Learning about the Joseph Project has my heart singing. It is offering a solution to the unemployment problem in Milwaukee, without involving a government program. Every detail about this program and the church that started it exemplifies what our country is all about. This is an encouraging example of faith, hope and charity and a great-hearted example of a public servant. One who serves all of his constituents.
If you haven’t heard about this project, it was started by the Greater Praise Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee, in September of 2015. The pastor, Jerome Smith, started this project. He has modeled this program after a book by black conservative author, Robert L. Woodson Sr.
The book is titled, “The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Healers are Reviving our Streets and Neighborhoods.” The project is providing jobs for unemployed adults. Not just jobs, but job training, resources, skills, transportation and support. People are now in careers thanks to this Christian conservative initiative.
From about a year ago in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “At 19.9 percent, or one in five working-age people, the black unemployment rate in Wisconsin is nearly three times higher than the highest state white unemployment rate (7 percent in Nevada) and significantly higher than the national black unemployment rate of 11 percent, the think tank found.”
This is why the Joseph Project is vital. It’s providing solutions to this problem of very high unemployment. Something Barack Obama and the Democrats campaigned on for the last eight years, job creation. The solutions however, are coming from conservatives, not the Democrats.
The Joseph Project, although it was started by a pastor, it is endorsed and promoted by Sen. R-Wisconsin Ron Johnson. Johnson helped expedite the program by reaching out to the businesses in surrounding counties that needed workers. The one county that responded favorably to the Joseph Project was Sheboygan County. They now have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state of Wisconsin at 3.4 percent, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation just blessed the Joseph Project with two vans to help transport the employees to the jobs in Sheboygan County. The program is exploding in good fortune for people wanting and needing good jobs and for employers that have not been able to find employees. The retention rate is at 100 percent to date.
Certainly, Johnson’s background in business, and understanding what it takes to be an employer helped gain his support for the Joseph Project.
Which now has about 50 people working at companies like Kohler, Nemak and Johnsonville Sausage. He is using his office as an U.S. Senator to serve all of his constituents. The pastor, Jerome Smith, has stated he is not a Republican.
I hope the people involved with the Joseph Project realize who is helping solve the high unemployment rates in Milwaukee. It’s the conservative ideas that have brought the jobs for these Milwaukee residents.
Milwaukee, after all, is run by a Democratic mayor, who has been in office since 2004. There are not enough good paying jobs in Milwaukee and people are having to cross over into Sheboygan County to earn a living. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and United States Senator Tammy Baldwin, both Democrats, have not endorsed or helped the Joseph Project.
Meanwhile, Johnson is setting a prime example of a public servant. He is not instituting a new government program to create jobs, he’s helping his constituents succeed with their own project.
The Joseph Project is the shining city on the hill. People helping people to lead successful and productive lives.
Our founding fathers never intended for our government to supply charity. That was designed to come from, “we the people.’
Through our churches, goodwill and neighborly love. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about this program and the church itself. It was once a bar, and now it’s a place of worship. Joseph Project is something that needs to be duplicated in all Democrat run cities, which have the highest unemployment rates in our country. The Joseph Project is truly setting an example of faith, hope and charity and what our founders intended when they came to America.
Lori is a life long Midwesterner, local business owner and home educator.