Wanted: Space for 600 desks, 600 dressers, 600 chairs
The old pickup truck loaded with old furniture hobbles along, kind of like 65-year-old Chris Jaszewski does since he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle.
The two of them have hauled tons of donated dressers, tables, sofas and other household essentials to the needy in the 20 years since the truck itself was donated to Casa Maria — a “will-powered” community of volunteers who serve those in need for no other reason than the need itself.
Today, “the lady needs a kitchen table, a refrigerator and dressers,” Jaszewski tells driver Brian Traut as they pick through one of several garages on Milwaukee’s near west side where the community stores the donated furniture.
But as quickly as goodwill fills the garages, and as quickly as they’re emptied by ever-present need, they won’t be enough to accommodate what’s probably the largest physical donation ever made to Casa Maria.
“Six-hundred desks, 600 closets, 600 dressers, 600 bed frames and 600 chairs,” says Casa Maria’s Don Timmerman.
There are only two strings attached to the donation from Marquette University.
One: Casa Maria must pick up the items on its own. “We’re going to have to make a lot of trips,” Timmerman says.
And two: The items must be picked up from the university’s Schroeder Hall residence at the end of this semester to make way for newer furniture coming from McCormick Hall, which will be torn down to make way for Marquette’s new health and wellness center.
“We’re going to need a lot more space,” says Timmerman, who has about two months to figure out where Casa Maria is going to put all this stuff. But that’s not what’s needed on this day. Today, the lady on the south side needs her table, fridge and dressers. Another lady, a former resident at one of Casa Maria’s guest houses, “needs everything,” Jaszewski says.
And he and Traut, 27, still need to get out to the Just One More ministry to pick up food for those who need it.
Jaszewski, who has volunteered for Casa Maria for about 25 years, would rather be at a local park, where he says a controlled burn used in forest management and hazard reduction is scheduled to take place.
“I’m an environmentalist,” says Jaszewski, who also volunteers at a south side meal program, where he finds meal guests who need furniture.
Traut has volunteered at Casa Maria for about a year after a stint in Arizona with a group called, “No More Death.”
“It’s a humanitarian aid group who help people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border,” he says. “We help them with food and water.”
And though Casa Maria is part of the Catholic Worker Movement — “committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken” — “I’m not religious,” Traut says.
The donated 1999 Ford F-250 with 130,000 miles on the engine is pasted with bumper stickers promoting peace, love and social justice — “COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS,” “WAGE PEACE,” “LIVE SIMPLY SO THAT ALL MAY SIMPLY LIVE.”
About once a week, it is pasted with a scribbled sign announcing “Free Beds and Furniture” and deployed in neighborhoods where such needs exist.
“People come out and take what they need,” Timmerman says.
“We deliver.” Timmerman is hopeful that Casa Maria will find a way to solve the furniture storage dilemma because it always seems to find a way — operating three guest houses for women and children, people with disabilities and refugees, no questions asked; providing furniture for those leaving its guest houses and others; giving food and clothing to people in need; and, literally turning trash into treasure with no government assistance for more than 50 years.
It found a way to get past officials at the city dump who refuse to accept items they’re sometimes forced to discard.
“They consider this a commercial vehicle because it has four tires on the back and they don’t take stuff brought on commercial vehicles,” Timmerman says. “So we break them into pieces and load them in the van,” he says.
“We improvise.” Marquette University has been donating items to Casa Maria since at least the 1980s, says Richard Arcuri, executive director of business operations in the university’s division of student affairs.
It’s rare that Marquette empties an entire building of furniture, and other community groups will also be receiving the items from Schroeder Hall.
But since at least the 1980s, Casa Maria has been helping the university with one of its own needs, Arcuri says.
“The the items we donate stay in the community and go to the people in greatest need,” he says.
“It allows us to help our community in a way that we couldn’t do without them,” Arcuri says. “It’s been wonderful to have them make that connection for us.”