Dorothy Day Foundation

10/11/2026

https://lnkd.in/gMtYBVr2

Every day seems to bring some new example of the government actively working to harm the most vulnerable among us. I don’t need to tell you this; you have your own doomscroll list, no doubt.In any case, if voting is another way to step up for my neighbors, hand me a ballot. And after that? Back at the quiet, patient work of bringing about a world in which it is easier for all of us to be good.You’ll find stories of Catholic Workers busy at that task in today’s newsletter. Peace, Jerry

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10/08/2026

Contact Michael Doyle / Founder Telephone Dorothy Day Foundation Cell 813 466 9166 Email [email protected] Website www.dorothydayfoundation.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 8, 2026 Dorothy Day Foundation Announces $50,000 Donation Match

Dorothy Day Foundation: Supporting the Catholic Worker Movement Worldwide

Minneapolis, MN – October 1, 2026 — In 2024, I founded the Dorothy Day Foundation (DDF), a nonprofit corporation, to support Catholic Worker Movement activities worldwide. Rooted in Dorothy Day’s vision of voluntary poverty, mutual aid, and the works of mercy, the Foundation exists not to replace the precarity that shapes our witness, but to help ensure that houses of hospitality and farms can continue their mission for another ninety‑three years. By honoring the legacy of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Foundation strengthens the movement’s freedom to live simply, serve boldly, and trust in God’s providence.

“The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away.”– Servant of God Dorothy Day.

In September I received this message: “I want to support your work with a $50,000 gift. Now in my eighties, living in a retirement community, I donate my IRA minimum distributions (RMD) to charitable foundations. I am a staunch supporter of Dorothy Day’s ideas and everything she stands for. Thank you for the good work you are doing.”

A major $50,000 gift matched by donors to generate a projected $100,000 has a significant impact on both the Catholic Worker Movement infrastructure. Also, its 200+ houses of hospitality and thirty farms by ensuring the sustainability of CW houses of hospitality and farms so they may continue to serve our neighbors with simplicity, community, and faith by

Safeguarding the works of mercy — so that the soup pot stays full, the door stays open.

Supporting organization capacity improvements – technology, facilities, services, etc.

Demonstrating donor confidence to attract additional funders.

We are grateful for the deep and steady interest — more than 250,000 annual searches on catholicworker.org from people seeking Dorothy Day’s Revolution of the Heart and Peter Maurin’s Green Revolution. Their enduring vision keeps gathering a community of loyal, ardent, and generous supporters.

“I want a change, and a radical change. I want a change from an acquisitive society to a functional society, from a society of go-getters to a society of go-givers.” - Peter Maurin

If you would like more information about this topic, contact Michael Doyle / Founder of Dorothy Day Foundation at (813) 466-9166 or email at [email protected]

10/08/2026

“There is no retirement plan when working for social justice.” – Fr. Jim Cassidy – S. Joan of Arc Catholic Community - https://www.saintjoanofarc.org/

You may retire from a job. You may leave a position. You may slow down. But how do you retire from caring? How do you retire from the hunger of your neighbor, the loneliness of the stranger, the injustice that diminishes another human being?

Perhaps the pursuit for justice changes as we grow older. We may have less strength but more experience. Less energy but, perhaps, more wisdom. We may no longer be able to carry the load, but we can still help carry the story. We can mentor. We can listen. We can give. We can stand beside those who are still doing the work.

Social justice is not a career from which we eventually graduate. It is a way of seeing. And once we have seen the world through the eyes of someone who is hungry, excluded, forgotten, or hurting, it becomes difficult to return to not seeing. There is no retirement plan. Only the invitation to keep showing up—in whatever way we can, for as long as we can.

Dorothy Day speaks to a lifetime commitment. “I cannot worry much about your sins and miseries when I have so many of my own. I can only love you all, poor fellow travelers, fellow sufferers. I do not want to add one least straw to the burden you already carry. My prayer from day to day is that God will enlarge my heart that I will see you all, and live with you all, in his love.”

Dororthy Day - a Higher calling.

10/07/2026

“If we lack interest in social justice, are we too full of privilege?” – Fr. Jim Cassidy – St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community.

Minneapolis MN - Perhaps one of the greatest privileges is the privilege of not having to think about social justice.

