Whitewater’s Mother Teresa: Immigration and Integration 

Seventy-seven-year-old Kay Rober, Co-Founder and Site Manager at Whitewater’s Community Space, is a small-town Mother Teresa. Soft spoken but passionate, Rober is the heart and soul of all that goes on at the Community Space. The collection of stories Rober told laid out her mission to serve the whole Whitewater community, especially those who are new and unfamiliar with the area.  

In the last two years, close to 1,000 immigrants moved to the Whitewater area with very few resources. Many newcomers are from South American countries like Nicaragua or Venezuela. Rober and her colleague Kristine Zaballos, while serving the Whitewater community, made it their mission at the Community Space to aid the newcomers in starting a new life in a foreign place.  

The Community Space is a non-profit, 24,000 square foot facility that serves as a donation center for the people of Whitewater. All the goods inside are organized and displayed by volunteers and are free to all guests. No cash passes hands in the Community Space. In recent years, the Community Space’s demographic has become largely dominated by Nicaraguan immigrants, Rober says close to 30 percent.  

“We give away everything that we have,” said Rober. “We have furniture, we have two libraries, we have clothing, shoes, boots, housewares, electronics… anything that we have, they can take.”   

On a Monday in March, a non-business day for the Community Space, Rober guides her volunteers in restocking the shelves in time for the opening of the business the following day. A small shopping area hides a massive storage facility behind a thin wall. The storage area is divided into two sections, the processing of new donations and the shopping section. The guests are welcomed in the front of the building where they line up before being given 15 minutes of uninterrupted access to food, clothing, housewares and a small library. Through a threshold in the clothing section, the space opens to rows of donated furniture, bicycles, records, movies, and shoes.  

At the front of the line, guests walk through the food section, then wander through household items and clothes before entering the larger back area where the furniture and larger housewares are stored.  

“We have one guy that comes here by himself with a backpack on he goes back and looks at movies for hours,” said Rober. “He may grab a baseball cap on his way out, but he’s always happy and no one bothers him.” 

Foods are donated from a lot of local businesses. Many frozen products and meats come from grocery stores like Whole Foods. One of their largest donors is Kwik Trip. A few times per week, Kwik Trip drops off what is left of their pastries for Community Space guests. Canned foods, frozen meats and pizzas, breads and sometimes fresh produce are packed onto tables and in freezers for the guests when they arrive.  

One of the biggest challenges for Rober and her volunteers is the language barrier and lack of knowledge of local foods. However, every open business day, at least one bilingual volunteer is present to aid non-English speakers through the facility and its donations. Often, immigrants who have just arrived have little knowledge of American foods, so they opt for pastries and chips. The regulars not only grab what they need but help newcomers in picking out food for the family, according to Rober.  

“I have a volunteer who comes to me from Milton which is maybe only 20 miles away,” said Rober. “She had breakfast with a woman who said ‘Now you be careful when you go to Whitewater, all those migrants are there.’”  

One aspect of Rober’s work is focused on the misconception of immigration in the area. Rumors spread that thousands of migrants are being bussed to Whitewater, a tale Rober passionately denies.

“These are people, they’re not political pawns,” said Rober. “They’re people, they need to be taken care of, and they’re not any different than you and me.”  

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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.