Spaghetti Night Every Monday Night

The City of Whitewater’s poverty rate is three times higher than the state average, at 32.5% according to 2022 US Census Bureau data. While news coverage surrounding the city in recent months has focused on immigration, it is not the only factor contributing to the cities poverty rate. Every year, about 11,000 students attend UW-Whitewater in a city of only 15,000. Like for many students around the country, it can be a challenge to pay for tuition and living-costs while also busy with classes and homework. Volunteers like Jeanne Obmascher spend their Monday evenings making sure students at least have something to eat.

About a block south of the UWW campus stands the Whitewater Congregational Church of Christ. A sign stands outside next to a tree out front, taped to it are a few pieces of paper reading “5:00PM-6:00PM Free Spaghetti Meal.” Then 5 p.m. arrives, and so do the people. Some walk down, others drive, many come with a group of friends, and most come from the direction of the university. 

Through the front doors and down some stairs is a large room filled with tables. The smell of pasta fills the air. Maybe a dozen people sit around the room, some talking with their friends, others just there for the spaghetti. In the opposite corner, a few people stand in line by a doorway, through which is the kitchen, where Obmascher and a half-dozen other volunteers are busy serving food and making more pasta for those still to come.

Obmascher has been doing this since even before the Monday-night spaghetti meals became a part of the Congregational Church of Christ. “I started volunteering over 12 years ago, but it was in a different church at the time, it was in the church next door,” Obmascher says. “Then I took a break from volunteering when they switched it to the church over here, but now I’ve been back for a year or two helping at this church.”

Other than switching churches, she says the weekly program has changed in other ways. “Originally when we were at the other church, it was just students, and they did have to show their ID. Now, it is open to everybody, so nobody has to show an ID at all.”

While she says that a majority of those coming in are still students, she says that now “it is open to the whole community, and we do get community people every week.”

Last week, they fed 138 people. She anticipates feeding a similar number through the rest of the evening.

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This project was created through a journalism class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies Department. This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.