Week 3: The Catholic Worker Storefront

So this is the week that's probably most challenging.

For one thing, there are tasks involved: we're organizing and cooking and serving a meal instead of just going, paying up and enjoying the food and each other's company.

We're also going to meet a whole bunch of people and enjoy the company of people we don't usually dine with: the guests of the Catholic Worker Storefront.

The Storefront--sometimes referred to by some of the regulars as "the drop"--has been functioning since the mid-80s, as I recall. It's pulled together and supervised by the Catholic Worker Community of Cleveland, based at Whitman House. (For those of us familiar with the 'hood, Whitman House is the large house behind the St Patrick's Club Building at W.38th and Bridge.)

I wish there were time to give everyone a tutorial of sorts about the entire Catholic Worker "thing," but instead I guess we're going to sorta treat this week's foray as a sort of starting point; if we wanna learn more, we'll do that somewhere along the line. For the moment, I guess I'd just say this: Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement, was this incredibly humble, strong, wild, wonderful woman who I hold up as a personal hero. I wish like crazy that I'd had the chance to meet her in person....and one of the highest compliments of my life was when a priest-activist from Colombia told someone that I seemed a lot like Dorothy Day, to him....truly a startling and stunning moment, which I'm pretty sure I've never lived up to for more than about ten seconds at a time....still, it was nice to hear, and seems to strike me as a sort of calling....

ANYWAY: At the Storefront, we don't stand across a table at a distance from the 50 or so people who come in to get a hot meal and hang out for the evening. We do serve the meal and do the dishes--but we also fix a plate and sit down at the table with our guests, engaging in whatever conversations we discover, hearing each other's stories and maybe playing a card game or checkers or something.

I think we'll do most of the cooking ahead of time. We're planning on doing meatless rigatoni with lotsa cheese, probably some bread (maybe garlic bread?), maybe some green beans and something for dessert. There was a ton of pop/soda leftover from the NWTBenefit cast party, so we'll probably bring that along.

Anybody wanna cook at my house around 5:30/6:00pm? We'll need to be at the Storefront around 6:30pm, I hope, to have a little "introduction" by Peter Quilligan (I hope), then the doors open from 7pm till 9pm.

I'm hoping that afterward we can come back to my house for some wine, beer, hangout time and maybe play some board games or something fun....whaddaya think?

Lemme know if you're up for this week's fun.....I think it'll give us stuff to think about and talk about for a good long time, my friends. :)

Love ya! Can't wait!
Paula