Yes! Food is an entry point to community wellbeing. We have different aspects about how we create and live this culture around food! Here’s a little more about our teams:

• Shop– Healthy food in an educational shopping experience with chef demos, homemade breakfast, juice bar, and thrift store

• Feast– Cooking collaborative meals paired with trainings on economic opportunity, justice, wellness, and community action

• Grow– Urban agriculture and service learning on our 27,000 square foot vegetable farm

• Form– Community engagement, service and training or volunteers and neighborhood residents in spiritual formation, social justice, and civic action

• Stride– Social workers providing resource referrals and crisis assistance alongside a team of neighbors and volunteers walking together in social support

Each missionary focuses their work on a particular area of our Community Food Center Programs. Below are examples of what some of those jobs could be! Sometimes a missionary’s job will dip into more than one of these areas, depending on the current need of the RWFP and the interest/gifts of the missionary.

• Volunteer Coordinator– helping coordinate the recruiting, scheduling, training, forming and monitoring of volunteers as well as aiding in the formation curriculum of growth to service, solidarity and justice.

• Food Wellness and Acquisition Coordinator– The acquisition coordinator serves the community by acquiring the healthiest inventory and developing programming to enrich the quality of life of community members, to facilitate healing, well-being and building habits and skills to improve dietary health.

• Urban Farm Coordinator– Under the management of our lead farmer, coordinate the research, development and operations of a 27,000 square foot high tunnel vegetable farm including farm site management of planting cycles, watering, harvesting, neighborhood resident engagement, volunteer management, business partnerships, social media with nonprofit partners etc.

• Mission Advancement Assistant– Reporting to the Mission Advancement Director, the primary responsibilities of the Mission Advancement Assistant are supporting the planning, implementation, management, and oversight of all development and communication initiatives through special projects that will enable the Riverwest Food Pantry to increase its capacity to reach and cultivate donors and prospective supporters throughout the Greater Milwaukee community.

• Information Systems Coordinator– Provide the technological support and implementation needed as it seeks to enrich the quality of life of all community members through programming that nourishes, creates belonging, and helps all people prosper. The Information Systems Coordinator will work to support existing systems, implement system improvements, and develop and refine our technology suite so that we can always provide our community members, volunteers, and staff with the capacity and capability they need.

• Human Services Coordinator– Under the direction of our community care manager, help coordinate mentoring and crisis assistance for neighborhood residents. Key emphasis is on stable housing (eviction and homelessness prevention) and employment referrals. Assist coordinating the training of volunteer mentors as well as overseeing documentation, reporting and evaluation.

Interns make the Mission House their first commitment - and it’s a full-time commitment! Any outside/extracurricular work that would pull you away for a significant portion of time needs to be discussed with staff. Finishing your undergrad degree, having another job, or being a primary caregiver for a family member are all big commitments that a Missionary Intern may not have the time to also do.

We do offer health insurance. Inquire for more information.

Spiritual Formation: 

• Practice daily prayer, rooted in a personal relationship with Jesus, Eucharistic Adoration, Scripture, the saints, and Liturgy of the Hours. 

• Study Catholic Social Teaching; know Christ’s preference for the poor. 

• Renew inner-city parish life through strong Milwaukee church community  

A Place of Belonging:  

• Build intentional friendships as a household. 

• Live rooted in the neighborhood in which we serve, growing through a life of community, prayer, service, and living simply.  

• Participate in neighborhood community renewal by coming to know and work personally on behalf of those on the margins.

Leadership and Career Development:  

• Lay a foundation of intentional generosity through collaborative and diverse teamwork.  

• Gain leadership experience in non-profit community work.  

• Run food center operations and programming through community engagement, community meals, an urban vegetable farm, mentoring, education, food procurement and inventory management.   

It means living a friendship with others deeply. The Mission House provides a needed context for growth in communal life. The house provides a place of belonging and accountability. Each person chooses to encounter each of their fellow interns with an attitude of mutual respect and self-giving love.

Members encourage one another in the development of their unique gifts. Supported by a thriving house community, interns are empowered to bring the same generous attitude of love to the Food Center, the neighborhood, and wherever their lives lead in the future.

Our work is built on the foundation of a living and personal relationship with Christ and His Church, so prayer is essential to our lives!

▪ Individual Prayer: Daily time for solitude in the presence of God gives us the strength for the daily demands of community and apostolate. Both during the week and on days off, interns are expected to set aside time for silent prayer and meditation each day, and to enter fully into the designated times of communal prayer. We have daily communal time of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, silence and contemplation, as well as praying the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours. We attend Mass a few times during the week as well.

▪ Weekly Worship: Recognizing that God saves us as a community, interns are expected to attend a weekly religious service. The Riverwest Food Pantry has grown out of Our Lady of Divine Providence (OLDP) parish, where parishioners served thousands of meals to the needy even as they struggled to pay their own bills. The Mission House wishes to support the values of its founding parish and revitalize the urban Church. Interns of all religious backgrounds are invited to attend Mass at OLDP.

▪ Day Retreats and Annual Retreats: These are designated for the interns to come away for rest, recollection, and refreshment in spending time with one another.

The Mission House seeks to help young adults to be mature, integrated agents of change in their community, advocates for service, solidarity, and justice. The process of growing in this is “formation”.

Interns will receive formation on supportive community living. Building strong, healthy relationships with fellow interns provides a model for self-giving love in the broader community. Interns will meet to explore themes connected to the Mission House’s Spiritual Principles, Community Living, and Social Justice.

Rest and recreation is an important part of living a well life! Mission Interns get time for recreation. Some interns in the past have taken community recreation classes, like pottery or improv classes while others have been involved in parish ministries and book clubs.

Many of us ask this question of ourselves every day. Am I good enough?

The most important question is about desire. Do I desire this for my life? All you need is a heart for caring for others and desire to deepen your spiritual, personal, and professional life.

Past missionaries were unsure if they had what it takes. Some didn’t have any prior experience living in Milwaukee. Many didn’t know much about serving at a food center. What they experienced was being welcomed lovingly into this community. You are given the tools to be successful, and encouraged along your journey. You don’t need to know everything or be a certain type of person to be a mission intern!

So...do you desire to change and grow and be challenged? Do you desire deeper knowledge of His Love for yourself and all His Creation?

Do you desire to see each person as my neighbor?

If these things are “Yes” then you have what it takes!