Music is gospel to their ears
Repairers of the Breach choir empowers members

By Amy E. Rewolinski
Special to your Catholic Herald

MILWAUKEE — Every Saturday between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., a small group gathers at Repairers of the Breach, a shelter at 1335 W. Vliet St., Milwaukee, for choir practice. Although their economic situations may appear bleak, members welcome one another with jokes and laughter, hugging each other as though it’s been years instead of a week since they last saw each other, much like a family would act during Sunday dinner.

They meet in a large room next door to the main shelter, used mainly to store items and food donations, and which will eventually become a medical clinic for the shelter. Chairs are brought out to form a half circle, a stereo is plugged in and a CD paused at the right song, as choir members shrug off their coats. Although it is barely 60 degrees in the room, they know that it will soon warm up during the rowdy hour, as people not only exercise their voices, but clap and sway to the music they feel, as well as hear.

The group is divided into four sections: sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, with each sitting in their assigned area. The CD plays, and the group warms up to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” one of their favorite songs.

“This is how we do it here,” said co-music director K.C. Williams, a country artist and songwriter. “We like to have fun.”

Repairers of the Breach, a grassroots organization established in 1991, is Milwaukee’s only daytime shelter and resource center for homeless people, supplying clients with hot showers, nutritious food, clean clothes, health care, employment assistance and a place to rest while they get their life on track. Through this, according to the shelter’s written vision, nearly 3,000 people who come through their doors each year find an “empowered voice.”

Joining the choir is only one of the ways they find that voice. “It helps me and it heals me, especially with my voice, it really helps me,” said Robert E. Johnson, Sr., a former shelter member and choir member for the past three years. “I hate to miss the choir. When I miss the choir, things don’t happen right for me; it’s like something’s wrong. I really love it, I really do.”

The choir isn’t only for the homeless. Many join the group simply for the friendships they find there, as Sara Kolo, 34, discovered since joining nearly a year ago. She cannot believe it took her as long as it did to discover the healing power of gospel music.

“I had music in me my whole life, and I had a violin performance degree in school,” said the Milwaukee Public School alumna. “So how I got involved (with Repairers of the Breach) was through the alumni choir, and since then I’ve joined the All Saints choir, the Repairers of the Breach choir, and it’s bringing something out in me that was there all along but I didn’t know how to get in contact with it, and I’m learning a whole new way of singing, way of expressing myself. It’s amazing how healing gospel music is.

“You never know with music, who or what you’re going to find,” she said.

Arlene Skwierawski, another co-music director for the choir, was North Division High School choir director for 25 years. She was also choir director for All Saints Parish, Milwaukee, in addition to Repairers of the Breach. She calls herself a true witness to the fact that “a person can be white and still learn to sing gospel.”

“Lots of white people – musicians – are scared of it. They say, ‘We can’t do that, we’re not black,’” Skwierawski energetically explained. “That’s a fear; that’s not true. What you’ve got to do is learn the chord structure, learn the rhythm patterns, and listen. It can be done.” Skwierawski said she has learned this by singing with the choir at Christian churches.

The choir has been invited to sing for Christian congregations, including the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, for the past few years, and often has to turn down requests due to the high volume of interested parishes requesting its talents.

Skwierawski finds that she has a secret mission when visiting various parishes: igniting participation and instilling continuation.

“That’s our mission when we go to these different churches, to let them know that they don’t have to just invite us and clap and then say goodbye. They can learn this and put it into their kind of music, and that’s our goal,” she said, noting that many parishes adopt some or most of their style of music.

Dorothy Jackson, program coordinator for five years who helped form the choir with Williams and Skwierawski, said that while rehearsals may appear to look informal, there is actually a lot of work that goes into them each week.

“(When) we have an engagement, we ask people who have been to at least two of the rehearsals to go and sing because the rehearsals are intense; they only look like they’re informal, to an extent. But they’re strangely serious, and people get it,” she explained.

“The whole notion is that, people as they can come, because being homeless, they go through so many different trials that they can’t get here to rehearsals,” she added.

The responses the choir has gotten from its concerts has been pleasantly overwhelming, according to Jackson.

“Most of the churches we go to, they ask when can we come back. They invite us to come every week. So, the reception is just awesome,” she said.

Jackson called the teaching method that Williams and Skwierawski employ with the choir members a “very different learning style.”

“If (members) come to two rehearsals where they rehearse the songs, they’re able to go out and actually perform,” she said. “So, (Williams and Skwierawski) are quite gifted in their teaching, and their style of teaching. People want to do it, they go and they do it, and sometimes we have a very small number of people to go out, but it’s extremely effective because they’ve got their parts.”

Jackson has become a witness to what the choir actually does for members who were or still are homeless, seeing them transform in ways even she didn’t think was possible. One of the first times she noticed it was when members were invited to sing for a Christmas special on the radio, 95.7 FM, where the whole recording process “did something to people; it changed them in some way,” she said.

“It’s for them; it’s a family thing,” said Williams about the choir. “You know, if you’re away from your family too long, something’s missing. If you haven’t seen each other all weekend, and when somebody does not show up, it’s noticeable. Just their presence, you know, the voices are the gifts, but their presence is the most important gift. Just letting people see that they’re OK. You made it. Now, let’s sing.” ___________________________________________________________________

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