorting through dozens of food items that volunteers will put into grocery bags and give out to community members who attend Saturday’s event.

Johnson says the food pantry is open three days a week and is always busy. “We serve about 120 people here a week and on the weeks that are at the end of the month we serve more than that. Yesterday, we had about 80 individuals who came in,” he says.

Edward Nwagbaraocha, the church trustee, was helping promote Saturday’s event. He went out into the neighborhood to put flyers on doors or hand them to residents.

“I’m canvassing because I love this neighborhood. I grew up in this neighborhood. I started coming back to church in 2010. I asked my pastor how do I get involved in humanitarian work and he said 'Ed, I need you right here in the community.' I started working with St. Vincent De Paul, we went into these homes and we saw people who were struggling,” he says.

Nwagbaraocha stuck a flyer into Michael Simmons’ hand.

It bills Saturday’s event as a community give back, with free gas, groceries and bus passes. Simmons says he could use a free bus pass, but what the neighborhood really needs are activities for young people.

“Something they can go to that they want to go to and have it be fun, like bowling alleys, we don’t have a lot of bowling alleys and arcades and things like that,” Simmons says.

Another person, a woman who didn’t want to give her name, ticked off a list of community needs. “They need more jobs and they need more safety in the neighborhood and they need more food.”

The Rev. Bob Stiefvater is pastor of All Saints. He expects about 200 people to show up Saturday to take in the food and entertainment. He says it will be fun, but there will be serious business too as residents will be asked to assess the needs of the community.

“We hope to gather people around so they can fill out some questionaires, so our alderman can apply for block grants for our particular areas, based on what our people’s needs are. The hope is that we will be one of the hub churches, one of 25 hub churches that will provide direct contact for people with city services and county services,” Stiefvater says.

Stiefvater expects to hear back in a couple months, on whether the area around All Saints Church will be awarded federal block grant funds.

Here is a map of all of sites participating in the Saturday, August 27 block party / community resource event, which run from 11 am to 1 pm:

Marti was a reporter with WUWM from 1999 to 2021.
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