If injustice does not touch our lives, we can easily convince ourselves that it is someone else's concern. But perhaps the question is not simply, Do I care about social justice?

Perhaps it is, what allows me not to care? Privilege can sometimes be invisible precisely because it feels like ordinary life. We may believe the world is fair because, from where we stand, it has been relatively kind to us.

Social justice begins when we move closer. When we begin to see that our lives are connected, what happens to our neighbor eventually becomes part of our story, too.

The opposite of privilege is not guilt. It is relationships. And perhaps the first step toward justice is simply allowing ourselves to be disturbed by what we have learned to ignore.

Imagine a world of mutuality – a level playing field, where you play, I play and our resource insecure neighbors play, together……

“Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them."― Servant of God Dorothy Day.

10/03/2026

Progress Update - Contact: Mustard Seed Farm | https://www.mustardseedfarm.org/

MUSTARD SEED COMMUNITY FARM’S COMMUNITY FOOD PROCESSING KITCHEN AND HOSPITALITY SPACE – UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Fundraising — As of October 2, 2026, the farm has raised $110,000 of its $150,000 goal.

October 3, 2026, Ames, IA – Despite record-setting September rains, we are making progress transforming our kitchen and hospitality space vision into reality. Our volunteer contractor, local volunteers, and several Chicago Catholic Worker friends have gathered to continue construction this week.

We are optimistic that construction will continue this fall and that our building will be winter-weather-ready for finishing touches, including installing several large kitchen appliances we have already purchased.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has generously supported our food preservation expansion.

Mustard Seed Community Farm (MSCF), a seventeen-year-old, volunteer-run, non-profit, holistic community farm, continues its major construction project to expand its food processing, hospitality, and educational efforts.

The $150,000+ project is partially supported by the United Way of Story County, Choose Iowa, The Franciscan Sisters of Dubuque, The Dorothy Day Foundation, and many generous individual donors. Fundraising is ongoing, and supporters can contribute online here - https://www.mustardseedfarm.org/

MSCF values simple living, love of neighbor, and cultivating a place where everyone can participate in growing and eating delicious, healthy, locally produced food. Mustard Seed operates a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and donates more than half of the food it grows to dozens of community partners.

For questions or more information about MSCF, contact Amie Adams – [email protected]

Mustard Seed Community Farm – Where Agriculture Meets Impact.

10/01/2026

“The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away.”– Servant of God Dororthy Day.

Sept 2026 email to DDF – “I want to support your work with a $50,000 gift. Now in my eighties, living in a retirement community, I donate my IRA minimum distribution to charitable foundations. I am a staunch supporter of Dorothy Day’s ideas and everything she stands for. Thank you for the good work you are doing.” Janet

A potential major $50,000 gift to be matched by donors to generate a projected $100,000 has a significant impact on nonprofit, especially when the gift is large relative to the organization’s annual budget. A major gift to DDF of this magnitude would impact both the Catholic Worker Movement infrastructure and its 200 + houses of hospitality and thirty farms by

- Reducing financial insecurity.

- Covering program expenses for increased service levels.

- Supporting organization capacity improvements – technology, facilities, programs, etc.

- Demonstrating donor confidence to attract additional funders.

We are grateful for the amazing interest – 250,000 + catholicworker.org website searches annually -https://catholicworker.org/ – exploring Dorothy Day’s Revolution of the Heart and Peter Maurin’s Green Revolution that has transfixed and engaged legions of loyal, ardent, and generous supporters.

“I want a change, and a radical change. I want a change from an acquisitive society to a functional society, from a society of go-getters to a society of go-givers”. - Peter Maurin

If you would like more information about this topic, contact Michael Doyle of (813) 466 9166 or email at [email protected]

Dorothy Day Foundation – viable, vibrant, CW Movement.

09/29/2026

Together, We Keep the Catholic Worker Farms Growing.

