Pax Christi Minnesota

April 6, 2009

On April 6, 2009, Joe and Marilyn Schmit received the Caritas Award from the College of St. Benedict and St. Johns University.  Each year a distinguished Saint John’s Alumnus and a Saint Benedict’s Alumna and two upper class students – one from each campus – are selected to receive this award for their commitment to social change and social justice.

The Schmits have spent their entire 52 years of married life working for social justice on a local, national and global level. They pressured their elected representatives in the 1980s to stop funding the contra rebels in Nicaragua and spoke out against the production of land mines and nuclear weapons. Marilyn was arrested three times for protesting aid to the contra rebels and is a member of Women Against Military Madness. She gave 30 talks after her trip to Nicaragua in 1985. Joe raised eyebrows at a San Francisco physics conference in 1985 when he asked his colleagues for a moment of silence on the 40th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan. Currently, Joe is an electrician for Habitat for Humanity, and has done taxes for low income and elderly people for 18 years. They both actively support efforts to close the School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Ga., provide supplies for needy school children in Nicaragua and struggling families in Mexico, and sponsor the Marilyn Scholl Schmit Scholarship for Peace Studies at CSB.

Congratulations to Joe and Marilyn!