a reflective journal about social action from JustDane
in their neighborhood. The Wilmar Neighborhood Association began meeting at the church and was active in the community. In 1973 the church building was deeded to the Friends of Wilmar, Inc, creating the Wilmar Neighborhood Center, which is still in operation today.
Dear Friends, A little over fifty years ago, the members of Pilgrim United Church of Christ Madison made the difficult decision to dissolve, as their membership waned. They offered their assets to First Congregational United Church of Christ, if a social justice ministry was created. This ministry would carry on Pilgrim’s work that focused on fair and affordable housing, poverty, economic justice, racial justice, and access to quality education for all. First Congregational UCC accepted the charge and formed the Servants on Errands Committee to begin a discernment process regarding the creation of a social justice ministry. Other congregations were invited to be part of the process and project, and Madison Urban Ministry, now JustDane, was founded. In 1973, Chuck Pfeifer was hired as the first Executive Director of MUM. Chuck was a visionary, a compassionate and passionate worker for justice and peace. During those early years, the members of Pilgrim UCC and the Servants on Errands Committee noted that there wasn’t a community center
The Servants on Errands committee saw the need for a place in Dane County where new ideas and initiatives could be incubated and nurtured, while they built capacity and grew. That became part of our agency’s mission: to incubate and support new initiatives and ideas. The first formal spin-off organization in 1973 was Project Home. For fifty years, MUM/JustDane has engaged in public policy advocacydemanding fair and affordable housing, access to quality education for all students, access to healthcare for all, worker and economic justice, and racial justice. Our goal is to build a community in which everyone has the opportunity to be healthy and thrive. We engage in advocacy because we know that, as important as our direct services and initiatives are, they are no substitute for justice. In the mid-to late 1990’s our Board and staff recognized that our state criminal legal system’s policies and practices were (and remain) discriminatory and overly punitive. We recognized that all of the issues we were focused on converged when we looked at our criminal legal system and who we incarcerated. In 1998, with the hiring of Rev. Mary Kay Baum as Executive Director, MUM formed its Justice Issues Task Force.
This focused on our prison and criminal legal system and the impact of incarceration on both the individual and their family. We engaged people with lived experience, learning what was needed to support them when they returned to the community. We created the Reentry Simulation as an educational tool to help people rethink public policy and to understand the need for a community that offers forgiveness and second chances. The first Reentry Simulation was held in January 1999. Since then, we have conducted hundreds of Reentry Simulations in WI and across the country.
Mary-Kay Baum, Sheila Spear, Alice Shacht, Chuck Pfeifer
Recognizing the lack of communitybased, holistic reentry services in our community, we launched our Circles of Support program in 2002. We also recognized the impact and challenges faced by children impacted by parental incarceration. Mentoring Connections was created to offer community-based mentoring for these children. In 2005, based on our work with Circles of Support, the United Way of Dane County invited us to apply for funds from their newest Signature Initiative- The Journey Home; an evidence-based reentry initiative focused on Residency, Employment, Support, Education and Treatment. Continued on page 2
Winter 2024