Programs

Street Ministry - Franciscan Peacemakers serves bag lunches 5-6 days a week in neighborhoods where drug dealing and prostitution occur on a regular basis. Children, women and men living in poverty come to receive what in most cases are their only meals for the day. These same meals are also used as a way to make contact and develop trust with women who prostitute in hopes that they will take the FIRSTSTEPS in breaking away from the street life.

FirstSteps - FirstSteps is a care program for women in recovery seeking a positive and healthy change in life. This program provides referrals to community resources, assistance with physical as well as mental health care, personal care items, weekly scripture study for help in getting to know themselves as children of God worthy of love, and individual spiritual support in walking the journey to be healed.

Summer Vacation Bible School - In the summertime, Franciscan Peacemakers offers a vacation bible school for kids at Johnson Park near N. 18th and W. Brown Streets. During this time, kids as well as their parents receive a bag lunch and are invited to stay to hear bible stories and to participate in crafts and games. During this time, we are able to build relationships and trust with the kids and their families.

Human Trafficking - In conjunction with our Street Ministry, Franciscan Peacemakers has joined the Wisconsin Rescue & Restore Coalition to learn more about human trafficking and how we can recognize and help people on the streets who may be victims of this modern-day slavery.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, “Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. Victims of human trafficking are young children, teenagers, men and women. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.

After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing.

Many victims of human trafficking are forced to work in prostitution or the sex entertainment industry. But trafficking also occurs in forms of labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, restaurant work, janitorial work, sweatshop factory work and migrant agricultural work.”

(For more information on human trafficking, go to our links page)