Fall of 2000 marked the beginning of our exciting project with Wheeling Jesuit University, called On Common Ground. The project, initially funded by the Frueauff Foundation of Little Rock, Arkansas and the Bonner Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey, established a service learning house in the neighborhood. WJU students, under the direction of a house mentor, live in intentional community and work in our neighborhood. Each student devotes ten hours per week to service with the Chapel and our community partners.

Feeling that the house needed to have an identity that would set the tone for the students' work, the partners chose to name the house after Mother Jones (1830-1930), who was a defender of the poor and a worker for social justice.

WJU students living in the Mother Jones House work at the Chapel in the afterschool and evening programs and at Catholic Neighborhood Center where they assist with the prison ministry, visiting shut-ins, and preparing meals. Some are assigned to Catholic Elementary School, Lincoln Detention Center, Habitat for Humanity, and Wheeling Health Right (free clinic).