Noon Run history

Marquette students first began serving noon and evening meals to needy individuals in the Milwaukee area in October 1988.

The program, called Midnight Run, allows students to serve and interact with the individuals, whom the students call their "guests."

But they soon found guests at the evening run were scarce, while the noon run was becoming increasingly popular.

The evening meal program was cut, but Midnight Run grew to include the Noon Run program and service work at nine other meal programs and shelters in the Milwaukee area.

Today, through Noon Run, students gather at noon on weekdays and Sundays in Cobeen Hall to make soup and sandwiches.

Rain or shine, the Noon Run students pile into a mini-van and drive to a parking lot behind the Milwaukee Rescue Mission, 830 N. 19th St.

A Tribune reporter visited Noon Run to talk to a student volunteer and her guests to offer Tribune readers a brief glimpse into their lives. The Tribune honored the guests' requests to withhold their last names.

Ralph

On Sunday at 12:05 p.m., Ralph sits on one of the benches behind the mission, waiting for the students to arrive.

A thin man, Ralph wears a large Army-green coat to battle the brisk November air.

"Hey, what time do they usually get here?" he asks no one in particular.

"Around 12:30," someone replies.

Ralph, 52, continues to wait. He doesn't have anything else to do.

After six years of struggling with a $200-a-day crack cocaine addiction, Ralph has been clean since Nov. 3 — exactly 18 days — a feat he calls "a miracle."

But before the "miracle," Ralph lost his job, his family and his money to his addiction.

"I had a house on Brewer's Hill and I was making $50,000 per year," says Ralph, who used to work in the maintenance department of the Pfister Hotel, 424 E. Wisconsin Ave., for 23 years.

"I want to rebuild that," he says with determination. "I want to feel useful in society again."

To do so, Ralph is planning to begin LifeSkills, an 18-month program at the Rescue Mission, where he has lived for the past month-and-a-half.

He is counting on the program's "spiritual guidance counseling" to help him get a job, stay clean and — most importantly — repair damaged relationships with his wife and five grown children, now aged 20 to 26.

"My wife and I are still married," he says, "but I haven't been home for the past six years."

Instead, Ralph chased other relationships, missing his children grow up.

"It feels like we're strangers, you know?" he says of his children.

"They'll be more open to me when I've done a treatment program and when I'm successful," he says confidently.

Like any other proud parent, Ralph even brags about his children, who all went to college.

And after "hitting rock bottom" and living without a home of his own for the past four months, Ralph is determined to start over, at least for his family's sake.

Sarah Cotton

Sarah Cotton drives the University Ministry van, packed with four other volunteers and loads of food, down West Wisconsin Avenue.

The van's radio thumps with Eve and Gwen Stefani's song, "Let Me Blow Your Mind."

Cotton, a College of Arts & Sciences sophomore, sings along. After a morning of classes, this is her time to relax.

"It has become my way to break away from everything," says Cotton, a site coordinator for Noon Run. "There's not the drama of classes" and everything else that goes along with college.

But for Cotton, who has been working with meal programs since age 3, the Noon Run program took a little getting used to.

"It's a very unique program," she says. "It's one of those in-your-face experiences."

When working with her hometown church's meal program, Cotton would simply drive out to downtown Waukesha, feed the needy and then drive back to her home in Brookfield.

"Here, you walk home with the guests and see them on your way to classes," she reflects. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't see one of them."

So while other students might avert their eyes when passing one of the Noon Run guests on the street, Cotton gives a friendly hello and sometimes a hug.

"For me, it has become a lot more than just food," she says. "There's just so many personalities. They're some of the nicest and most sincere people."

And getting to know the "personalities" and their stories has influenced her future plans.

Cotton, who thought she wanted to be a lawyer as a freshman, now plans to pursue a career that will allow her to tackle social welfare justice issues, such as poverty and homelessness.

George

George, a short, sturdily built man with an easygoing demeanor, is one of Noon Run's regulars.

At 12:15 p.m., he marches down North 19th Street, calling out greetings to friends and acquaintances. He addresses them with nicknames like "Homeboy" and "Hollywood."

"I talk to quite a few people because I was homeless for a few months," says George, 59, who now lives on the south side of Milwaukee.

In June, he was arrested, held for three days and fined $380 for "jumping on a guy." But the experience turned his life around.

"I was making fast money and I just got tired of it," he says. "I just walked out."

After spending two months at the Mission, George went to the Guesthouse, a homeless shelter at 1216 N. 13th St.

There, George completed three educational life skills courses. He proudly names them: "A Challenge to Change, Commitment to Change and Core."

The first two are two-week courses and Core lasts for a month. George credits them with helping him stop drinking.

"It teaches you to stay on your square," he says. "It tells you to keep yourself occupied."

Chuck

After the students arrive, Chuck, 52, sits on one of the benches, carefully sampling the broccoli and cheese soup.

"The soup is fantastic," he declares. "And I understand good soup."

A former award-winning gourmet chef, Chuck speaks on good authority. He used to work at Tripoli Country Club, 7401 N. 43rd St., where he was the executive chef for 13 years.

Sporting a moustache and aviator glasses, Chuck still gets a gleam in his eyes when he talks about his job.

He reminisces about winning the four-star five-diamond rating, the highest possible, when he worked as the chef de partie in the Immigrant Room at the American Club in Kohler, Wis.

He even met his wife there. She was head of the salad department.

"My career was building up real quickly," he says. "But I didn't concentrate on my marriage as much as I should have."

His marriage ended.

And, at age 40, Chuck was involved in a motorcycle accident and sustained "moderate to severe brain damage."

The effects of the accident "lowered my self-esteem and self-worth," he says. Chuck soon began abusing alcohol, a habit he had previously given up in his early 20s.

Now, a recovering alcoholic, Chuck is staying at the Mission. But he hopes to get back to what he loves doing best — working.

"To me, the key factor is working," he says. "I have to be employed or I get depressed."

Always a passionate worker, Chuck has his recovery planned down to a T.

First, he says, he will "work on sobriety" at the Salvation Army.

Then, he wants to get back into food service.

"Work is very, very important to me," he explains. "It sustains my life."

Arthur

Arthur, 57, has lived at the Mission for the past two years. And he plans to for the rest of his life.

"I'm homeless," Arthur states simply.

But, decked out in his Navy-blue Wash Brite hat and faded Wash Brite jacket, he also works full-time at the 7238 W. North Ave. car wash

Arthur is eagerly looking toward his retirement years, when he plans on "going fishing and chasing women," he says with a laugh.

"I've only got eight more years to go," he says, "so why should I bust my butt, right?"

As a young man, Arthur served in the Army during the Vietnam War. He was stationed in a transportation unit in Germany for 18 months.

After serving four more years in the U.S. Army and another four years in the Army Reserves, Arthur started a family.

Although he divorced his wife after 21 years of marriage, "we're still good friends," he said. He said when they got married, "we were just too young."

He also has his two grown children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. They all live in the Milwaukee area, so he visits them frequently. But he refuses to accept their offers to move in with them.

"I'd just be in the way," Arthur said.

Throughout the years Arthur has had several jobs, including 21 years in a factory and eight years as a janitor at Mukwonago High School.

"And now I'm washing cars," he says.

Arthur, who describes himself as "average," enjoys watching football and reading western and mystery novels at the Central Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave.

Struggling with a cocaine addiction, Arthur laments a strained relationship with his brother and sister.

"They call it tough love," he says. "They say 'you got yourself into this predicament, you got to get yourself out.'"