When I met them serendipitously outside the People’s Book Co-Op, the Milwaukee Network for Social Change looked like a normal group of college students. Tattooed, rumpled, cigarettes wafting out of one hand and a bike in the other, these people, though clustered in a small group of four, looked like the sort that one could look to for unconventional information. I was there, after an exhausting day at work, in search of a literary magazine. What I found was a cause.

“What’s going on?” I asked them as I cautiously wheeled by. Meetings are usually held on Tuesdays but as fate would have it the weekly meeting on this particular week was moved to Sunday. I wasn’t doing anything in particular and as usual my curiosity ruled, I decided to stay and check out the meeting.

As written in their mission statement, the Milwaukee Network for Social Change ‘promotes responsible living through participation in direct action at a community level.’ As members of the community, they believe in promoting neighborhood partnership, and ‘fostering positive social relationships that enable discussion of cultural, political, environmental and social matters.’

Finally, a group of people more interested in creating a community than pissing on someone else’s lawn. Here at UWM I believe that we think of ourselves as a microcosm, a small part of a larger whole. Look around.

If you live on or around campus there are eighteen, nineteen, and twenty-somethings as far as the eye can see. We are students and often refer to life outside of school as “the real world.”

Even adults with families living nearby are different because they live in this other plane of existence where there are things like mortgages and life insurance, and when they come home at the end of the day they don’t have to do homework but the important thing to realize is that even though they can afford their groceries and don’t play exciting games like beer pong, they are our neighbors, and in a community, everyone is a member.

This is the real world, and whether or not you choose to recognize that, you’re part of it.

On the first day of school, if you were in Spaights Plaza perhaps you were given a small, yellow piece of paper advertising the Free Market. If not, I encourage you to give in to your curiosity and go to Garden Park on Sunday Sept. 23 and check it out. There are no obligations but if you are willing and able, instead of throwing out your goodwill pile, bring it to the Free Market and see what you can trade. You may be surprised by what you may find – and it’s free.

It’s a nice walk but if you’re the type that fears open air you can always take the bus…that’s free too.

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