Photo by Helen Dudley

The university is donating Schroeder Hall’s furniture to Casa Maria, and it plans to transfer McCormick’s newer furniture into Schroeder.

Marquette will donate all furniture in Schroeder Hall rooms to Casa Maria, a local organization serving the poverty-stricken communities of Milwaukee, but the large amount of furniture is making it difficult for the organization to find storage solutions.

Rick Arcuri, executive director of business operations and auxiliary services in the Department of Student Affairs, said Schroeder’s furniture is the oldest on campus, making it the first to go. McCormick Hall’s furniture is four years old. With McCormick’s eventual demolition, the building will be emptied at the end of the spring semester and that furniture will be moved into Schroeder.

Arcuri said this is the first time in awhile that an entire building has been emptied on campus.

“The furniture that’s in Schroeder Hall — we put it there in the early ’90s,” Arcuri said. “It’s time to get rid of it.”

The donation of over 600 sets of beds, dressers, desks and chairs is a lot for Casa Maria to handle, said Don Timmerman, a former Roman Catholic priest who has worked with Casa Maria since the 1970s.

Timmerman is in charge of making sure the furniture goes where it’s needed. With the number of volunteers Casa Maria regularly has, it remains difficult to coordinate everyone to move furniture all at one time, he said.

While Casa Maria has the entire summer to pick up all the furniture, Timmerman said the organization hopes to get it done during July. Volunteers are free to pick up furniture a few weeks after the semester ends.

“We’re going to do it little by little,” Timmerman said. “I don’t know how much manpower we’re going to need. We’ve got to put the word out.”

Arcuri said Marquette cannot help because the university does not have the resources. The time frame is also during the summer months when most students won’t be on campus.

“We just don’t have the equipment. We don’t have the manpower,” Arcuri said. “We’re not staffed appropriately to make that type of a delivery, even if they had the storage space.”

Arcuri said one of the storage companies Marquette is working with offered to make space available for the furniture, but it’s not set in stone.

Timmerman said nearly 6,000 families are evicted each month in Milwaukee, often losing everything they have because they don’t have available transportation to help move their possessions. Casa Maria works to give these families the furniture they need to live, he said.

“People need (help) moving,” Timmerman said. “They don’t have cars, they don’t have trucks. They don’t have anything. … They don’t have any money. So what are they going to do?”

He also said the organization hopes to send some of the furniture overseas to Honduras and other poverty-stricken countries. Arcuri said Marquette will do the same with any leftover furniture.

“People forget that these people don’t have anything, and they’re delighted to get any kind of help,” Timmerman said.

Scott McLean, a sophomore in the College of Education who lives in Schroeder, said he likes that Casa Maria will be receiving his furniture.

“That’s pretty cool, I think,” McLean said. “Instead of throwing it out, we might as well give it to people.”