“If it were not for Catholic Worker co-founder, Peter Maurin, there would be no Catholic Worker Houses of hospitality or farms.” – Beth Ingham – CW Noonday Farm https://www.noondayfarm.org/

Peter Maurin was a man of the soil, with deep roots. His family had worked the same land, in southern France, in Languedoc, for fifteen hundred years. His CW vision included farms he called Agronomic Universities. While these early efforts were not often successful, in recent years there has been a significant resurgence - 40+ CW farms.

https://catholicworker.org/catholic-worker-farms/

Peter’s ‘Green Revolution‘ is a growing reality in the CW Movement - a call for a return to the villages and the land. “Cult, culture and agriculture; to make that kind of society where it is easier for men to be good.”

Round-table discussions, Houses of Hospitality, and farming communes were the three planks in Peter Maurin’s platform. There are 200+ Houses of Hospitality, each autonomous but inspired by Peter, each trying to follow Peter’s principles.

And there are farms, all different but all starting with the idea of the personalist and communitarian revolution – to use Emmanuel Mounier’s phrase. Peter was not disappointed in his life’s work. He had given everything he had, and he asked for nothing, least of all for success.

“You cannot save the land apart from the people or the people apart from the land,” - Wendell Berry

Dorothy Day Foundation – viable, vibrant, CW farms.

09/23/2026

https://lnkd.in/gmY4MeAh

Protect Minnesota and Perpich Center for Arts Education, with support from Applause Community Theater, invite you to a powerful evening of original theater, written and directed entirely by young people; for an audience ready to finally listen.

This evening will feature four ten-minute plays, along with music, movement, and a visual art showcase, all created by students who live with the fear and reality of gun violence every single day. These are not abstract statistics to them. This is their lived experience, told in their own words, through their own art.

After decades of inaction, we owe our kids more than thoughts and prayers. We owe them our full attention. We owe them a seat at the table. And with the election fast approaching, we owe them a community that shows up, listens, and turns that listening into action at the ballot box.

Get Your Tickets Today!

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09/21/2026

A Beautiful City

In Minneapolis: Rebuilding a city after a massive federal intervention requires holding deep grief and fierce resilience simultaneously. Neighbors are managing the heavy weight of trauma—such as the economic disruption and the impact on schoolchildren—while harmonizing it with public art, labor strikes, and mutual advocacy. Like the evolving score of the musical production Godspell, a city's culture isn't fixed in its darkest chapters; it relies on the people living in it to keep adapting the lyrics.

https://music.apple.com/us/song/beautiful-city-from-godspell/1451923659

Out of the ruins and rubble
Out of the smoke
Out of our night of struggle
Can we see a ray of hope?
One pale, thin ray
Reaching for the day

When your trust is all but shattered
When your faith is all but killed
You can give up bitter and battered
Or you can slowly start to build

A beautiful city
Yes, we can, yes, we can
We can build a beautiful city
Not a city of angels
But finally a city of man
A city of man
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Stephen Lawrence Schwartz and John Michael Tebelak

Photo by Eastman Childs on Unsplash

09/17/2026

Planting seeds for others to harvest.

June 2021 - Love INC Tampa Adopt a School Ministry.

As a Love Inc Tampa leader from 2013 – 2020, our mission – mobilize Christian churches, volunteers and resources to transform lives and communities. My vision – seed planting – imagine fifteen Love INC member churches actively exploring adopting – “loving on” an underserved Tampa school.

My 2021 seed planting - Does Love INC member church Sacred Heart Catholic Church have a willingness and interest to explore adopting an underserved school? West Tampa’s St. Joseph’s Catholic School and Church could use a variety of your help. http://www.stjosephtampa.org/

Adopting a resource-insecure school is one of the most powerful, transformative ways to invest in the common good. Rather than a formal, legal adoption, "adopting a school" means building a deep, ongoing relationship with a local school to help bridge equity gaps. By stepping in to support a high-needs campus, you provide the critical financial, material, or relational stability that teachers and students need to thrive.

Since 2021, Sacred Heart Church including parishioner, Cindy Burnette, and a team of volunteers have been helping the school and church in a variety of ways. Their homework buddies program has been very successful. Today St Joseph’s is viable, vibrant and out of space to meet the demands of increasing student enrollments.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit." – Greek Proverb

For 130 years, generous parishioners that planted the founding 1896 seeds made it possible for West Tampa families to choose Catholic education for their children. Your generous seed planting gift today continues that promise. Can you imagine a higher impact R.O.I. – return on your investment?

Dororthy Day Foundation – viable, vibrant communities.