RACINE - The welcoming party perhaps could have been a little bigger, but participants in a peace walk from Chicago to St. Paul, Minn., will bring with them memories from a two-day stay in greater Racine.

Members of the Chicago-based Voices For Creative Nonviolence brought their Witness Against War walk to Racine on Thursday afternoon. The dozen or so members of the walk, including participants from New York, California and even Stockholm, Sweden, were welcomed at the Dr. John Bryant Community Center on the city's south side by members of the Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice.

The walk is scheduled to end on Aug. 31 in St. Paul, Minn., just in time for the start of the Republican National Convention, where some sort of nonviolent protest will take place, said Dan Pearson, 27, a co-coordinator of the organization.

The Voices members are using the walk to draw attention to several issues, said Pearson and Voices founder Kathy Kelly, not the least of which is the protest against the planned deployment to Iraq next year of the Wisconsin 32nd Brigade Combat Team, which includes local residents.

But they also hope that their protest by walking will also call attention to finding alternatives to using fossil fuels.

During their stay in Racine, members of the walk will stay with local families, hold an 11 a.m. rally today at the local office of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and hold a potluck dinner Friday at the Siena Center in Caledonia.

The walk, which began Saturday in Chicago is on schedule, Pearson said. There have been a few bumps along the journey so far, but nothing that couldn't be overcome - including the replacement of a transmission on the 1979 coach bus belonging to Wheels For Peace, an allied organization based in Luck, Wis.

Kelly said the walk participants have been receiving shouts of encouragement, as well as a couple of heckles, as they make their way north.

"We're trying to galvanize that feeling (of opposition to the war) into political action, and that's where the groups along the way are so helpful," said Kelly, 55. "It's helpful to stay over in people's homes. You get to know their experiences."

Members of the walk met up with their host families Thursday afternoon after walking a little more than 2 miles from the Bryant Center to the Belle City Senior Center near the Racine Zoo.

"I think that personal contact makes all the difference," said Helene Hedberg, 22, of Stockholm.

Back home, Hedberg works with the children of Iraqi refugees in after-school programs. Hedberg said there are 90,000 Iraqi refugees living in

Sweden.

"You can still feel the feeling of displacement they're going through," Hedberg said.

Hedberg met Kelly last year at a human rights conference in Stockholm and jumped at the chance to come to the U.S. this summer to take part in the walk.

The march is also drawing participation from veterans who served in the Iraqi conflict like Paul Melling of Melrose, Minn. He served in the field artillery in Iraq from January 2004 to February 2005 and witnessed the deaths of members of task force, including a close friend.

"I don't think we did anything to improve the situation. We did a lot of damage," Melling said. "We were just out there destroying things and not at all helping the local population."

While they are ending at the site of the Republican convention, Pearson said Voices For Creative Nonviolence does not excuse the role Democratic lawmakers played in "waging and continuing to finance the war."

After the walkers leave the Siena Center Saturday morning, the group continues on to Oak Creek and Milwaukee. Then they head west to Madison and then on to the Mississippi River, which they will walk along to St. Paul.

On the Net:

Voices For Creative Nonviolence:

http://www.vcnv.org

Racine Coalition For Peace and Justice:

http://www.RacinePeace.org