Wow! Can you believe that summer is already over? You can really tell by the way that that weather here in Milwaukee changed. Bicycle rides to work are cluttered now with layered flannel shirts, vests and a plethora of other junk aimed at making a bicycle ride warmer.
So Labor in the Pulpits went down without too many hitches. Speakers, for the most part managed to not get their butts thrown out of too many places because they dared to say that God was a God of the poor.
And here I stand, about a month ago I spoke about "Hanging on the Strings of Hope" and I am happy to say that I am now the Community Organizer down here at the Faith Community for Worker Justice(FCWJ), in charge of creating a program that the FCWJ can do throughout the year. I have a few ideas and will see what ends up flying.
It seems that this is going to be a neat year. By having the chance to work here for a year, I really feel like I can get FCWJ going to a point where it will have continued support from the Labor Council and possibly even have a few people that will work here on a full time basis by next year. The road to getting this organization up and running is a large one that will require much compassion and love by many people, but I believe in people and believe that there is enough concerned folks from faith and secular backgrounds to make it an effective organization.
Right now I am working on getting a strong bit of student support for the program to join the clerical support that we have had in the past. This means working both ways, supporting student organizations around town to create contacts between the religious community and the student community. We already have a student from Alverno University, here in town who is going to be volunteering down here over the course of the semester. She will be working on supporting the Capital Returns campaign in any capacity that we can by hosting a panel discussion and maybe sometime soon down the road organizing a direct action against the company.
There will also be an educational aspect to the FCWJ in having a seminar for lay and clerical leaders in the community on how to engage their congregations in issues of economic justice. This is tentatively scheduled to start Oct 11th at the Capuchin Volinteer Corp House, if you are interested in participating please give me a call at 414 771 7541.
We will also be teaming up with the Milwaukee Network for Social Change to get congregational support out for their Free Markets. Free Market is a program where a bunch of people bring all the old junk and give it away together, For Free!
We will also be working with the AFL-CIO's Health and Hygiene drive sponsored by United Way, if your congregation wants to get involved, feel free to call and we'll get you connected.
Brochures for our organization have also been created and we would like to distribute them to gain community support for FCWJ.
A website is also in the mix to be created, I will keep you updated on how that is going.
All and all were getting up and running to have a strong program for the 2007-2008 year.
Thanks for reading.
Peace Always,
Jon Royal
Community Organizer
Faith Community for Worker Justice
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