Saint Catherine’s Ministries in the News

St. Catherines Parish Auction: March 24, 2012 Save the Date!

A Planning-Organizing Committee is forming to bring our Auction back to St. Catherine Parish on Saturday, March 24, 2012.

Of course, you remember our last auction. Great fun! A great time! A Super parish event! Our 2012 Auction will be even better!

We need your help to put it all together for 2012.

For more information, and to volunteer to help, send an email to Maureen Crowley, 2012 Auction Chair at auction@st.catherine51.org, or contact the parish office.

Together, we will make it happen!

COMMON GROUND GETS $2.4 MILLION COMMITMENT FROM WELLS FARGO

Common Ground started small three years ago, working to get better lighting for some streets in the Sherman Park neighborhood, pushing for more summer youth jobs and helping restore bus service to the food pantry in Waukesha.

But it became David aiming at Goliath when it took on major U.S. banks and world powerhouse Deutsche Bank as part of its campaign to hold banks accountable for the havoc the foreclosure crisis has wreaked on the city of Milwaukee.

At first, the banks balked. But the group kept pushing, even flying to Frankfurt, Germany, to the shareholders meeting of Deutsche Bank to confront its CEO, Josef Ackermann.

Persistence paid off.

Five major banks, including Deutsche Bank, agreed to meet with Common Ground and city officials about how to take better care of foreclosed properties.

But the organization’s biggest accomplishment came last month.

After attending the Wells Fargo shareholders meeting in San Francisco, Common Ground succeeded in getting the bank to commit $2.4 million to help rehab and clean up foreclosed homes, and provide mortgages to buyers, in a 130-square-block area of Sherman Park.

The group also asked U.S. Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, along with Deutsche Bank, to join the effort and contribute similar amounts, to create a $12 million pool. The city has contributed $2 million in federal money to rehab homes.

“We can’t do it alone, and we’re eager to collaborate on the investment in Sherman Park and play a role in revitalizing the community in partnership with others in Milwaukee,” said Fred Bertoldo, regional vice president for Wells Fargo in Wisconsin and Minnesota, when the agreement was announced.

After going to Germany last month for the Deutsche Bank shareholders meeting, the group is now in conversations with Deutsche about its possible participation, said Bob Connolly of Common Ground.

Deutsche Bank officials could not be reached for comment.

U.S. Bank spokeswoman Lisa Clark said the bank is working with Common Ground and discussing and evaluating different proposals and will have a decision shortly.

Founded three years ago, the Southeastern Wisconsin Common Ground is a broad-based, four-county organization of more than 40 churches, nonprofits and other organizations. It’s an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national community organizing network founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky. Based in Chicago, IAF has 59 organizations in 21 states, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Connolly, a former IAF organizer in Pittsburgh, started the drive to build Common Ground in 2004 after he got “fed up” with reading about problems with health care, unemployment and education. He formed a group of 38 religious, civic and business leaders that raised the $750,000 needed to hire a paid, professional IAF organizer.

While some cities, such as Baltimore and Los Angeles, have filed lawsuits against various banks to deal with the foreclosure mess, Common Ground’s approach may be unlike other efforts in the way it deals with banks to try to ameliorate the foreclosure crisis.

“It’s a rather unusual effort, as far as I know, especially for a community group to do the legwork,” said Robin Dubin, an economics professor and associate dean at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “If they are successful, other groups will try this.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said Common Ground has been a good partner in raising awareness and addressing the foreclosure issue.

But how did a grass-roots organization manage to do such a big deal?

“We got here because we have persistence and fortitude,” said Connolly, one of the leaders of the foreclosure campaign now called Milwaukee Rising.

“We don’t give up and we don’t go away,” he said.

The organization is now working to form a health care cooperative. And it has started to tackle the issue of schools and education.

[For the full article see the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for Monday, June 20, 2011.}

For information on Common Ground contact parishioners Toni Wagner at wagnergeorge@att.net, or Mike McElwee at mcelwemr@yahoo.com, or Mark Peters.