MILWAUKEE — It is around dinnertime. On the corner of 16th and North, two Capuchin priests are handing out sandwiches to neighborhood children. Earlier in the day, the two visited neighborhood residents in their homes, arranging for such services as alcohol, drug or HIV counseling.

Shortly before arriving on the corner, they had stopped at their office to meet with Donnell, a 12 year-old boy who needed boots and Kate, a woman who wanted to join their support group for Prostitutes dealing with issues of drug addiction. Their ministry, founded four years ago, is called Franciscan Peacemakers and the objective is to bring about change in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Milwaukee’s inner-city.

In terms of living out the values of social justice the Franciscan Peacemakers could be textbook examples. The The food and clothing they hand out each night respond to the basic needs of the people they. serve. The programs and counseling they provide bring about change on a deeper level.

It is no surprise then, that two archdiocesan schools committed to teaching social justice, St. Hubert Elementary School in Hubertus and Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, have chosen ‘to team with ‘the Peacemakers in an effort to show students what living the Gospel values looks like when it is done right.

Marie Adee, an eighth-grade teacher at St. Hubert, has had her students work with the Peacemakers program for the past two years. Adee’s philosophy is to tie history and religion classes together by having her students work on a social justice project with connections to a. historical event and a Christian principle.

"Social justice has to be pointed out to kids. We need to help them take a look at Christ’s teaching and see how it ties into real life."

To this end, Adee tied the Peacemakers ministry into the students’ study of the Industrial Revolution. In October,. students set up a classroom company to make stuffed frogs and Christmas stockings to give to the children served by the Peacemakers. Adee created a microcosm. of the U.S. economy by requiring that students apply for the jobs involved in the creation of the product.

Pay for the jobs ranged from $7 to $14 an hour, and, from this wage, students were required to pay taxes, rent, insurance and all other bills. At the same time, Adee worked on educating her students about some of the problems in Milwaukee’s central city. She had Frs. Bob Wheelock and Mike Sullivan, Franciscan Peacemakers founders; come into her classroom and discuss their ministry with the students.

"If there are going to be any changes in terms of social justice, it needs to start at the grassroots level," she said. "The kids have to understand how our world works and then use that understanding to extend out toward others."

As the project developed, students learned how difficult it could be to make ends meet and how easily a family can slip into poverty.

Jessica Jilling, who had a job sewing for $7 an hour, said the project helped, her gain perspective on some of the problems facing the poor.

"I learned not to take things for granted; some people don’t have everything they need, and that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with them. It’s just the situation they’re in.

Classmate Amanda Budyak agreed. "I went bankrupt. It wasn’t that I bought so much, but I pulled a card for night school, and that was expensive."

In addition to the frogs and stockings that they donated, students also collected hats, mittens and scarves for the Peacemakers and made about 250 lunches for the street ministry program. They are now working on quilts which will be finished around Easter.

While St. Hubert students help the Peacemakers as a part of their regular curriculum, students at Dominican High School do so extracurricularly, making hundreds of sandwiches each week.

"We’ve been doing this for two years," Jane McAuliffe, Dominican’s campus mini, said. "At first, just the students involved with Campus. Ministry made the sandwiches, but now classes, organizations and teams sign up for a week"

The students themselves bring the bread, meat and condiments necessary and make the sandwiches assembly-line style before school. Occasionally, students from nearby St. Monica Elementary School bake 100 cookies to accompany the sand-. wiches. McAuliffe delivers the lunches to the Peacemakers center at North 24th and West Locust Streets with the help of a student or two.

"After going down to the center with Ms. McAuliffe, it became. very obvious to me what great needs there are in that part of the city," said junior Meghan Halley.

McAuliffe strives to help her students understand that the answers to the problems facing Milwaukee’s central city are not going to be found by simply making sandwiches.

"A core group of students is realizing that they need to get people personally involved in changing the system," McAuliffe said. She noted that the school’s participation with the Peacemakers has led to a group of students regularly tutoring at St. Leo Catholic Urban Academy and helping out at the Dominican Center, both located in the same building as the Peacemakers office.

For Dominican's Halley, becoming personally involved with poverty issues has even affected her career plans.

"The work I’ve done with Cam- pus Ministry has made me think of going into education in college, and then joining the Peace Corps afterwards," she said.

It is students like Halley who make McAuliffe feel that she’s leading kids in the right direction.

"The kernel which is beginning to explode is that it is good to make the sandwiches, but ultimately, we need to give people the skills to make their own sandwiches."

Hubert is in need of donated sewing machines for their project. Call (414) 628-1711. Franciscan Peacemakers are in need of hats, gloves and mittens. Call (414) 873-5078.